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Free Grammarly Vs. Grammarly Premium
The free version of the spell checker tool contains grammar and spelling checks. It misses out on other features like a plagiarism detector, an advanced grammar checker, and some contextual grammar suggestions. However, it is still pretty great, unlike some other products where the free version is inferior. Putting things in perspective, the free version is ideal only for writers who are working on a lean budget. In contrast to its free version, Grammarly Premium provides detailed information on your grammatical errors in a pop-up box positioned at the right-hand of your screen. It also provides some writing insights and grammatical suggestions based on some set goals identified on its interface. With Grammarly Premium, you get grammar and spelling checks, vocabulary enhancement; genre-specific writing style checks; plagiarism detector; punctuation corrections; contextual grammar checks, all in one package. For the most part, it fixes more errors and mistakes than the free version. In the most recent past, Grammarly rolled out a new installment referred to as Grammarly Business Version. In addition to the features contained in Grammarly Premium, the business version contains some additional features like a centralized billing system, 24/7 priority email support, user management, and admin controls for security and privacy of your team’s work, as well as, a monitoring tool for noting engagement trends. This version of the spell checker tool costs about $15monthly for every member and is a viable alternative if you are a team. For obvious reasons, our review will be circling the premium version. It has a myriad of advantages over the free version; hence, it is the recommended version for writers. That said, there remains a begging question needed to be answered – Why Grammarly over all other spell checkers.
Why Grammarly?
Grammarly has been embraced by a lot of writers for the outstanding benefits it presents to its users. Because of these benefits, it has become more preferred to most other spell checker tools. Highlighted below are some of Grammarly’s pros.
1- Real-time grammar correction
That is, perhaps, the most important pro of Grammarly. Its premium version makes editing and error check quite easy. Rather than draft out lengthy texts and running your checks after that, you can spot your errors as soon as they are made. That might not seem such a great deal to so many considering that you could still make the spell and grammar checks afterward. However, spotting these errors as soon as they are made and making adequate corrections would produce a cleaner final result. As a plus, it is an automatic feature. That is, you need not click a button for Grammarly to run its real-time checks.2- Accuracy
This grammar software is way more accurate than most others in the market. In some cases, it could misconstrue what you are trying to say, place punctuation marks where they ought not to be or where you do not necessarily need them. However, it has a high rate of accuracy in general.3- Customization
Even in its free version, Grammarly is quite customizable. Putting things in perspective, you can do as much as turn it off while running certain websites, select a preferred language, or add new words you frequently use to its dictionary. The latter is particularly interesting. If you have some words you frequently use – for example, names of individuals, brand names, and abbreviations – you could add them to the dictionary, rather than those words been flagged incorrect words by Grammarly each time. If you choose to add a word to the dictionary, hover around it and click the “add to dictionary” button in a pop-up box.4- Ease of use
You do not have to be a programmer or be particularly excellent at using a computer to have a good grasp of this grammar checker software. In general, it’s as simple as installing the app, plugin, or browser extension. Just like what obtains in Google Docs and Microsoft Word spellcheck features, Grammarly underlines the wrong words or grammar as the case may be, provides you with the more correct versions, and goes a notch further by giving you reasons why if you hover your cursor over it. It is ideal for writers who need brushing up in the grammar department but has problems working with more difficult and complicated software. Having mentioned all of its many benefits, the software still has an outstanding limitation. Grammarly’s biggest limitation is its inability to work with everything. Most notably is the fact that it doesn’t work with Google Docs. However, the company seems to be working on this limitation with a beta update.How Accurate Is Grammarly?
There is no question that when you click on a grammatical error, the spell and grammar checker explains the error made. All you need do is click on the suggestion arrow to get an insight into what the problem is. The software identifies a couple of mistakes and, besides, explains the errors. In my review of the software, it helped me identify some errors like highly wordy sentences, use of incorrect prepositions, misuse of punctuation marks, spelling errors, overuse of passive voice rather than active voice and a host of other grammatical errors I might have overlooked during the time of writing. After repeated use of the grammar checker, I was able to identify my bad writing habits, which included ending sentences with prepositions, writing wordy sentences, and using mostly passive voice. Identifying these fine points of grammar and improving on them has helped me get better at my writing. That is in contrast with the built-in checkers in Pages, Microsoft Word, and Scrivener, which did not at any point in time single these out as bad writing habits or things to be avoided for a good write-up. In general, it has made me better at writing!
Via What Platforms Can I Use Grammarly
Grammarly offers a bunch of other alternatives other than copying and pasting your blog post, e‑book or letter into a textbox to check for its grammatical correctness. If this were so, it would easily pass as the worst grammar checker ever. The grammar checker tool has a lot of other convenient ways to use it. However, you would need to be connected to the internet to use it, as it is an internet-based tool.Desktop app
You could check your article, blog posts, and other writing forms through a desktop app, provided you use the Mac or Windows OS. Having downloaded the app on a system by visiting the download page and following the listed installation instructions, the tool can then be used very much like its online version.Microsoft Word
That is an enthralling way of using the Grammarly tool. You could use a Grammarly add-in together with your Microsoft Word application. However, this is only a possibility if you are running the Windows OS. To do this, visit the add-in page and follow the duly the instructions given to add it to your Microsoft Word application. Once the plugin is properly added, it checks your writing in real-time (that is, make corrections on grammatical errors and mistakes as soon as you make them). That is an easy way to use the checker tool. It is imperative to point out here that you need to be connected to the internet while using the Microsoft Word package.Browser Extension
That is one of the easiest ways – if not easiest – to use Grammarly. You could browse for the grammar checker tool in Google Chrome’s web store or follow the link to the extension provided on the homepage of Grammarly. You can add the Grammarly extension to your Chrome browser as you would with any other extension, and it kicks into work almost immediately. This extension works with Gmail and even Google Docs, as well as social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.Final Take!
Grammarly competes favourably with several other competitors like ProWritingAid, WhiteSmoke, and Ginger. Although these alternatives are cheaper than Grammarly and, in some cases, have additional features, for example, Ginger, with its inbuilt language translator and ProWritingAid with its more comprehensive feedback system. Still, none is easier and more intuitive to use than Grammarly. Indeed, it is more streamlined, elegant, and functional than most of its other competitors. That said, you cannot blindly trust Grammarly, but should use the tool with a sense of what is correct or isn’t. It isn’t outrightly perfect and doesn’t work better than a human proofreader (FYI, you can even hire a human proofreader through Grammarly). However, it is the best grammar checking tool out there and a must-have for every writer.
