Whenever I’m tasked with writing something, I rely on an in-house editor to help polish my work before it’s published. But if I’m short on time, or don’t have any editors available, artificial intelligence has helped me become a better writer.
If you find yourself needing an objective perspective or a digital helping hand when tasked with writing an email, dissertation, screenplay or anything at all, I find Grammarly to be helpful. (I just looked up at the last two paragraphs I wrote and was met with a colorful array of red, yellow and blue underlining my suboptimal syntax.)
Started in 2009, Grammarly is a Ukraine-founded cloud-based typing assistant. Besides adding colorful flair to your documents, Grammarly was built to check your spelling, grammar and punctuation, as well as your “clarity, engagement, and delivery mistakes.” It can detect plagiarism, and suggests edits to errors.
Grammarly uses color coding to mark words and phrases that need your attention.
Signing up for Grammarly
Grammarly is available in Free ($0), Premium ($12 a month) and Business ($15 a month) versions. I’ve used Grammarly Business for clients and Grammarly Free on my own. For basic editing and education purposes, the Free version will certainly suffice. It’s available as a download to desktop, mobile or browser (via extension).
Like any new addition, Grammarly takes time to integrate with your system fully. When it first loads, there can be a bit of a delay in its use. You may find other programs running slowly. Regarding that, I want to note Grammarly’s settings: You can decide which programs the AI tool is used for, so if you don’t want to use Grammarly in emails, you can switch the tool off, temporarily or permanently. This can help with any delays while using other programs.
Since 2009, quite a few Grammarly competitors have launched, including ClickUp (2017), WordTune (2020), ProWritingAid (2013), and Lavender.ai (2020) — an extension of Sorter (2020), not to be confused with Lavender.
Something that sets Grammarly apart from its competitors is its early implementation of generative AI, with an assistant that’s “up to speed on your context and preferred writing style.”
How to use AI for editing
I downloaded the tool almost two years ago, 13 years after launch. To get the most out of it, I recommend implementing it into three areas: your writing platform of choice — mine is Google Docs — emails and Instagram.
Grammarly lets you manage its generative AI settings.
If you use the social media tool for business (or want help crafting quicker social media posts), you can turn to Grammarly’s AI Instagram Caption Generator to create captions in seconds.
For example, I was looking for help crafting a digestible caption without much voice. I inserted a book highlighting the history of society’s response to bodies into the Instagram Caption Tool. This is what it came up with:
Customizing your Grammarly voice
It also can customize your profile options for tone, formality and professional relevance. For instance, I was working on copy for a podcast client who specifically wanted their brand identity to sound romanticized and old-fashioned. So, I set “the voice” to exactly that. Read: Renaissance, fluffy, old-fashioned, frank.
On a personal level, I customize the voice when sending emails regarding negotiation, or harder-to-articulate business conversation. For something like this, I click the “improve it” button to help increase the confidence in my voice. Consequently, my words are improved, all with the help of generative AI.
Grammarly is touted as one of the most advanced AI writing tools available — and so far, I have no reason to believe otherwise.