Grammar check in Google docs

[tomlitilia]

Google docs have added grammar check. It seems to be pretty good at first glance, but I'm not a native English speaker so I might not be the best judge. What's your experience? Is it on par with Word's?

 

[jaF0]

Goo ...


What's your experience?

I don't feed the GooMonster.


Have you tried LibreOffice? https://www.libreoffice.org/

They don't track and sell your personal information.

 

[AlinaX]

Well, fwiw, I hate Word's grammar checker, and haven't yet learned to hate Google's grammar checker.

 

[HeyAll]

Google Docs has an extremely basic word check. Sometimes there are outright misspelled words that don't get caught.

Grammary.com has a great, free grammar check. I use it for the final check on all my stories and it often catches little things that I missed.

 

[JJA122]

I use it. But I also use https://sentencecheckup.com/
I'm a native English speaker though.

 

[yukonnights]

Google Docs has an extremely basic word check. Sometimes there are outright misspelled words that don't get caught.

Grammary.com has a great, free grammar check. I use it for the final check on all my stories and it often catches little things that I missed.

I tried to find Grammary.com but it didn't show up. I'm assuming you meant Grammarly.

EDIT #2; I've removed Language Tooler. The word count limit renders it useless beyond something like these short Forum posts. It's just a hook to try to up-sell the version that works. I've just discovered a grammar/spell checker called Language Tooler that is an add-on to Firefox. It seems helpful so far. It works in any online window, so that should mean it will work in Lit's "New Story" window. To date, I've only composed off-line and paste in my text. But, I'm not satisfied with my computer's Spellcheck or Grammar check. This tool should allow for either; offline composing then checking on the Lit text page, or composing online here at Lit. EDIT: I've come back to report that the "free version" only works up to 10,000 words per field (I can still probably work with that, just more hassle. Gee, I'm so cheap )

Just now it's telling me I might have a style problem; Three sentences starting with I — I just hit ignore . It's telling me that I have an extra space at that period after ignore.

Firefox also offered a Grammarly add-on, but their privacy policy is not something I can agree to.

 

[JackBellend41]

It's Grammarly.com, with an l. And it works pretty well, better than just using the google check.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Haven't really noticed the Google Docs grammar checker. It's turned on, but I have the Grammarly plugin for Chrome which seems to take over from the GD version. I only use any grammar checker as a guide. I don't trust it completely. They tend to highlight "errors" which are fine in the context of what I'm writing.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't feed the GooMonster.


Have you tried LibreOffice? https://www.libreoffice.org/

They don't track and sell your personal information.

LO's inbuilt grammar checker (Lightproof) is severely buggy. For a lot of people, me included, it simply doesn't work at all - if you check LO's help forums you'll see long-term users who've followed all the instructions and still can't get the grammar checker to do anything at all.

For those who can get it working, apparently it's still very basic and misses a lot of stuff.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Word's grammar checker is rather limited; it's really a spell-checker at best.

Grammarly is much better, but it's still software, not a human brain. Sometimes it catches things that it thinks are wrong but are not. Use it, but proofread too, or have someone else do it.

 

[SimonDoom]

Google docs have added grammar check. It seems to be pretty good at first glance, but I'm not a native English speaker so I might not be the best judge. What's your experience? Is it on par with Word's?

I don't mean to be intrusive on your privacy and if you don't want to answer I understand, but do you mind if I ask what your native language is? Your English is very good. You have a good feel for the language in your stories.

 

[SyleusSnow]

LO's inbuilt grammar checker (Lightproof) is severely buggy. For a lot of people, me included, it simply doesn't work at all - if you check LO's help forums you'll see long-term users who've followed all the instructions and still can't get the grammar checker to do anything at all.

For those who can get it working, apparently it's still very basic and misses a lot of stuff.

The LanguageTool add-on is much better than the default LibreOffice grammar checker, and mostly works. You need Java installed. LanguageTool is also available as a free stand-alone app.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The LanguageTool add-on is much better than the default LibreOffice grammar checker, and mostly works. You need Java installed. LanguageTool is also available as a free stand-alone app.

FWIW, I tried out the web version of LanguageTool, and compared to MS Word, Gdocs, and my partner. Test sentences:

Help you I can. James had had been drinking. That were a bad idea. The lion licked it’s paws.

My partner spotted all four errors: incorrect word order in the first sentence, "had had" in the second, "were" in the third, "it's" in the fourth. (There are some rustic dialects where "that were a bad idea" might be used, but it wouldn't usually be considered correct English these days.)

LanguageTool only caught "it's". Ditto my copy of MS Word, although my partner's also caught "were" - maybe a recent update?

Gdocs caught "had had" and "were" but not the others. Weirdly, when I tested it on "I had had a cold" and "He had had a cold" (both of which are legit English grammar) it flagged the first but not the second, even though the structures are identical.

None of the computer options spotted the Yoda-speech in the first sentence.

One positive note for LanguageTools, though, is that when it flags something it gives more info than Word or Google about why it's flagged, which may be helpful for understanding what to do about it and how not to repeat the mistake.

Moral here is that computerised grammar checking still isn't a substitute for a fluent human reader.