It picks up on deeper nuances of grammatical errors than a standard spell-check, with a comprehensive and useful suite of additional tools available for paying users. Ultimately, Grammarly is a robust spelling and grammar checker. Note: we do not recommend using a thesaurus to sound smart. The Premium version also touts useful features like a plagiarism-checker, genre-specific writing tips and vocabulary enhancement, which may just be a fancy way of saying thesaurus? And thankfully, they do have a British-English setting you can select (though you must manually find and change it, because All Settings Default To American ), to avoid being called up on simple words like ‘realise’. You can expand the suggestions to read more about why each mistake is incorrect. The free version highlights only a limited number of mistakes or corrections (10 in my 543 word essay), with their Premium version promising ‘specialty checking’ - in my case, intriguingly identifying 21 additional writing issues. You can also paste blocks of text into their web app for checking. It can kind of act like the spell-checker that follows you around the web: as a browser plug-in, it alerts you to spelling and grammar errors in real-time, as you type them, in emails, blog posts, forum comments, or wherever you’re writing. Grammarly has been around for a while, gaining prominence both in workplaces and among students. Indeed, MS Word picked up a few typos and unnecessarily capitalised words in my sample essay.Īll well and good, but I do want some more in-depth help to set my mind at ease that the essay is actually my best work, before handing it in. Microsoft Word has come a long way since the days of Mr ClippyĮven the most basic spell-checker works well: we have all experienced the saving grace of the red squiggly line under a typo, or the blue alert for a double-spacing misdemeanour. And Microsoft is releasing even more AI-driven capability within its software, in an upcoming ‘Editor’ feature (already available for Office 365 customers). We ran a mock essay through MS Word, Grammarly, Turnitin and Studiosity Writing Feedback to see the strengths and benefits of each. If you’re lucky enough you might have peers, family members, or teachers who can provide a ‘second set of eyes’, but what can you do when that’s not an option, or when you want more external, professional help? There are a number of free tools available to help make your essay the best it can be, from spelling and grammar checkers through to more comprehensive feedback. When it comes to getting help with an essay, many students don’t really know where to turn.Įspecially for ESL students, or if you’re returning to study after many years - confidence in academic writing does not come easily.
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