Grammarly: The Pros And The Cons

"I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because I want my writing to be strong, tight and worth reading."

I'm super lucky. Grammarly gave me the opportunity to road-test their online program to see what I thought.  I could be slack and just say... "Oh it's great. Get it." But that's not fair or right.  As with all these types of authorial programs, you need detailed information to make educated choices. So below is my take on Grammarly.

Having tested one of its competitors (autocrit) I'm in the enviable position of being able to tell you my thoughts :)  after having experience of others.

As most of my followers know, I love techy stuff... so this is right up my alley.

I'm going to start with the negatives first. Why? Because they need to be highlighted.

Don't use it with Firefox 22.0 - I couldn't get it to work. No matter what I did. Which was hugely annoying. To be fair it could be me, but when I swapped over to my other browser - Chrome - it worked perfectly.

Don't expect results in 5 minutes - This one is a double edged sword.  Using Grammarly takes time (which is both good and bad.) Because it's very thorough, (and I mean really thorough) it takes time to work through all the things it checks, because you have to add/change/accept before moving on.

The interface isn't as seamless (though that could be a Chrome thing) as it could be -  I found I couldn't just paste using the paste command at the top of the page, but had to do it manually. The same for the copy command.

The dialogue box is HUGE! - More on that later.

Grammarly is expensive - Well again, this is a double edged sword. You pay for quality, and you are definitely getting quality here. It covers stuff that never even occurred to me... the only thing missing was my editor's favourite... body parts that do their own thing! At 29.95 per month/59.95 per quarter and 139.95 a year, it's a large amount to shell out.

It doesn't love my formatting. - I had to go super manual to deal with this. Copy the text into a Word doc, then add the format, then go through and use italics etc where it stripped it out.

The good stuff...

Okay, I'm going to fill you in now on what I loved about Grammarly, because this is a really good system.

Even though you don't get answers in 5 minutes you get lots of information - explaining why Grammarly has picked up your sentence, phrase or words. So it's a bit like your own English Teacher on the computer. What's more, it gives you the option to accept or decline the suggestions, lets you read the text in the surrounding details so you can see what the sentence/phrase is.

You can move the dialogue boxes - Great for me, because I want to see all the information before I make any changes.

It's interactive. Teach it new words instead of only the words it already knows.

You have choice! Pick either UK English or American English. This is fantastic, because depending on which house I am submitting to, I need to be able to change the English version I use.

It is downloadable. I didn't do this. No time as I was on a tight schedule, but that is great for anyone wanting to edit on the go or on the road, where internet is dodgy or just wants to sit away from an internet connection.

The dialogue box is HUGE! It needs to be as there is so much information given for each aspect. 

It's step by step. Every time an issue is raised, it explains in detail what the issue could be.

The Price - You know, I know it's a lot of money, but to be honest, while the manuscript I was working on is yet to be submitted (so I can only explain this in generic terms) if it helps to make my manuscript more saleable, then surely to goodness, that is a positive thing. For $139.95 it's cheap!

And to add to this, a good edit for your title will cost more than this program. Now I'm not saying this should replace that, because it shouldn't... but if it makes the job easier, then life is simpler, right?

Plagiarism Checker - Okay so only those who care will go through and check this, but I do. I would hate someone to claim I've copied someone else's work.  It's just another added benefit of the program.

Overall?

I'm going to give Grammarly an 8/10

There's still a few things that don't work quite as well as I'd like, but it is a very useful/powerful tool for an author to have. And one I will certainly be investing in after my trial ends.

Okay, so to win a chance at a $15 amazon gift card (courtesy of Grammarly) please comment on one aspect you think could be enhanced in your own writing using Grammarly.

I am closing this strictly on 16th August my time (5pm Queensland Time!)