Writing Grammarly or no grammarly?

[NiQuinn]

For me, it depends on the day. I usually don't as I find that it makes the readability of a story kind of clunky and somewhat inorganic. When I do need to check something though I find that it's useful...on occasion. How about you? Any of you use it? If not, why not? And for those who want to use it but find it to be problematic, does anybody here have a different recommendation from grammarly that might help a casual writer online??

 

[DejaVu3502]

I use it quite a bit to double check things. English is not my first language so even though I'm fairly knowledgeable about it, sometimes I don't know how to express myself accordingly and it helps me do that. I agree though that sometimes it makes the story kind of clunky and suggests corrections that aren't all that useful

 

[BenJepheneT]

At this point it's my work regime.

Every time I finish a draft, I boot up Grammarly and check for errors. I clear up the spelling mistakes on names and whatnot and whatever that's left will become the amount of pushups I'll do for the day.

It's a way of punishment and learning. Either I become a self-taught English major or a masochist. A win either way.

 

[Minx]

I used to, but not anymore.

If I had money to get the pro service, then I might. The free version isn't as good as the pro, which is understandable.

It helped me a lot when I use it back then. At the time when someone was kind enough to share their pro account with me, but other than that, the experience was very good. I'd recommended it to those with english as their second language like me.

 

[lnv]

For me, it depends on the day. I usually don't as I find that it makes the readability of a story kind of clunky and somewhat inorganic. When I do need to check something though I find that it's useful...on occasion. How about you? Any of you use it? If not, why not? And for those who want to use it but find it to be problematic, does anybody here have a different recommendation from grammarly that might help a casual writer online??

I use LibreOffice + LanguageTool ( with ngrams + word2vec , if your pc is too old this might make it slow load large documents )

Best thing about LanguageTool is that it is free and opensource. And you can add your own rules or remove rules.

 

[IDreamNovels]

I use the free version (no account) on mobile. It helps me with finding new words/vocab and fixing grammatical errors. I don't always follow it's suggestions though.

However, recently, I have been thinking of stopping using it when writing the first draft, because when I use it, I am tempted to fix errors first instead of writing.

 

[LordAstrea]

I don't use it. Maybe should. I spend most of my time using a thesaurus, checking balance of show and tell and looking at active and passive voice after. I end up just getting the grammar done along the way doing the other editing steps. I use Openoffice too and that has been enough so far. I do hear good things about Grammarly though. This post reminded me to try it. So thanks for that. :D

 

[jabathehut]

grammar is not real

 

[Blitz]

I use the free version but that's mostly in place of a spell check for online.
I've been told that prowriting aid was a better alternative but have never been bothered to try it myself

 

[IvyVeritas]

Grammarly makes far too many mistakes to bother with.

You have to have a good handle on English grammar to know when *not* to take its advice, and if you already have a good handle on English grammar, then you don't need it in the first place.

 

[TLCsDestiny]

Just looked it up...
Think I'll just continue doing what I'm doing...

 

[deltanz]

I use it all the time but I don't always use its suggestions as it depends on what I'm trying to write.

 

[Shiver]

I use it religiously for Shift. I splurged on the pro version (if you use the free one for a few days they'll send you a 40% discount offer for teh pro after a few weeks), and couldn't be happier with it.
It's not a cure-all by any means, but it helps make things just a tiny bit easier and cuts down on my editting time by a lot.
Yes, you have to know when to ignore it's advice, and I still couldn't produce teh quality I do (however high or low it is) without my proofreaders, but it kills so many little mistakes in the first drafts that its more than worth it for me.

So yes, use grammarly, but don't only use grammarly.

 

[minacia]

I don’t, but I think my grammar is generally okay. That said, I should probably use something for typos.

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

As I've said elsewhere, it is a part of my workflow, but for it and any automatic corrections, you have to be vigilant, as sometimes you get silly suggestions.

My workflow is like this:

• First Draft in Google Docs, without Grammarly.
• Quick skim edit looking for typos and problems with Google's corrections.
• Paste chapter into a draft on Scribble Hub, with Grammarly enabled for its editor.
• Do another once over looking for things to fix based on Grammarly's suggestions.
• Paste edited version into Google Docs to sync them.
• Read Chapter in full as a draft preview, how the readers would.
• Make any corrections I need to in the Google Doc as I read the draft preview.
• Paste the Google Doc into the scribble hub editor, overwriting the old draft, to resync them.
• Do another once over looking for anything I might have missed.
• Publish, then read again in full to keep my anxiety from killing me.
• Make any corrections I need and sync the google doc.
• Pray to the useless goddess of Scribblehub I found the most embarrassing ones.
• ???
• Profit.
• Rest.

 

[thedude3445]

I never use any sort of grammar software and I even forget to use spellcheck software before I post chapters, too, which often leads to stupid typos (not that typos really matter for non-copyedited free fiction). I have never really considered Grammarly but I wonder sometimes if it might help catch some of my grammar-related typos in a way that regular spellcheck doesn't. However, my writing style, at least with some narrators, relies heavily on sentence fragments and if Grammarly isn't smart enough to understand that those aren't errors, then it would just annoy me too much. Is the software able to recognize when there are "artistic" fragments and other non-standard grammar used in prose?

 

[UYScuti]

I never use any sort of grammar software and I even forget to use spellcheck software before I post chapters, too, which often leads to stupid typos (not that typos really matter for non-copyedited free fiction). I have never really considered Grammarly but I wonder sometimes if it might help catch some of my grammar-related typos in a way that regular spellcheck doesn't. However, my writing style, at least with some narrators, relies heavily on sentence fragments and if Grammarly isn't smart enough to understand that those aren't errors, then it would just annoy me too much. Is the software able to recognize when there are "artistic" fragments and other non-standard grammar used in prose?

Grammarly doesn’t change anything. If you have a sentence fragment, it will most likely notice it and you can ignore it. I make use of sentence fragments as well. But it’s the same with anything you put in an editor. It’s true that you can’t blindly accept everything it suggests, but it will pick up some stuff you missed. Personally, I think it’s a better grammar editor than something like word or docs. But again, you can’t accept everything.

 

[UYScuti]

As I've said elsewhere, it is a part of my workflow, but for it and any automatic corrections, you have to be vigilant, as sometimes you get silly suggestions.

My workflow is like this:

• First Draft in Google Docs, without Grammarly.
• Quick skim edit looking for typos and problems with Google's corrections.
• Paste chapter into a draft on Scribble Hub, with Grammarly enabled for its editor.
• Do another once over looking for things to fix based on Grammarly's suggestions.
• Paste edited version into Google Docs to sync them.
• Read Chapter in full as a draft preview, how the readers would.
• Make any corrections I need to in the Google Doc as I read the draft preview.
• Paste the Google Doc into the scribble hub editor, overwriting the old draft, to resync them.
• Do another once over looking for anything I might have missed.
• Publish, then read again in full to keep my anxiety from killing me.
• Make any corrections I need and sync the google doc.
• Pray to the useless goddess of Scribblehub I found the most embarrassing ones.
• ???
• Profit.
• Rest.

I’m pretty sure you can use grammarly directly in google docs if you’re using chrome.

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

I’m pretty sure you can use grammarly directly in google docs if you’re using chrome.

I can, but it lags a ridiculous amount with 156 pages of some 70k+ words

 

[UYScuti]

I can, but it lags a ridiculous amount with 156 pages of some 70k+ words

Why not have individual chapters and a full manuscript? It must be a pain to type in document that large.