We all struggle with grammar and spelling mistakes. As “grammar Nazi” you may be, I am willing to bet that you have, in fact, published an article somewhere sometime that has a spelling mistake in it.
I have myself seen spelling mistakes in many books that I bought, books that have had (I’m guessing) an army of proofreaders working behind on it.
Even though they are “common” spelling mistakes are not a good thing. But we have to keep in mind that “human error” is excusable and it does happen from time to time.
Yes, if you’ve been following me for a while, you would know that I do have spelling mistakes on my content – but I promise you, it’s not for lack of trying.
I genuinely look at my blog posts and proofread them at least three times before I publish anything, but somehow, they still get in there.
English is my second language too, and while that is not an excuse, I’m hoping you can cut me some slack? LOL
However, as with all things “internet,” there is hope for us that do indeed let grammar and spelling mistakes pass, and that is what I’d like to share with you today.
In Comes Grammarly
I have been blogging for a while now, I would say around five years, but honestly I have since lost count. As I said, spelling and grammar have always been an issue for me so once I figured out that my writing is indeed affecting my readership (which is no surprise), I had to find a solution to my problem.
After a few Google searches, I came across a tool that you may have already heard of by now, and that is Grammarly.
Today, I am going to be doing my way over-due Grammarly review so if you would like to know how this tool can help you minimise grammar and spelling mistakes, read on.
There are two versions of Grammarly; free and premium and I am going to be talking about the both options here and what you get out of each one (obviously a premium membership will be much more robust).
But do you need to have premium? That’s what we’re going to find out today;
Grammarly Review: My Thoughts On The #1 Spell Checker
What Is Grammarly?
As we said already, Grammarly is a tool that you can install and it checks all of your writing.
This does not only include when writing blog posts. But even writing anywhere in general online (some sites are not allowed).
You can turn on and off on which sites you want it “to work on” but my recommendation would be to leave it running all the time. (I don’t mind being proofread while on Facebook for example)
Grammar is a tough job, and even if you are a master of the English language, you’re still susceptible to human error so having this tool silently and automatically working for you is a great, great thing to have.
How To Use Grammarly
All you have to do to start using Grammarly is to simply install the free plugin which plugs directly into your Chrome browser, turn it on and you’re set!
Once you start typing somewhere, if there are any mistakes that you may need to fix, it will highlight them and suggest corrections.
Using The Free Grammarly Membership
Free is a good starting point for most people, and even though it’s free, it does a marvelous job at catching errors.
The free, although limited, can still pick up 90%+ of your mistakes, but only when it comes to spelling mistakes. As for grammar use and proper sentence structure, you would have to go with a premium version (which I will talk about next).
I’ve been using the free Grammarly for the major part of the past two years, and I loved it. It’s only in these past two weeks that I have been using Grammarly premium, which I managed to get in on a super-cool yearly offer (more on this later).
Premium Grammarly
Of course, the real power of such a tool will only reveal itself once you have bought into the premium membership, which is fair enough I guess.
As a premium member, you get not just spell-checking, but also:
Critical grammar checks
*Obvious*
Advanced grammar checker
Advanced grammar is a bit tricky to catch because your writing style may make sense and has no spelling mistakes, but it’s not English the way English is meant to be written (if you catch my drift).
This advanced speller will find all these little mishaps and suggest a correction for you to fix.
Vocabulary enhancement
Do you find yourself using the same words over and over again? I know the feeling, but with Grammarly premium, the tool recognises when you are using the same word over and over again and can come up with alternative words and synonyms to help you expand your vocabulary a bit.
“Genre Specific” Writing style
Now, a blog should never be written the way a research paper is written. And a business presentation should also never be written the same way you send an email to your mum.
This genre specific writing style is something Grammarly also takes into notice, and you can switch on which writing style you want to write in, and it will then measure your grammar and vocabulary with your chosen writing style.
Does this make sense?
Plagiarism detector
This is a good one and something that has been a huge money saver for me. Let me explain:
“Plagiarism” is the act of copied content being shared across the web. This, you may have heard it called by another name, and that is; duplicate content.
Now, I don’t know how sharp you are on your SEO skills, but duplicate content is a big no-no in the word of content marketing. Grammarly, kindly enough, have included a plagiarism tool to help you see if your content has ever appeared online.
Now, if you are writing your content yourself, then it’s highly unlikely that you will find another post with the same text But.. if you have content writers on your team and they submit articles to you, it’s a good thing to check if the content has been copied from somewhere else.
Other Features Of Grammarly Premium:
- Check your writing across the whole web
- Have your own personal word editor inside Grammarly.com
- Access your documents on multiple devices
- Microsoft Word Integration for easy export
- Windows and OSX apps ar also available
- See definition and synonyms of words you’re typing by double clicking
- Catch contextual and grammar mistakes
- The ability to add your own words to the dictionary
- See rules of the grammar and why it is suggesting something else for you
- Get performance stats by email (I love seeing how much I am writing)
The Difference Between Premium & Free
Here is a comparison chart showing you the main differences you need to know between Grammarly free and Grammarly premium:
The 5 Benefits Of Grammarly (Premium)
Proper Grammar
As we said already; even the best can make a mistake here and there, but luckily, this tool should help minimise these errors tremendously.
There is nothing more embarrassing than noticing a dumb mistake on a post that has been viewed thousands of times after it has been published for months.
I had that happen to me a lot of times but hopefully now that I am fully invested into Grammarly, this should minimise the embarrassment.
Makes You Look Much More Professional
The proper tone of voice, no grammar and spelling mistakes and an expanded vocabulary for your writing will instantly make you look 100x better and much more professional.
The internet is a crowded place and if you need to do your best to stay at the top of your game, consider getting the free Grammarly for a much more polished, professional writing style.
Easy To Use
Once Grammarly notices you have a spelling mistake, it will instantly highlight it, and you’ll be able to fix it with a click of a button. It’s very easy to use and super fast to go through a document (although I still hate proofreading).
Can Catch Most Grammar Mistakes
Spelling is one thing, grammar is the other. Most free spell checkers do not have grammar as part of their services but Grammarly does and (I’m not sure about this) but I think it’s the only one that has grammar checking as part of the service.
Free Option Available
We all love free things, and as I said, the free Grammarly for Chrome plugin is completely free to use. Just plug it in and let it do the work for you.
If you like it, then consider buying into the premium version, but if you’re just starting out, the free membership is more than enough for you.
2 Things I’m Not A Fan Of
Sometimes it does not catch all errors at once
As with all software, you’re bound to run into some bugs here and there.
I have noticed Grammarly miss certain misspelt words on the first launch, it will catch them eventually, but sometimes it does take some time to get all the “kinks” out of your writing. You may think you have fixed all spelling mistakes, but once you save and refresh, you’ll find a few more here and there.
No biggie, just the way it is.
I like the conversation tone of writing (Grammarly doesn’t)
My type of writing is the “conversational tone“, and that is I write as if I am having a conversation with a friend. Grammarly doesn’t seem to be too keen on this style of writing and often suggest edits and fixes that would take away from that tonality.
It’s a bit annoying, to be honest, but it will only take a quick click on the “ignore” button for it to stop suggesting ideas.
Who Will Get The Most Benefit Out Of Grammarly?
Grammarly is a great tool for anybody that spends a lot of time writing, proofreading, editing and posting content.
It may not be for the average one-hour a day Facebook user, but for the blogger who is constantly writing emails, blog posts, comments, social copy and more, it can be a time saver and a money saver too.
How Much Does Grammarly Cost?
Let’s talk money, or to be exact; how much Grammarly will run you.
The Free Membership
This is obviously free, and you can download the Grammarly for Chrome plugin here if you’d like.
All you have to do is simply install it in your browser (which takes seconds), and you’re set. Once you start typing something, the plugin will start automatically detecting your spelling and grammar.
The Premium Membership.
We’ve talked already about all the benefits a Grammarly premium membership can bring so I am sure you agree that their price structure is more than fair.
There are type types of membership plans for Grammarly premium, and they are:
- Monthly, which costs $29.95 a month
- Quarterly, which costs $19.98 a month and
- Annual, which brings it down to $11.66 a month.
I have made it a point and a new resolution moving forward that any service I buy, I go for yearly thus saving myself a lot of money.
So yes, I jumped on Grammarly for free, spent two years testing it out (LOL) and have now made the leap to a yearly subscription. If you are interested in Grammarly premium, I really do suggest you go for the yearly. Just the price itself is enough incentive in itself.
By rough calculations, you will be saving more than 50% on your bill, and I am sure that you spend $11.66 a month on more useless things than a spell checker that will make you 100X a better writer than you are now.
Do I Recommend Grammarly?
Yes, yes and yes!
Just get started with the free option of Grammarly and see how it goes. If you like it and the needed arises for more power, then by all means; consider buying into Grammarly pro.
You can sign up for Grammarly Pro here.
Final Thoughts
Thank you very much for reading my Grammarly review. It’s been a while since I’ve done a review on this blog and I am glad to have come back to reviews with such an amazing product.
I hope you like Grammarly as much as I do and if you have any questions, be sure to let me know in the comment section below.
I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks again.