Thursday, April 02, 2015

Grammarly’s Editing Software – How Helpful Is It?

By Jodie Renner, editor and author, @JodieRennerEd

Part of the Indie Authors Series

I recently decided to test out some editing software to help with a final polish of my latest writing guide, Captivate Your Readers. Since I’m a professional editor and former English teacher, I know my spelling and grammar inside out, so I was mainly looking for help with flagging lazy errors like overused or repetitive words, typos, and awkward or overly long sentences.

So far, I have checked out several editing programs, including PerfectIt, SmartEdit, and Grammarly. For today, I’ll just share my experiences with Grammarly’s editing software.

Grammarly offers specialized robo-editing for over 30 different document types, so you first choose among general, academic, business, technical, medical, creative, and casual, then from there, a subcategory. For example, under “creative” you can choose one of these: general creative, creative non-fiction, novel, short story, or script. For my book manuscript, I chose the “general” category, since my writing guide is nonfiction but not academic or technical.

Grammarly checks for problems in these areas: contextual spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, style, vocabulary enhancement, and plagiarism.The plagiarism feature is especially useful for students and academics who are handing in research papers and publishing articles in journals.

Here’s a quick takeaway, if you’re in a hurry today:

I really wish I could report that I’ve discovered a reliable, accurate, low-cost alternative to hiring a professional live editor. After using Grammarly’s editing software on my whole book, I did find it very useful for flagging overused or repeated words, convoluted sentences, and the odd typo. On the other hand, many of the recommendations were blatantly incorrect where suggested (examples below). So unfortunately, if you aren’t already quite proficient in English grammar and word usage and you just follow the suggestions without question, you could easily end up with tons of new errors where there weren’t any before. So go ahead and use it to flag possible weaknesses, but be prepared to override or ignore many of the alternate suggestions and look for your own improvements.

Where Grammarly worked well for me:


Wordiness: I found this feature helpful for flagging overly long sentences, even though Grammarly doesn’t offer any suggestions as to how to improve them. I carefully reread each sentence flagged for wordiness and looked for words to cut or ways to break it into two or three shorter sentences.

Overused words, repetitive word: Flagging these was also very helpful. Unfortunately, most of the time the alternate words suggested didn’t work in the context (some examples below), but at least it gave me a starting point so I could brainstorm for other words or check the thesaurus.

Spelling and typos: It caught a few typos, like “read nose” instead of “red nose.”

Where Grammarly needs improvement:


Punctuation

It repeatedly suggested adding a comma where it would be blatantly incorrect to use one, such as: “I like apples, and oranges.” (No comma with one subject and only two items named.) Then it suggested taking out almost all instances of the serial (Oxford) comma, which is favored by Chicago Manual of Style and most professional editors: “I like apples, oranges, and bananas.” (the one before “and”)

It’s correct to put a comma after Yes and No, as in, “Yes, please,” and “No, thanks,” but Grammarly wanted me to change “No answer,” to “No, answer.” Huh?

Also, it suggested a comma several times instead of a period at the end of a correctly formed, complete sentence!

Spelling, word usage, word choices

Unfortunately, their “contextual spelling” rarely takes into account the context of the sentence.

They flag as “commonly confused words” words, terms, and phrases that are used correctly. For example, incite vs insight. I had used “incite” correctly, as in “incite a riot.” It didn’t say it was wrong, just indicated it was a “commonly confused word.” But if it’s correct, why flag it? Ditto with there, they’re, and their (again, used correctly, as in “their car”), its vs it’s, and many others.Why not only flag them when they’re incorrectly used? As it is, the alert could cause writers less proficient in spelling to doubt themselves and replace their already correct usage with Grammarly’s alternate suggestion.

The “overused words” and “repeated words” are both great features, but be sure to just use them as general suggestions, rather than automatically opting for one of their suggested words. For example, as a replacement for strong in my advice to writers to “use strong verbs and nouns,” they suggest “healthy” and “high,” neither of which remotely fit the context. For “reader” they repeatedly suggest “user,” which I don’t really think fits as an alternate word to describe the reader of a novel.

For “vocabulary enhancement,” they don’t take into account the context of the sentences, so alternate word choices suggested are often highly inappropriate, even laughable. For example, for deep point of view, they suggest dark, thick, or broad, none of which work. For character (a person in fiction), they suggest trait or nature. For a scene in a story, they suggest using arena or stage for variety. For describe the setting, they suggest explain. For good in “Unless there’s a very good reason for it,” they suggest magnificent, splendid, superb, and exquisite, none of which fit the context!

They (the robo-editors) flagged every use of “own” as a problem or error, where often it was needed for clarity of meaning, as in “They needed to weigh the evidence, then draw their own conclusions” or “It’s important to trust our own feelings and form our own opinions.”

Conclusion: Even though the suggested words were rarely apt or useful, flagging them did indicate an overused or repetitive word, so I just used the thesaurus to find a better one. For example, I hadn’t noticed that I used “realistic” twice in one sentence! Then twice again in a paragraph on the next page! Oops!

Sentence structure

They suggested many, many changes that would have made the phrase incorrect. For example, in my chapter on Showing vs Telling, they wanted me to change “avoid telling” to “avoid is telling,” and to change “telling includes explanations to the readers” to “includes explanations of the readers. For my advice, “Create a character with lots of personality,” they wanted me to write “Create a character with lots of personalities”!

Grammar

Prepositions: For a “general” document, Grammarly flags all prepositions (of, to, by, at, with, etc.) at the ends of the sentences as errors. This might be fine for academic documents, but for general or casual usage, changing this can lead to a pretentious-sounding sentence. For example, they flagged this as an error: “Don’t include any details the character wouldn’t be aware of.” In perfect English, that should be “Don’t include details of which the character wouldn’t be aware,” but that sounds too formal for most of today’s general nonfiction writing, magazine articles, and blog posts.

Verb tenses and agreement

Here are a few of many examples where their advice on verb tenses would lead to an error: They wanted me to change “She’d missed his call” (past tense, she had already missed it) to “She’d miss his call.” Similarly, “He was cold. He wished he’d worn his jacket” to “He wished he’d wear his jacket.” Just doesn’t make sense!

Effective writing

Passive: Too much use of the passive voice can definitely weaken a piece, as in saying “The ball was kicked by the boy” instead of “The boy kicked the ball,” but Grammarly flags passive as an error even when it’s the only or best choice, such as “This list is based on...,” “The door was locked,” and “Most fiction is written in third-person, past tense.” None of those sentences would really work in active voice.

These are just a fraction of the many, many incorrect or inappropriate suggestions that Grammarly made in my 60,000-word book. Following their advice to the letter would have resulted in hundreds of new errors in this writing guide!

So my recommendation for using Grammarly’s editing software (or any others I’ve checked out so far) is: User beware! Don’t blindly accept mechanically created suggestions or expect editing programs to replace a knowledgeable, skilled, live copy editor or proofreader. Editing software is great for flagging issues you may not have thought of that need to be addressed, but unfortunately it doesn’t do all the work for you – and if you’re not careful, could do more harm than good.

By the way, John Yeoman, a British writing instructor with a PhD in Creative Writing, analyzes Grammarly and two other writing programs, AutoCrit and ProWritingAid, in his excellent article, “Do copy editing programs work?”

How about you? Have you tried any editing software? What has been your experience? Let us know in the comments below.

Jodie Renner is a freelance editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Fire up Your Fiction, Writing a Killer Thriller, and Captivate Your Readers. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. When she’s not reading or editing compelling fiction, Jodie enjoys combining her two other passions, photography and traveling.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound

18 comments:

  1. I found that ProWritingAid.com suffers from these exact problems, and I found it hard to wade through the (may I say ‘inane’) sugestions for corrections. But that said, it can point the way to problem areas that otherwise get missed. And it’s lots cheaper than even a penny a word.
    Thanks for sharing.

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    1. I agree, Tony. As long as you weigh each suggestion carefully and be prepared to accept none and search the thesaurus or whatever, they're very useful.

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  2. So Jodie, in your opinion, is Grammarly worth the time/effort? Or would the time be better spent reading the work out loud (amazing what you can catch with that!) or doing a search for commonly repeated words?
    I would LOVE to find a program to streamline the editing process without ending up cross-eyed and with a sore throat!

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    1. My computer is barely working today and excruciatingly slow, so I'm trying my iPad mini. He writer, as long as you're already proficient in English and not looking for something to replace a good copy editor, it should work fine for you.

      I'd check out this and other programs like ProWriterAid, PerfectIt, and SmartEdit and get a free trial (Grammarly doesn't offer a free trial) and see which you prefer.

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    2. I just noticed my auto-correct on my iPad changed "gemwriter" to "He writer"! Weird.

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  3. I use Grammarly and a couple of others, each one is a bit different. I never accept the changes suggested without checking my intent. However, I've found these tools are great for flagging areas where I might want to expound or rethink. Love the article. You hit this one on the nose. Writers need to remember these are just tools not miracle workers.

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    1. Sounds like they work for you, Jean. The people they really don't work for are those whose first language is not English and those whose English skills are limited, as they might place too much trust in the program and assume that if a word is suggested, it's correct.

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  4. I have only tried out the free versions. Things that bothered me where flagging common modern words as misspelled like blog. I did like the flagging of repeated words 'cause it's easy to miss those.

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    1. Southpaw, here are some of the words Grammarly flagged as incorrect spelling for me: dialogue, likeable, and kidnapping. Each of these has an alternate spelling (dialog, likable, kidnaping), but the spellings here are also correct. Perhaps it should have said, "alternate spelling" instead of "incorrect spelling." I especially don't like their suggestion of "kidnaping".

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  5. I'm using the basic paid version of Ginger a try (it was deeply discounted). These editing programs must all work about the same because the points you bring up are the same ones I run into. At the end of day, after I've cleaned up my work to start again in the morning, I'll run it through Ginger and see what I missed. It'll suggest changes that I skip, some are relevant. I rely on myself most of all.

    Thank you for this very insightful post!

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    1. Smart approach, Sheri. I hadn't heard of Ginger. Must check it out! Thanks.

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  6. This is so interesting. I have to say, I've heard of other editing programs, but never use them. I have a long list of overused words that I search for (which helps flag LOTS of areas that need work). I also use beta readers and a professional editor. Nothing, in my opinion, beats real eyes on the project.

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    1. I absolutely agree with you, Julie! I thought I'd try this in the "final polish" stage. But editing software is not cheap. Several of them offer free trials, which you could use on a few or several documents to see how they work. Unfortunately, Grammarly doesn't offer a free trial.

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  7. What a really helpful post! I think it shows that here needs to be a lot more progress with this software before we can rely on it. My satnav is the same - fine if I know where I'm going to start with.

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  8. ps - it also shows that I should have checked the preview before publishing my reply as in 'there needs to be a lot more progress' instead of here. Back to the editing board!

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  9. Madam, you have hit the nail on the head in this review. Grammarly does check spelling and use of articles well but not much else perfectly. I am speaking from the perspective of a non native speaker /author( Indian). You see, we Indians do not speak like native American speakers and use lot of typical stylized words and colloquialism which Grammarly does not recognizes nor acknowledge..If I write perfect American or British English ( as per Grammarly) for semi educated Indians in novels, it would sound totally out of character....Clicking Ignore for everything just beats the whole system...

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  10. Hi Jodie. Thank you very much for your insight into Grammarly. I very much enjoyed your detailed examples. YouTube is now flooded with Grammarly ads (July 2018) and having just finished another novel I was thinking of putting 78,000 words through one. Thanks to you I know the basic grammar check of Microsoft Word is just as good.

    I agree. If you how to edit, or you have a style guide to follow, these robot programs are only really useful for long time writers for spotting those pesky lapses. Which means most of the time will be spent clicking the 'ignore' button.

    Interestingly, ads for Grammarly tend to feature students who might not have excelled in English, or people who speak English as a Second Language. This suggests Grammarly was originally developed for people whose English is limited. In which case, it is probably a great software program for them. For people who've been writing in English for over 40 years, probably not so much!

    Many thanks.

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  11. thanks for the suggestions. I think I will stick with my human editors.

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