As writers, we are always on the lookout for excellent online tools out there that can further improve our work quality and refine our skills. That’s why we are huge fans of Grammarly. We believe that it is one of the most helpful proofreading programs out there that both students and professional writers can use for all their writing needsーfrom articles to social media posts.
Grammarly Overview
Grammarly is an online tool that helps writers identify and correct grammatical mistakes, missing punctuation marks, spelling errors, and more. The Grammarly premium and business plans offer even more advanced features like tone adjustment, clarity improvement, admin panel access, among other things.
While they offer a free plan for their basic corrections, we believe that signing up for a premium account is absolutely worth it. Feel free to check out Grammarly’s pricing page for more information about each plan and its respective features.
Do You Really Need a Grammar Checker?
Yes, Grammarly is indeed a useful tool to have in your online arsenal. The question is, do you really need one?
This program is generally recommended for students, academicians, and writers. However, even if you don’t belong to any of these categories, we still believe that it can prove useful if you:
- Want to Improve Your Communication Skills: Clarity is everything, especially during this digital age when most of our communication is done through SMS, chat, email, and other online mediums. The problem is, writing errors can severely impact how your message comes across in times when the people that you are talking to don’t have your vocal tone and facial expression to use as context.
- Are Always Online: What you post online remains there until you delete them. Grammarly can ensure that the written “signatures” you leave on various online portals don’t reflect you in a bad light.
- Want to Gain More Confidence: Grammatical and spelling errors can severely impact one’s self-esteem. Don’t let these mistakes hold you back from freely expressing yourself.
What Do You Get With a Free Plan?
You will be pleased to learn that you can already enjoy the benefits mentioned above at no cost. After all, the free plan covers the three basic features: grammatical, punctuation, and spelling correction. It also gives you an idea of the advanced writing issues that might be present in your article, post, letter, email, and more.
Is the Premium Plan Worth It?
This leads us to the main question that we want to address. If the free plan already covers basic writing needs, is it still worth signing up for a paid plan?
That depends. We suggest trying out the free plan first. If you find it lacking in your needs and preferences, then you can always sign up for a free premium trial to see if the paid plan suits you better.
Here are just some of our favorite premium features to give you an idea of what you can expect from it:
- Plagiarism Detection: You don’t need to use or pay for a plagiarism checker anymore. This feature is built into the premium account already.
- Sentence Rewrites: Say goodbye to long and dragging sentences with Grammarly’s premium clarity-focused sentence rewrites.
- Word Choice Improvement: Those who struggle in finding words to better express themselves will greatly benefit from this feature.
- Constructive Criticism: Refine your writing skills with advanced feedback.
- Increase the Level of Formality: Are you writing a piece that requires a more professional or formal tone? Grammarly can help with that as well.
How to Make the Most Out of Grammarly
Regardless of the plan you eventually choose, though, here are some tips that can help you make the most out of the program:
Install the Browser Extension
You can use Grammarly directly on their application. All you need to do is copy and paste your article there to get it checked. However, installing their extension on your browser makes it significantly easier and more convenient to use.
Doing so will allow you to check your writing across different websites and platforms, including social media sites, Google Docs, WordPress, and more. Buzzfeed even gave Grammarly a special mention in one of their articles because of this feature.
Use It on Microsoft Word
Grammarly can now be used as an add-in on Microsoft Word both on PC and Mac.
Use It on Your Phone
Those who are always on mobile can install Grammarly’s keyboard as well. It’s available for both Android and iOS via Play Store and App Store, respectively.
Sign up for the Newsletter
Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to Grammarly Insights. It is a weekly writing update sent via email that includes interesting data about your performance, like your productivity percentage compared to other users, the number of unique words you’ve used, and your most common writing mistakes.
Conclusion
Grammarly is one of the most popular writing programs today, and for a good reason. It can help you improve your writing proficiency and output in a very convenient way. As with a lot of online tools, Grammarly comes in a free and paid version.
While the free version already has many benefits in store, we still recommend investing in a premium plan, especially if writing plays a vital role in your life.
Don’t forget to try out the tips we have shared with you above to further make the most out of it regardless of the plan you eventually opt for.
Image Courtesy: Grammarly.com
