Online Editors

[Bebop3]

Has anyone tried any online grammar editors or proofreading programs?

Have you had any success with them? Any that you would recommend over others?

 

[Bebop3]

In previous threads, e.g. Grammarly and To pay or Not to pay for an editing app, Grammarly was generally recommended.

Cool, thanks.

 

[Bebop3]

Ruben,

I downloaded Grammarly last night and it was startling how easy and effective it was.

I'm still sort of taken aback by how generous the volunteer editors are here. There are two people that have been kind enough to help me out with the first two chapters of what I'm writing and want nothing in return. If grammarly does nothing but make their job easier, it's worth installing.

It's that and more (and free!).

Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[TxRad]

I tried it on a couple of stories and didn't care for it. It does a good job at what it does but.... Yeah, there's always a butt. If you're not careful it can change the voice of the story. It can also make some things sound wooden or mechanical.

It is a hell of a better deal than anything Word ever did, but...

 

[ElectricBlue]

I tried it on a couple of stories and didn't care for it. It does a good job at what it does but.... Yeah, there's always a butt. If you're not careful it can change the voice of the story. It can also make some things sound wooden or mechanical.

It is a hell of a better deal than anything Word ever did, but...

The consensus seems to be, "use with caution." These grammar checkers are more orientated to business or academic writing, from what I can see. I ran one story through grammarly for curiosity, and ignored nearly all of its suggestions.

 

[SyleusSnow]

I was never impressed with the free version of Grammarly. Scribens seems better.

I've been using ProWritingAid for creative and non-creative works and it seems to be better... and not just in catching the usual grammar and passive voice issues. It also provides more high-level analysis: sentence length, cliches, pacing, dialogue (ratio of dialogue to text and use of tags other than "said"), overused words and so on.

It does have a setting for "creative" writing, though it doesn't explain exactly what that does.

 

[Bebop3]

I was never impressed with the free version of Grammarly.

Thanks! I'll look into both of your suggestions.

 

[Kojak01]

I won't argue with this, but I think it is only fair to acknowledge that you are writing at a whole different level than I do. You are a native English speaking person with an impressive experience of writing, while for me, English is a second language, and my writing is... let's say, I mainly write for myself. Those things might make a difference here.

I'm in the same situation having English as second language. Grammarly does a good job finding stupid mistakes (to/too, of/off) or helping finding the right form for a verb (-ed/-ing) and such. This are things that come to native writers much more naturally than for someone who learned a language. It also helped a lot with prepositions and punctuation.

But, as has been said before, Grammarly is no replacement for a real, human editor (who do a invaluable work on this site!!!)

As I wrote in another thread: When I (and Grammarly) don't find any more mistakes I send my stories to my editor(s) and they return them with a shitload of errors that have remained undetected.