Last year, I got a Grammarly subscription at a discount for the entire year. It has proven to be quite helpful in cleaning up the backlog of articles on the Canadian Personal Finance site. I am also finding that I am using it on other projects. The Grammarly grammar checker is helping out a great deal.
I am using Grammarly premium, but not the business option. What is Grammarly? The premium has helped clean up and sharpen a great deal of my writing. Using the tool has also forced me to reread my older work. I have said I am a better editor than a writer, allowing me to use an Editor’s eye on some fairly hack-kneed copy.
It became clear that much of my writing was barely first-draft quality, so this has allowed for a polishing up of my current work. It has also forced me to follow a more structured format.
Grammarly Everywhere?
I am using it here as well. The biggest problem I have run into is that it does not play very well with WordPress. Grammarly has a nasty habit of deleting links in the WordPress editor. More than a few times, I have lost excellent links thanks to Grammarly. That is the central issue I have had with the product.
Grammarly will try to repair poorly phrased sentences and usually gets them right. There are occasions when there seems to be a context issue. You need to watch to see how the program changes your ideas. I have also used it at work, as it is well-integrated with Microsoft Office. In technical situations, it gets confused on some key phrases, but as long as you are diligent, you are fine.