There are many reasons why many people, from lecturers to highly performing executives use Grammarly.
Are you a student or an employee who needs to write a lot of e-mails? Are you a lecturer who needs to check assignments, papers and therefore, will always need to run a grammar check? Do you need to draft long contracts?
Are you a content writer? Nothing is worse than publishing something with a grammatical error.
You should definitely download Grammarly because it’s a very useful online platform that you can use to run a grammar check on your work. If you’re a writer or a lecturer who needs to run through so much work (writing), you could definitely use Grammarly.
So here are the reasons I think Grammarly is useful for everyone.
1. THEY HAVE A FREE VERSION
I’m a PhD student and I love any platform that is free and helps me to be more productive in my work.
Of course, they also have the paid or premium version which has many more features. But if you don’t feel like you can pay monthly for an online platform, you can try to use the free version first.
2. GRAMMARLY HELPS TO DETECT SPELLING MISTAKES
When you have to write a lot of things whether they are media kits, speeches, assignments, dissertations, theses or even e-mails, it is natural to make some common spelling mistakes. Grammarly helps to detect those spelling errors pretty instantly.
But of course, you would need to change the settings if you want to use a certain spelling system like the UK or US system. There are some differences between the two.
For instance, these are how certain words are spelt in the U.S :
- Color
- Program
- Synthesize
Whereas in the UK, the words are spelt differently:
- Colour
- Programme
- Synthesise
It’s not wrong to choose one but whatever it is, make sure you’re consistent.
If you are writing an academic article and need to publish it in a journal, you’ll need to check their requirements as some of them have specific guidelines.
3. NOT JUST GRAMMAR CHECK: IT MAKES SENTENCES MORE CONCISE, LESS WORDY
Why I like to use Grammarly whenever I need to do a grammar check is because it helps me make sentences less wordy, more concise. When you’re writing an academic article, your ideas and arguments must be succinct.
Similarly, when you’re writing an e-mail, public relations write up, or even a blog post, it should not be too wordy or else your reader will lose focus.
Despite this convenience, you would still need to edit your work rigorously. Grammarly won’t be able to highlight whether your first and second sentences flow well (logically).
4. ELIMINATES REDUNDANCY
Apart from that, Grammarly also helps to eliminate redundancy, making your writing to be more direct.
If you plan to self-edit your dissertation and thesis, check out how you can edit your own work here.
5. HIGHLIGHTS INAPPROPRIATE CONTEXTS
There are certain words that Grammarly will highlight as not being used in the right context. This feature can be quite handy.
If you’re just getting started in academia, read more about academic writing here.
6. VERY SIMPLE TO USE
There are several ways you can use Grammarly.
- By going on the desktop/website version and uploading the document there.
- By installing it on Word and clicking on the icon for it to run a grammar check.
- Install a plugin: so every time you need to type something on the web, (like when you’re writing an email for example), it can spot grammatical errors.
If you’re a proofreader and have a lot of essays to proofread, I’ve outlined the reasons you should definitely consider using Grammarly as it can help you spot those spelling errors once you have thoroughly edited your client’s work. (Thinking of becoming a proofreader? Read more about how you can be a proofreader here).
THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT ONLINE GRAMMAR CHECKS
Even though Grammarly is a free app or platform that is really convenient, as the author, you would still need to edit your work before running it through Grammarly. (To get more features, you will need to subscribe to their paid version).
It may be able to run a grammar check by spotting spelling errors, but it does not detect logical flow between ideas.
At times, it also cannot detect other words apart from English. But there’s a way for you to ignore or submit that word to Grammarly as “a new word”. As the author, you would need to determine whether what Grammarly suggests is indeed correct.
I must admit, I do enjoy using Grammarly as it helps me to detect errors quite instantly but it cannot detect the meaning of your context all the time. Therefore, you would need to always edit and proofread before you publish your work.