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Grammarly: Writing Support (Web 2.0 Tool 4)

https://www.grammarly.com/
As an English teacher, working overseas with a majority of learners with language needs, any tool that I can find to support the writing process is one that I HAVE to explore.

In the past, I have used Ginger Software, and Read and Write, which I find useful, but Grammarly is a tool that has been on the edge of my explorations so far, and this seems like a perfect opportunity to see if I can add another writing support tool to my repertoire.

What makes Grammarly different, is that it is free. Ginger used to be free, but as it has grown, it has limited options in the free version. What I do like about it, is it works on ALL online apps - and the same appears true of Grammarly.

Once added to Chrome from the Chrome Store, it works across all online platforms:
The links appear automatically and once added to my Chrome toolbar, I was taken to the page to create an account:-
What I am impressed with, is that the account suggests it saves your style, learning your particular way of writing so you can retain your personal voice whilst also being grammatically correct.

The free account is also available to upgrade for different options:


Before I even completed the login, a little green circle with an arrow in appeared as I was typing my blog post.

Once I hovered over it, it gave me information about my writing:

The tutorial informs me about how easy it is to use, and, like Ginger, spots errors such as homophones, which regular spell-checkers do not, as the word is spelled correctly just misused grammatically.

The green arrow turns with a number, indicating the mistakes. Clicking on it reveals them, plus suggestions:

There are two types of correction tools offered: real-time and uploads.

Real-time corrections occur as I type. It did keep duplicating words and phrases without my asking it to, which was very frustrating. It also slowed down my scrolling when reviewing my blog post.

I was also the whole blog post by using the circle button:

   these options: Grammarly also offers these options:
 Uploads allow you to add documents that may not be online. Here is the text from the HTML file of the created for the Web 2.0 Tools 3.

Pros and Cons

Pros
  • free, quick and easy to install and use
  • spots grammar and spelling mistakes, as well as formatting (e.g. before full stops)
  • works across all web-based applications
  • offers the ability to upload and check non-web-based documents
Cons
  • limited options offered in free package, but they seem adequate for most needs
  • slowed down my blog post writing
  • often duplicates words and sentences, often nonsense and with mistakes
  • kept deleting writing I did not ask to be deleted

I think I would have to figure out the bugs, as they became very frustrating.  All in all, I like the options offered and the capabilities it suggests it has, but the deleting and the adding words meant it actually took me longer to write this post that it would have normally.



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