Writing (editing) tools 2 - Grammarly (free version)

Writing + Writing Tools

Let's start with Grammarly, as that's the one I am most familiar with. It does highlight some issues (even in the free version) and I've used it to get my brains to work on commas. Note that Grammarly doesn't always get it right...

And again, I've looked at free versions, using these tools in my writing process...

Grammarly

Free's free. But what does it do when it's free?

1. Deliberately wrong

My first annoyance: Grammarly keeps pushing its app as well as all the commercial functions that you have to pay for. I haven't found a way to disable this nagging.

Anyway, what did it make of the first test text?

I copied text 1 into the Grammarly web page, and got this:

(Click any image to enlarge)

I think I have some better feedback in the past from previous free versions, but it does detect misspelled words.

The functionality appears to be quite similar to Word:

2. Early draft (Docs)

This is copied from Google Docs into Grammarly, using Ctrl+C Ctrl+V.

So, it did catch the mister -> Mister, and flagged highschooler -> high schooler.

It did copy colors and italics from Docs to Grammarly.

I selected the text in Grammarly, then did a Ctrl+C Ctrl+V back to Docs. Italics and colors were preserved.

3. Late edit (Word)

Let's try Word. Pasted into Grammarly:

Well, it got the commas right in the first two lines (though I noticed elsewhere in my document it might get confused now and again). At 'His eyes widen and' Grammarly suggests to add another comma. As this is a long, composite sentence with two times an 'and' you may decide to omit the comma at the first position to keep it more readable (ie. don't add one as Grammarly suggests).

Colors and (limited) formatting were maintained.

Copying it back to Word did remove the colors but left the italics in place. At least that's something.

So yeah, it does spot most commas (though it's sometimes a little over-enthusiastic when adding them, though not as bad as in the past).

To be fair, Gemini did it just as well, using the following prompt:

Check the text between --- and --- below. Only rewrite the lines or words that have incorrectly spelled words, mistakes in punctuation, or other grammar mistakes. Mark those changes in bold.

AI training

In some countries you may have to OPT OUT.

In NL the following message could be found under Settings / Security / Product Improvement:

Since you created your account in the EU or UK, Grammarly will not use your content to train its models or improve its product for other users.

Summary

The free version has limited functionality beyond spelling and punctuation, but it does its job reasonably well. Now and again is misses a combo or is overly enthusiastic.

If it flags any comma I would suggest to carefully examine the sentence yourself before approving any suggested changes.