Grammarly: Friend or Foe?

Grammarly: Friend or Foe?

Grammarly: the new and improved spell-check? Or a writing companion on steroids? Years ago, spell-checking was an additive feature that you could utilize in an expensive word-processing software. In today’s day and age that is overpopulated with technological apps, Grammarly is one that provides a simplified method to achieving something. What is that something? A new and reformed method to re-shaping your writing.

Grammarly provides a three-tier structure to simplifying your revision process on anything in the written form. The three tiers or options offered are free (basic), premium and business plan. As an average consumer, signing up for the free service seems the obvious choice. You can use the service through the Grammarly website provided you have one of the three browsers: Chrome, Safari, and Firefox or integrate with your word-processing software. However, the free version is extremely limited. You can do basic spell-check, but the program will inundate you with advertising for their premium version. How? By not only sending massive amount of e-mails, but reminding you while in use of the free version itself.

When you’re working on any type of written document you essentially want Grammarly to assure you that your work is error free-however it will continuously allude to larger issues that can only be properly addressed by the premium version itself. Due to the nature of the free version, it is in the writer’s best interest to refrain from uploading their document until they’ve completed their first draft. If you do not wait, you risk having the program continuously force you to second guess yourself by suggesting your document has more problems than words. The free version is great for a quick readthrough of small documents, but not recommended for lengthy pieces.

The premium version offers quite a range of benefits compared to the free version, but you won’t know that until you’ve had them chew money out of your pocket. The payment for the premium plan can be billed monthly, quarterly or annually. Regardless of how often you pay the price tag is high. For one month alone the cost is $30, and annually it is $139. Essentially, the longer you commit the more of a price break you receive. What is offered for Premium or Business that is not with the Free Plan?

In addition to grammar and spelling, the premium and business versions correct the following: inconsistent writing style, unclear sentence structure, overused words, inappropriate tone and most importantly plagiarism. The last benefit is an option attractive to teachers, professors or anyone in a position to judge and receive another party’s written work. When it comes to appropriate tone, the premium feature allows you to select American or British English. The option of tone is extremely beneficial if as a writer you’re in a position writing to more than one audience.

In terms of support and maintenance, there is a FAQ section that one can easily search through and if you cannot locate your answer you can easily submit a request, after going through one more page of questions. This is one area where Grammarly can improve. If after the point you cannot find your answer in the FAQ it should directly go to the “submit a request” form instead of attempting to discourage you from contacting a real person.

Overall Grammarly is the strongest in what will certainly be many services to come in the technological age. However, since most aspiring writers struggle to afford rent it is hard to justify paying the steep price to technology removing your commas.