types of essays grammarly

How To Use The Grammarly Essay Check: Step-by-Step Guide

Discover how to use the Grammarly essay check step-by-step in our complete guide

Grammarly is a useful grammar checker for editing essays and other documents. It can spot and fix more grammatical errors, punctuation errors, and other writing mistakes than a basic grammar or spell checker. I’ve used it for years on various types of essays and articles. 

In this step-by-step tutorial, I explain how to use the Grammarly essay check. This short guide is based on our extensive tutorial explaining how Grammarly works . 

We tested dozens of grammar checkers, and Grammarly is the best tool on the market today. It'll help you write and edit your work much faster. Grammarly provides a powerful AI writing assistant and plagiarism checker.

Here Is The Step-by-Step Guide On How To Use The Grammarly Essay Check

Step 1: create an account on grammarly, step 2: upload your essay, step 3: set your essay goals and preferences, step 4: let grammarly analyze your essay, step 5: review grammarly’s suggestions, step 6: accept or ignore grammarly’s suggestions, step 7: use grammarly’s citation tool, step 8: edit your essay, step 9: run a plagiarism check, step 10: download or export your corrected essay.

You can check an essay using a free account or Grammarly Premium. Sign up with your best email. Next, install the Grammarly plugin for your Chrome, Firefox, or Safari browsers. Then, download the desktop app for Mac or Windows. You can also use the web app to check essays. 

If you use Google Docs for your essay, Grammarly offers an extension you can use to grammar and spell-check academic essays in real-time. However, the web app provides the most features. 

By using a premium account, you can use additional essay checker features like a plagiarism checker and a citation tool. If you’d like to try it, claim a Grammarly coupon .

You can upload your essay by copying and pasting your text into the editor or using the “Upload” feature to select your file from your computer. You can also use the floating Grammarly icon on your desktop (Mac and Windows) or access the browser plugin.

Many essayists write in Microsoft Word and check for issues directly in that app. However, to check an essay, it’s easier to copy and paste or upload to the Grammarly web app as it provides access to more reports, specifically a plagiarism checker. You might also be wondering, can essay titles be questions .

After uploading your essay, adjust Grammarly to check an essay rather than an article or blog post. You can also access this setting via the writing goals tab. An essayist will select “Academic” as the Domain and “Essay’ as the type. Then, pick your preferred style guide: APA, MLA, Chicago, or Other.

This selection helps Grammarly provide targeted feedback based on your specific type of writing. For example, if you’re writing an academic paper with the default style guide, Grammarly provides feedback on citations and formatting according to APA standards. 

An essayist should also set their English language preferences, i.e., American English, British English, Canadian English, etc. You can also use the preferences section to adjust suggestions related to the comma and punctuation errors. Check out these essays about writing essays .

Let Grammarly analyze your essay. This process takes a few seconds or minutes, depending on the length of the essay. If the essay is more than five thousand words long, it’s faster and easier to check individual sections. When completer, open the overall score tab to access word count and readability metrics.

Once the essay analysis is complete, Grammarly provides a list of suggested corrections and improvements to your essay. These suggestions include:

• Typos, spelling and grammar mistakes: underlined in red, considered these critical typos and other fixes. 
• Clarity: underlined in blue, use these to improve the readability of an essay.
• Engagement and word choice suggestions: underlined in green, use these to copyedit and improve sentence structure.
• Other style improvements: Optional.

Additionally, if you’re using a Grammarly premium account, you can access the plagiarism checker to ensure your writing is original. Bear in mind it scans against articles available online rather than gated content, PDFs, or books. It’s also not available in the free tool. For more, read our guide to the best plagiarism checkers.

Choose to accept or ignore each suggestion. When accepting a suggestion, click on the green “Correct” button next to the suggestion. 

If you’re unsure why a suggestion was made, you can click on the information icon to learn more. It should provide contextual examples. Remember, these are recommendations, not directions. It’s up to you, the essayist, to decide on them based on your preferred style guide and audience. 

If you’re using a Grammarly premium account, you’ll have access to Grammarly’s citations tool. This tool can help you generate accurate citations for your sources, ensuring that your essay is formatted correctly and adheres to academic standards. It’s in beta. 

The browser extension citation manager works best in Chrome on certain websites like Wikipedia, periodicals, and online journals. However, if it doesn’t work or appear, use the manual Grammarly citation generator . 

After reviewing and accepting any necessary suggestions, make the required changes to your essay. Do this directly in the editor or copy and paste the corrected text into your original document. 

At this stage, recheck the readability report. After reviewing Grammarly’s suggestions, this score should increase. If not, consider making wider copy and structural edits. Then, repeat the previous steps. Ideally, aim for a score above 60.

Grammarly can check an essay for instances of accidental plagiarism. It only takes a few seconds to run. However, remember that the plagiarism checker only scans against content freely available online rather than in gated journals and books. For deeper checks, consider using TurnItIn.

Once you’re satisfied with any changes, download or export your corrected essay. By using Grammarly essay checker to proofread your English essay, you’ll have a well-crafted and professional-looking document. Bear in mind, an online proofreading tool like Grammarly is powerful. but it’s important for an essayist to complete a final proofread, ideally with pen and paper.

It’s possible to check an essay on iOS or Android keyboard using the above steps and the associated app. However, unless an essayist only checks for basic grammar and spelling issues, the process is somewhat clunkier and more time-consuming. We recommend using the web app on a desktop where possible. 

So, if you’re writing lots of essays, opt for a Grammarly premium discount .

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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Last updated on Feb 15, 2023

Grammarly Review: A Writer's Best Friend?

Grammarly is a powerful AI-powered writing tool that corrects grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. It also suggests stylistic and tonal improvements, with an overall aim to improve the quality and clarity of your writing.

For this article, we put Grammarly to the test to see how thoroughly it can help writers, especially self-publishing authors . Before we dive deep into it, here’s a quick summary:

It’s easy to use across all devices

One of Grammarly’s strengths is that it works across all kinds of devices, from laptops to phones to tablets. You can use it as a desktop app, a web app, and more conveniently as a browser extension. It’ll work as a side assistant when you edit your Google Docs, emails, and social media posts, or when you use book writing apps like the Reedsy Book Editor . 

Some writers will be happy to know that Grammarly runs on Microsoft Word (as long as you install the desktop version), and that you can use it on iOS and Android by downloading the Grammarly Keyboard app. 

Here are some of the devices and tools Grammarly is compatible with:

🔐 Is it safe to give Grammarly access to everything you type across all devices? The company has made clear that the app is safe to use: the software is blocked from running on read-only forms where you type sensitive information like passwords and payment details. 

Ultimately, it’s up to you to choose on which tools and devices you want the app to proofread your writing. 

Proofreading is the strongest feature

Grammarly shines for its ability to spot spelling and grammar mistakes and suggest corrections, which you can implement one click at a time. For professional and aspiring writers it's the best-loved proofreading tool available on the market, with ProWritingAid being its closest rival. 

Get suggestions tailored to your creative goals

Designed to help a broad range of writers, from academics to knowledge workers to casual writers, Grammarly provides the option to tailor settings based on your own objectives. As a fiction writer, you can select ‘Creative’ as the domain and ‘Tell a story’ as the intent, which allows for some flexibility with language rules and conventions. The tool doesn’t currently allow you to specify that you’re working within a particular book genre or point of view , which would provide even more specific feedback.

Once you set your goals , you can either write (or copy-paste your text) into Grammarly’s own editor, or get recommendations on other online editors (like Google Docs) through the browser extension. 

Improve the text grammar, clarity, and engagement

Grammarly provides feedback across five different categories, which are highlighted in different colors. 

Correctness (red) 

It flags spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes, such as missing commas and incorrect tenses. Each suggestion has a “Learn more” section, with examples of how to correctly use a particular word or phrase. While seasoned writers might not need this feedback, it’s nice to have the chance to understand an edit — especially for tricky or commonly mistaken terms, like affect vs. effect , or lay vs. lie .  

Clarity (blue)

These suggestions focus on making the writing clearer and easier to read. For example, they might recommend eliminating passive voice, wordy sentences, and will commonly suggest better phrasing.   

Engagement (green)

This type of feedback concerns the effectiveness of your writing, based on your selected goals. It generally recommends avoiding repeated or commonly overused words, but it will also suggest replacing weak adverbs and adjectives with stronger ones or forceful verbs . And if you’re working on dialogue, you might get recommendations for other words for ‘said ’, which can make written conversation more vivid.

Delivery (purple)

Delivery feedback is minor 一 it points out some nuances based on your selection of a formal or informal tone (e.g. “You need to consider…” → “It would be best if you’d consider…”), which can be useful when writing emails, proposals, or query letters .

Style (grey)

Feedback on style is only available for Grammarly Business users 一 it’s mostly intended for team writers who need to stay consistent with their brand’s voice and style. 

Overall, there are pros and cons to Grammarly’s feedback for fiction writers. 

It’s handy but non-essential for fiction

As you may have noticed already, we tested Grammarly on the first chapter of Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby , a text already polished, published, and withstanding the test of time. Many suggestions concerned adding or removing commas to change the rhythm of the text. However, these stylistic choices will depend on the author’s preferences — and we’re pretty sure Fitzgerald and his editors would roll their eyes at most of them. But developing authors using Grammarly to finesse their work in the early stages will likely get more value from its corrections and suggestions. 

Perhaps more valuable is the feedback on ‘Clarity.’ Here are a couple of examples from our test on The Great Gatsby : 

It’s fair to say, with all respect to Fitzgerald, that both second versions feel easier to read 一 and that many writers, especially beginning authors, could find these types of edits useful. But it’s also true that ease of reading is generally not the aim of fiction, and these changes undoubtedly alter the voice of the narrator, losing some of its poetry and distinctive tone. While accepting suggestions for clarity can be helpful, there is definitely a risk of homogenizing your sentence structures and losing the prose rhythm you're aiming for, so consider each suggestion carefully. 

Don’t rely too heavily on it

Grammarly’s recommendations are solid, but not faultless. Sometimes they’re incorrect or simply missing 一 even for basic mistakes like typing “you’re” instead of “your”. 

In general, Grammarly can be a great starting point when you’re self-editing your writing in preparation for sending it to a professional copy editor . In fact, it can help you cut wordy segments and improve your work’s overall quality before anyone else sees it, and can even save you a few bucks if your editor charges per word . But ultimately, it’s not a substitute for a human proofreader or editor 一 if you’re serious about publishing your work, you’ll still need to get professional eyes on it. Just make sure your work undergoes a round of developmental editing before you nitpick its style, grammar, or language issues, since these will only matter once it has reached its final form.

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Turn it off while you’re drafting

For some writers, Grammarly’s suggestions can feel distracting and pedantic (even by grammar-nerd standards), especially if the app corrects you in real-time as you type. To avoid this issue and enter a flow state, we would recommend authors only turn it on when they’re revising their drafts, and to edit their settings to receive only the type of feedback they desire. 

Customize settings to your liking

Similar to other editing tools, Grammarly gives you the option to customize your writing preferences. This includes adding words to your dictionary to avoid them being flagged as mistakes, and choosing between American, British, Canadian, Australian, and Indian English. 

With Premium, you can further refine your writing preferences by disabling proofreading inside quotes if you’re writing dialogue using slang for example, or disabling the Oxford comma rule if that’s not your preference. The list of things you can customize is quite extensive, and many authors will appreciate having this level of control over it.  

Upload your own docs to review

To revise an existing document, you can simply upload it to Grammarly’s editor and voilà 一 it will suggest corrections for your text. Just keep in mind that the document can have up to 100,000 characters, spaces included, which boils down to just over 200 pages, and the file format must be either .doc, .docx, .odt, .txt, or .rtf 一 PDFs and markdown files are not supported. 

Both free and Premium accounts allow you to check up to 300 documents or 150,000 words every 30 days, but that’s usually more than enough for even the most prolific users.

Premium is costly but gives 3x more feedback

Grammarly’s generous free plan includes feedback on grammar, conciseness, and tone. The Premium plan costs $30 a month (or $12 a month, if you choose to pay annually). Obviously, it has more features and provides feedback on wording, plagiarism, inclusive language , and more. 

Here’s a quick look at the main features included in each plan: 

If you’re using Grammarly for casual proofreading, like social media posts or emails, you’ll find the free version sufficient. But for longer pieces, such as articles and essays, you may want to get the Premium plan, which doesn’t just offer additional features but also three times as much feedback. In our test, we proofed over 4.5k words: the free plan flagged 62 errors, while the premium plan flagged 222.

So, are the extra recommendations and features worth it? The answer is… it depends. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t offer a free trial for its Premium plan, and many will find the $30 monthly bill costly to sustain. 

If your early drafts usually need lots of proofreading, then Premium might be for you. You’ll also get access to the ‘Engagement feedback’, which suggests improvements on your text’s wording and vocabulary 一 though you must be careful not to accept every suggestion, lest your book come across as having been co-authored by Roget’s Thesaurus. 

If, on the other hand, your writing craft is already fairly polished, you might be better off using the free plan and directly working with professional editors.

There are other valuable Premium features, like the plagiarism checker, the inclusive language filter, or tone suggestions to make your text sound more confident, friendly, or diplomatic. But these are more suited to knowledge workers or content writers than to authors writing a novel . 

Overall, Grammarly is useful both in its free and Premium versions 一 if your budget allows it, we would certainly recommend subscribing to the latter.   

In conclusion, Grammarly is a powerful tool for proofreading, with a user-friendly interface that works on all kinds of devices and writing apps. The Premium recommendations, especially around clarity and engagement, can be very useful to writers. But the app is not fool-proof, so you should take its recommendations with a grain of salt, and always collaborate with industry experts for truly professional feedback. 

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What Is Grammarly, and Is It Cheating?

What is Grammarly? We take a deep dive into this online writing resource. How does it help students, and is it ok to use this tool?

Key Takeaways

• What is Grammarly? It’s a web-based automated writing assistant that results in writing improvements. Grammar, punctuation and spelling mistakes are corrected, but the writer/author still has the responsibility of ensuring their works’ substance.
• Both students and educators can use the grammar checker to improve their respective writing style. While it may seem like cheating, it isn’t because material modifications aren’t automatically made to the document being checked. The writer/author doesn’t become lazy just by using the writing assistant.
• Grammarly isn’t just for academic writing either! Even professional writers including business writing professionals use Grammarly for emails, press releases, and other official documents.

Grammarly is an automated writing assistant, an online resource designed to help students spot and correct errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. In the simplest terms, Grammarly is a web-based editing application that helps students improve the quality of their writing.

And boy do they need it. I should know. For a decade, I made a living helping students cheat. I worked for an array of contract cheating websites, where students would pay writers like me to complete their book reports, research projects, creative writing assignments, admission essays, thesis statements, and even doctoral dissertations.

So believe me when I tell you that students at every single level, and with every kind of professional ambition, struggle to write grammatically competent sentences. Grammarly aims to help. But does it help? And more importantly, does it help too much? In other words, is using Grammarly cheating?

If you squint your eyes, Grammarly might look a little bit like the shady custom paper writing sites where I once earned my living. Like Grammarly, most paper writing companies describe their services as editorial assistance. But this claim is a thin veil for what paper writing companies actually sell-which is the opportunity to outsource your academic responsibilities wholesale to a hired gun.

By contrast, Grammarly’s offer of editorial assistance seems to be genuine. In fact, there’s a good reason that Grammarly looks, on the surface, like many of the illicit services where you can buy tailor-made papers. It’s because both services address the same need. That is, both custom paper writing services and web-based editing assistance programs recognize that far too many students don’t know how to write.

Students at every level of education struggle with grammar, diction, and punctuation” – AcademicInfluence.com TWEET POST

Students at every level of education—from high school English students to doctoral candidates trudging through dissertations—struggle with grammar, diction, and punctuation. They struggle to organize their ideas, cite their sources, or build a case around a cohesive argument. Writing is an educational requirement and yet, for too many students, it is a source of anxiety and dread. Grammarly can’t necessarily fix all of these issues for you, but it can help you write better, and unlike customer paper writing companies, it isn’t cheating.

Grammarly At a Glance

The popular grammar checker, available in both a free and paid version, is offered to students by numerous colleges and universities. This is the strongest proof that the Grammarly online editor is no longer considered cheating among educators and students.

Furthermore, educators can use the grammar checker to improve their students’ writing style and, thus, enable them to develop their communication skills. By combining their traditional feedback mechanisms with Grammarly’s automated feedback, their teaching strategies related to the improvements of the students’ writing skills become more effective.

How, you ask?

Grammatical mistakes become a thing of the past for students. The plagiarism checker, Grammarly’s review feature, is a virtual writing assistant that adheres to widely accepted grammar rules, also makes life easy in this respect!

Perhaps what makes this application even more appealing is that it can be integrated easily with the programs we constantly use, like email, texting, tweeting, and word processing.

How Teacher’s Feedback Complements Grammarly’s Automated Feedback

The ability to effectively communicate ideas, opinions, and answers in written form is an essential skill among college students. Effective writing skills are also vital for academic progress, professional development, and personal gain among undergraduate and graduate students.

For educators, the opportunity to provide constructive feedback on their students’ writing skills is a common practice, ostensibly to improve their writing style, too.

At its core, the teacher’s feedback aids in bridging the gap between what students know and what areas need improvement, from grammar mistakes to style mistakes. This is true whether in an English composition class or in a business management course, both of which demand effective writing skills.

But teachers deal with more than a few challenges in providing constructive feedback on their students’ writing skills! The process itself requires significant time and effort, and it’s made more complicated by contextual issues, large class sizes, and excessive workloads.

This is where the effective integration between traditional teacher feedback and automated feedback from Grammarly comes in. On one hand, Grammarly provides a wide range of writing tools that check language-related errors including the use of prepositions and determiners, issues related to wordiness and conciseness, and grammar. These types of errors are considered low-order mistakes that a thorough human-initiated editing can spot.

On the other hand, teacher feedback tends to cover high-order concerns that focus on content, substance, and organization of ideas. But, of course, teachers are also aware of the language-related errors that Grammarly detects and provides suggestions for immediate corrections. With the use of Grammarly, they can devote more time and effort to offering feedback on high-order concerns and, thus, make their feedback more effective and efficient.

Teachers are also more able to provide constructive criticism on content, give praise on the students’ written work, and ask for and provide relevant information. Students benefit from the use of Grammarly since surface errors can be detected and corrected immediately, thus, avoiding the scrutiny of teachers. There’s also the sense of greater acceptance of automated feedback among students, perhaps because it’s seen as less personal.

The result of the complementary relationship between teacher’s feedback and Grammarly’s automated feedback: More successful revisions and, thus, more cohesive and substantive written work among students!

How Teachers Can Use Grammarly to Improve Their Students’ Writing Skills

Teachers can use the writing tools on Grammarly for a wide range of purposes. Furthermore, it isn’t just neurotypical students who will benefit from these strategies—students with learning difficulties, special education students, and even advanced learners can improve their writing skills!

Further benefits of using Grammarly:

• “Grammarly Goals” set specific writing goals for each student
• Provides consistent, constructive and fast feedback to the students
• Shows each student their growth by pointing out the fewer mistakes they are making over time
• Explains the errors and their possible solutions
• Gives mini-lessons in content, substance, and organization

Teachers and students must work together to make the most of Grammarly cost and maximize this tool’s features. This way, it can truly serve its purpose for both parties!

Universities That Provide Grammarly Services to Their Students

The popularity of Grammarly Premium and Grammarly for Education versions among colleges and universities, as well as K-12 schools, continues to grow! Here are several examples of four-year institutions of higher education that provide Grammarly services to their faculty and staff members as well as current students.

• National Louis University
• Chapman University
• Liberty University
• University of Arizona Global Campus
• University of Utah Graduate School
• Walden University
• Iowa State University
• Lone Star College
• Marshall University
• Southern University of New Orleans

What Is Grammarly?

Grammarly is a free online writing assistant-though you can pay for an enhanced level of assistance (which we’ll get to in a minute). Grammarly is one of the leading entities in a writing enhancement software sector that includes competitors like ProWritingAid and Ginger .

The primary function of Grammarly is to help users identify grammatical errors, improper sentence structure, punctuation mistakes, and spelling typos in their writing. It can best be described as an editorial tool, one that can improve the user’s ability to produce grammatically correct writing.

How Does Grammarly Work?

Grammarly can be used either directly on the service’s website, or it can be added as a free extension to your browser. In either environment, you can write your document in real-time, or you can paste text that you’ve already written into the text editor for review. As you enter content into the text editor provided by the Grammarly extension—or directly on the Grammarly website—an automated editor will highlight spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. The editor will also offer explanations for why these errors have been flagged, and will consequently offer suggestions for how you can correct your mistakes.

Tools like Grammarly have potential value in improving time effectiveness for instructors and students.” – AcademicInfluence.com TWEET POST

These services are completely free of charge, and research suggests they have the potential to be quite valuable for students and instructors alike. According to a 2019 study in the Journal of Academic Language & Learning , Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) tools like Grammarly have potential value in improving “time effectiveness” for instructors and students. The study finds “that students made more revisions if they used an AWE...[and that] these revisions were more likely to be surface-level revisions relating to form, suggesting that automated tools are more appropriate for grammar or spelling reviews than for higher level language issues.”

In other words, the free application can be very helpful in addressing the basic mechanics issues that students experience in their writing. For help with higher level language issues, you can pay Grammarly a monthly premium ($11.66 at the time of writing). This will give you access to a wide array of editorial services, including support in the following areas:

• Sounding fluent in English
• Communicating your ideas clearly
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Using more dynamic synonyms
• Refining tone and delivery
• Writing with concision

If you need even more personalized support, Grammarly also provides access to professional contract editing and proofreading services for paying customers. And perhaps it is this service offering that is likeliest to raise an eyebrow. Just how intensive are these editorial services? And to what extent do writing assistants—whether through an automated application or independently-contracted humans—undermine the creation of original work?

This is where educators may be given pause. We can all agree that improving the basic use of grammar and punctuation is a positive development, no matter how one comes by it. And adding a layer of editorial polish to the work can certainly make it a more digestible experience for the grader. But where is the line drawn between editorial polish and contract cheating. What’s the difference between Grammarly and, something like writemypaper4me.org, for instance?

Well, for one thing, there are no grammar errors on Grammarly’s homepage. But it goes deeper than that...

What’s The Difference Between Using Grammarly and Cheating?

The answer is actually readily found in a Grammarly’s origin story. The online tool has its roots in the anti-plagiarism business. According to The Stock Dork , “Ukrainian Co-founders Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider started Grammarly in 2009. The development of Grammarly began with the co-founders’ 2004 plagiarism detection start-up called MyDropbox. This software was sold to universities in 2007 as a licensed product. This sale provided funding for the development of the browser extension we know today.”

This initial source of revenue makes Grammarly more akin to something like plagiarism detection leader turnitin.com, than to custom cheating services like writemypaper4me. And true to its roots, Grammarly’s suite of services works more like a helpful advisor standing over your shoulder than an outsourced laborer, delegated to do the work for you.

Grammarly is a utility that you can use to improve your writing, but it won't provide you with the substance at the heart of this writing. That's still your job.” – AcademicInfluence.com TWEET POST

At its heart, Grammarly is a utility that you can use to improve your writing, but it won’t provide you with the substance at the heart of this writing. That’s still your job. And that’s what separates Grammarly from the rather larger online market of cheating services. At most schools (unless expressly forbidden), editorial support is encouraged (or at least it should be).

The Office of Academic Integrity at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health offers a useful summation on editorial assistance, noting that it is indeed permissible to enlist the services of an editor for course and capstone work, “whether or not the editor receives any compensation in exchange for their work.”

Importantly, the Office of Academic Integrity specifies that “using an editor is only permissible if the editor provides stylistic and not substantive modifications to the course, capstone, or thesis related assignment.”

Stylistic modifications, says the Bloomberg School, include support with spelling, grammar, punctuation, clarity, referencing, and alternative phrasing. All of these editorial inputs are considered acceptable.

By contrast, substantive modifications , says Johns Hopkins, include writing new sentences which introduce new information, rewriting content to introduce new materials, adding or deleting references, or “any other modification that changes the meaning of what you’ve written in a material way.”

Grammarly will not conduct your research, produce your ideas, or build your arguments. And this matters a great deal.” – AcademicInfluence.com TWEET POST

Whether you simply use Grammarly’s free browser extension to spot-check typos, you pay for its premium service to spruce up your wordflow, or you go as far as commissioning the assistance of a professional proofer or editor, Grammarly will not conduct your research, produce your ideas, or build your arguments. And this matters a great deal.

That’s because, by contrast, these are exactly the types of substantive contributions that independently-contracted cheaters will make on behalf of their student customers. Contract paper writers conduct research, produce new ideas, craft arguments, and construct novel sentences to support these arguments. This is materially different from the stylistic services offered by Grammarly.

According to the Helpful Professor , a blog which, in the interest of full disclosure, offers its author a commission for link-throughs, assures that Grammarly won’t do any of the following:

• “Tell you what to write about to get higher grades.
• Give answers to your assignment questions.
• Get grammar right every time.
• Automatically make changes to your work.”

Again, outside of getting grammar the right every time, custom paper-writing companies literally do all of these things.

Should students use Grammarly?

According to Grammarly’s own research , internal surveys reveal that “75% of its users are afraid of being misunderstood.”

This is a powerful imperative driving people to its services. And it’s also the one thing that Grammarly users and contract cheating customers do have in common. They are both contending with a real and palpable fear. Language and writing deficiencies are rampant at every level of education, and at startling levels even in the upper reaches of the ivory tower.

There are many ways to manage this fear. Hiring a cheating service is certainly one way. But Grammarly presents a far more advisable way to manage the fear, and possibly even to vanquish it.

Should educators use Grammarly?

Put us solidly in the camp of those who advocate the use of Grammarly, not just for students, but for educators as well, especially those working in higher education. At this level of instruction, we’re guessing you haven’t the time, energy or inclination to police punctuation, correct spelling, and train in the basic rules of grammar. These are skills students should have learned on the way to the university.

Unfortunately, many don’t. So unless the goal of each and every class is to grade compositional ability, it’s clear that many students simply need this resource. In fact, there’s a compelling argument that instructors who decline to assist students in basic compositional matters should make Grammarly a mandatory part of the writing process, at least for students who demonstrate the need.

To return briefly to the business of contract cheating, it’s clear to anybody in this illicit sector that the client base is made up primarily of those who demonstrate such a need, whether because English is a second language, or because they simply lack the necessary academic tools to write. Whatever the reason, the reality is that colleges are not in the business of teaching students how to write. Writing is a building block skill. Students are supposed to have mastered this skill before reaching a level of education where deeper thinking is required. But in the absence both of this skill, and the academic assistance required to attain this skill, many students resort to contract cheating.

Automated writing assistance gives the student a chance to focus on the actual substance of an assignment...” – AcademicInfluence.com TWEET POST

By contrast, automated writing assistance gives the student a chance to focus on the actual substance of an assignment, instead of the implementation of rules which the student has already struggled to master for the better part of a 20-year education.

There is a case to be made that much deep thinking in college (and probably in the professional world) is prevented, or at least garbled, by the basic anxiety and distraction of writing incompetence. Grammarly seems like a fantastic way to offset that anxiety, and perhaps even make students more competent writers by simply exposing them to regular, continuous, and real-time feedback on their errors.

This underscores the core benefit of Grammarly to educators, insofar as it does a job that most college-level instructors either lack the time to do themselves or that they may even see as beneath their station as educators. In other words, unless you’re here to coach your students in their writing, be glad that Grammarly is there to do the job.

For study starters, influential books, and much more, check out our full collection of study guides .

Or get tips on studying, student life, and much more with a look at our Student Resources .

Grammarly Review. Features and functions of the AI writing tool

Learn about all of Grammarly's features and capabilities. Overview of all Grammarly tools, pros and cons of the platform, and a description of how it works.

Introducing Grammarly

Grammar checker, tone detector and style guide, plagiarism checker, citation generator, paraphrasing tool, ai content generator, expert writing help, grammarly limitations, grammarly pricing, grammarly tutorials and support, grammarly pros and cons.

Grammarly was founded in 2009 with the goal of helping people communicate more effectively. Initially, the product focused on helping students with grammar and spelling. But soon, the founders saw the potential of Grammarly in other areas as well.

Today, Grammarly offers a wide range of services, and we encourage you to explore its features.

Grammarly is an artificial intelligence writing assistant that takes into account context and preferred writing style.

The Grammarly platform can be considered multifunctional, as it provides access to the following tools:

• Grammar Checker
• Plagiarism Checker
• Essay Checker
• Artificial intelligence tools for writing
• Tone Detector
• Style Guide

With Grammarly's generative artificial intelligence support and advanced suggestions, you can speed up your writing, including essays, emails, social media posts, and more.

Grammarly Features

You can check text for errors both in the general application and on a separate page dedicated to grammar checking. You can instantly correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. You can also rewrite entire sentences to make them clearer and match your chosen tone.

Sentence brevity, tone detection, synonyms, intonation suggestions, and citations are also available in the text editor. Grammarly uses a combination of expert linguists and natural language processing.

You can also check the text for grammatical errors in a special section of the Grammarly website.

Grammarly can determine the tone of your message by analyzing word choice, phrasing, punctuation, and even capitalization.

There are some style and tone recommendations that Grammarly can provide:

• Suggestions for using active or passive constructions, depending on the purpose of the text
• Underlining passages that are too informal or vice versa
• Suggestions for clarifying or revealing the meaning of abstract phrases
• Fragments with negative/affirmative connotations
• Use of appeals and examples to increase emotional ownership
• Suggestions for adding or eliminating redundant words or phrases
• Ways to speed up the narrative by shortening sentences
• Changes in tone, formal/informal, and emotionally colored vocabulary
• Consistency of style with recommendations for a particular genre

Grammarly's plagiarism checker accurately pinpoints text that contains duplicate content. The premium plagiarism checker highlights passages that require citations and provides you with the resources you need to cite sources properly.

This online plagiarism checker compares your text to billions of Web pages and research papers stored in ProQuest databases. If any part of your text matches what is written on the web or in a database, you will receive a plagiarism alert.

When you use Grammarly's free online plagiarism checker, you receive an instant report indicating whether plagiarism was found and the number of grammatical and other mistakes in your document. Grammarly's premium plagiarism checker highlights specific sentences, provides background information about the source, calculates your document's overall originality score, and provides advanced feedback and corrections at multiple points.

Grammarly's analytical tool allows you to:

• Determine when your team provides written feedback and track work progress with accurate analytics metrics
• Identify trends across teams using customizable filters
• Analyze the use of brand tone in your team's written work
• Measure the impact of tool time savings and your team's efficiency

All of Grammarly's analytics features are available with a Team subscription.

The Citation Generator is an online tool allowing you to generate accurate citations quickly. Simply fill out the form with information about the source: its title, author(s), and page numbers. The tool will then provide you with an organized source, reference, or citation.

Working with the latest updated APA, MLA, and Chicago citation style guides, Grammarly automatically creates citations with proper formatting, including parentheses and other punctuation.

As you write, Grammarly can identify passages that may need to be cited and show you what the source might be.

Your choice of citation style will depend on the discipline in which you are writing and your supervisor's requirements. When you create a citation, you can choose its type as "Full citation" or "In-text citation".

Often, paraphrasing involves summarizing sentences, but you can also paraphrase paragraphs, essays, articles, or more extensive works.

You can use the paraphrase tool directly from the service's page. The downside is that there is a 500-word limit. 

Just type in a few sentences and click the "Paraphrase It" button. The tool will then offer you several variations of paraphrased sentences.

An AI text generator, powered by a large language model (LLM) and natural language processing, is software that generates text in response to text prompts. 

The prompts can be sentences or short phrases that give the generator direction. For example, "Write an email congratulating the sales team for closing more deals than last month.

How do I use generative AI in Grammarly? Download Grammarly, open a document and click the Grammarly button to launch the AI writing help. Then, enter a prompt with instructions and key information to personalize the generated content.

Anyone with a Grammarly account can use Grammarly's AI generative features.

Expert Writing Help is an optional feature available as a separate add-on to your Grammarly subscription. 

Grammarly's writing experts will review your document and correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. If you choose the Correctness and Clarity option, they will also ensure that your writing is concise, accurate, and easy to read. Content, style and tone of writing are at the author's discretion.

After uploading your document to the Grammarly editor, click the Get Expert Writing Help button. Before submitting your order, you will see the currently available options for completing the work, the price per word, and the order cost. After submitting your order, you will receive an email confirming the receipt of your order and its cost.

Grammarly interface

Multiple prompts, availability of tools in one place and saving documents in your account make Grammarly convenient for your daily work. 

As for language settings, you can choose between American, British, Canadian, Australian or Indian English. The high accuracy in detecting errors and maintaining the right tone through the use of neural network technology is what makes the tool so popular and sought after by those who write in English.

Grammarly's security is validated by a SOC 2 (Type 2) report, which indicates that the systems and organizational controls for security, privacy, confidentiality, availability, and secrecy are enterprise-level.

If Grammarly is not available to you due to your location, use a VPN . is*hosting offers many locations around the world that work with Grammarly, and a dedicated IP address ensures a stable and secure connection. Simply select the country you need, and we'll start preparing your VPN.

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Grammarly is available as a web service, browser extension, mobile application, and desktop application. Available systems and browsers where you can use Grammarly include Windows, Mac, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, MS Office, Google Docs, iPhone, iPad, and Android.

Grammarly Premium offers over 400 types of checks and features, including grammar error checking, vocabulary suggestions, plagiarism detection, and citation suggestions. 

The app's interface is simple and straightforward, allowing you to correct errors and inaccuracies. Just upload a document or write a text and edit it according to the suggestions of artificial intelligence.

It's worth noting some of the limitations of the platform:

• You can access Grammarly on up to five different devices.
• You can check up to 300 documents or 150,000 words in any 30-day period. You can review up to 100 documents or 50,000 words in any 24-hour period. This limit applies to both free and paid accounts. 
• If you use the Grammarly editor at www.grammarly.com, you can check up to 100,000 characters (including spaces) at a time. If you are using Grammarly for Windows or Mac, only the limits of your text editor will be considered.
• You can upload a document of up to 100,000 characters (including spaces) to the Grammarly editor. The document file size cannot exceed 4 MB. The supported document types are Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), OpenOffice (.odt), .txt, and .rtf.

Grammarly is currently available to everyone on a Premium plan and to residents of some countries on a Free plan.

Grammarly Premium is for individual users, and Grammarly Business is for teams where several people want to use the tool. A discount is automatically applied if you order an annual plan for ten or more people.

Premium subscription is available for $30 per month ($12 per month if you pay once a year). Business is $25 per month per user ($15 per month per user if you pay once a year). The Business plan differs from the Premium plan only in terms of increased security and special features for teamwork (style guide, snippets, brand tone, analytics dashboard).

Grammarly also offers an affiliate program that allows you to earn money by referring new users to Grammarly. You will be provided with a text link or banner.

A big part of Grammarly is its community and support. All help can be found on the platform itself, as well as in the blog and tutorials.

Grammarly support provides all the information you need about your account, subscriptions, security, products, and how to use them.

On the Grammarly blog , users can find news, informative articles, and the latest tool updates. There is also a separate focus on more specific topics that can be found in the Tech Blog, Education Blog, and Business Blog.

The Guide section contains information about writing, grammar, and punctuation. This means that in addition to using Grammarly's artificial intelligence, you can improve your writing and learn the basic rules of the English language on your own.

With a special subscription, you can receive weekly reports (Grammarly Insights) on your activity, including productivity, writing skill (measured by number of mistakes corrected), vocabulary, and top grammar errors.

Among the advantages of Grammarly are:

• Highly accurate spelling and grammar detection
• Analyzing the style and complexity of the text
• Text plagiarism check
• Availability of mobile applications and browser extensions
• Constant updating of algorithms
• Useful recommendations and edits
• Active community and support

Disadvantages of Grammarly:

• Does not always take context into account
• May not catch rare or complex errors
• Not suitable for genres with a specific style (poetry, slang, etc.)
• Supports English only
• Requires a subscription for the full version
• You must use a third-party tool to translate the text
• There are limitations on the amount of text that can be checked

When we talk about a similar service that offers the same variety of tools on one platform, QuillBot stands out among its competitors. We wrote about it in this article .

For most users who write in English, Grammarly is a useful tool in terms of accuracy.

This tool significantly improves the quality of texts by detecting a wide range of errors, analyzing the complexity and style of the text. The plagiarism checker prevents unscrupulous borrowing of other people's work.

The free version of Grammarly has limited features, but it already has a noticeable effect when checking documents. A paid subscription is worthwhile if you regularly need to write long texts of high quality and maintain a particular style.

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A Complete Grammar Guide for Essay Writing

Your essay must be free of grammatical errors for a couple of reasons. First, grammar mistakes can make your write-up difficult to interpret. Plus, they can mess up the context of the paper. On top of that, making too many grammatical errors can damage your reputation.

That’s why Grammar blunders are a total no-go when it comes to essay writing. Speaking of which, this interesting guide to grammar is all about helping you craft a perfect essay without any grammar slips. So, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

Everything You Need to Know About Perfecting Grammar in Essay Writing

This is a comprehensive grammar writing guide that has all the details on grammar you need for essay writing.

What is Grammar?

Grammar is basically a set of rules that guide how to structure sentences. Its purpose is to make sure the reader can understand what the writer is communicating. So, students need to have a good understanding of grammar when writing essays. Still wondering why is grammar important in writing ? Well, just keep on reading as your doubts will wipe out.

Breaking Down the Components of Grammar

When it comes to grammar, the first things that come to mind are parts of speech, which are:

Noun:  It is a word or group of words that is used to identify the subject in a sentence.

Verb:  It is a word that describes action in a sentence. Every sentence must have a verb to complete its meaning.

Adjectives:  A word or group of words that we use to modify or describe a noun or pronoun.

Adverbs:  It is something that modifies the verb and adjective.

Prepositions:  A word that expresses a relation of one clause or element to the other. (Such as ‘is, are, of).

Conjunctions:  A word that is used to connect two sentences.

Rules of Good Grammar – Grammar Guide

You may be familiar with the terms “good grammar” and “bad grammar”. Grammatical errors like incorrect word order, subject-verb agreement, and other miscues make up bad grammar. They are also sometimes termed as common grammatical errors. Ensure to follow these rules if you want your essay writing to stay in the realm of good grammar:

Subject-verb agreement

This is one of the very common grammar mistakes in English. To avoid that, remember that:

– A singular subject has a single verb

– A plural subject has a plural verb

• Single Subject

Incorrect: Albert walk daily

Correct: Albert walks daily

Explanation:  The noun Albert is single. Therefore, it will take a single form of a verb walk, which is walks.

• Plural Subject

Incorrect: The cookies is well baked.

Correct: The cookies are well baked.

Explanation:  The noun cookies is plural. Hence, it will take the plural form of a word, which is ‘are.’

Some Tips and Tricks for Achieving Correct Subject-Verb Agreement 

Since subject-verb agreement is one of the common grammatical errors, therefore keep in mind that: 

• When the word joins singular subjects ‘and’, they become plural. Hence, it would take a plural verb.

Incorrect:  Shawn and Mitchell both are good players in football.

Correct:  Shawn and Mitchell both are good players in football.

• When you have to use indefinite pronouns like anyone or somebody, use singular verbs with them.

Incorrect:  Anybody can has good writing skills. 

Correct:  Anybody can have good writing skills.

• If a noun is accompanied by a quantifier, the singularity or plurality of the verb depends on whether or not the noun is countable.

For Countable Noun:

Incorrect:  Some assignments was rejected.

Correct:  Some assignments were rejected.

For Uncountable Noun

Incorrect:  Some air flow through the small hole in the window

Correct:  Some air flows through the small hole in the window

Note: Quantifier includes any, most, some, and all.

• When you use neither – nor, not only – but also, or either – or, the verb in such sentences has to agree with the subject close to it .

Incorrect:  Neither the principal nor the teachers is in favor of an off day tomorrow., 

Correct:  Neither the principal nor the teachers are in favor of an off day tomorrow

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

A pronoun must match the noun it is referring to. Let’s say if you write, “He went to the store,” you’re implying one person. Hence, you will ensure the pronoun “he” matches the noun you’re referring to. Similarly, if you say “They went to the store,” you’re implying more than one person. Here, “they” must match the noun.

Number Agreement

As a general rule, use a single pronoun, if the subject is referring to is single. Similarly, use plural pronouns if the subject it is referring to is plural.

Correct:  He is walking in the park. (The singular antecedent “She” is matching with the singular pronoun “She.”)

Incorrect:  They is going to the park.

Plural antecedent should replace plural pronouns.

Correct:  They are going to the park. (Plural antecedent “They” matches with the plural pronoun “They.”)

Incorrect:  He are going to the park.

Gender Agreement

Pronouns need to match up with the nouns they’re referring to in terms of gender. He is used for masculine, she for feminine, and it for neutral.

Correct:  John is working as he is very determined.

Correct:  Victoria is studying; she is very focused.

Correct:  The cat is playing; it is very quiet.

Person Agreement

Pronouns must agree in person with their antecedents. There are three persons in English: first person (I, we), second person (you), and third person (he, she, it, they).

Correct:  I am going to the party.

Correct:  You are invited to the party.

Correct:  She is bringing a gift to the party.

Some Examples of Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Incorrect Agreement – Number

Although the dog is barking, but they are wagging their tails.

“The dog” is singular, but “they” and “their” are plural. It should be: The dog is barking, but it is wagging its tail.

Incorrect Agreement – Gender

Alex is an active student; he always takes part in extracurricular activities.

The correct sentence would be: Alex is an active student; he always takes part in extracurricular activities.

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Correct Usage of Commas 

In English, commas are used for a bunch of different things. Like for separating elements in a sentence. Showing a pause, and more. Here are some examples of proper comma usage:

To separate items in a list

You can use commas for separating three or more items in a list. 

Example:  I will buy pencil, rubber, and erasers. 

To set off Introductory Phrases 

Place a comma after introductory words or phrases at the beginning of a sentence.

Example:  After the exam, I will join the gym. 

Example:  In the evening, she always walks. 

To Separate two Independent Clauses 

You need to use a comma before coordinating conjunctions, like but, or, nor, and so on. 

Example:  I wanted to watch a cricket match, but I couldn’t get a ticket.

Example:  She likes running, and he loves reading. 

To Set Off Non-Important Elements

You can use commas to separate nonessential clauses, phrases or words in a sentence. 

Example:  My friend, who works in New Jersey, is visiting next week.

Example:  The book, which was a gift, is my favorite.

Separating Items in an Address or Date

Commas are used to separate parts of an address or date.

Example (address):  She lives at 123 Main Street, New York, NY.

Example (date):  The meeting is scheduled for September 15, 2023, at 2:00 PM.

Direct Address

When addressing someone directly, use a comma to set off the name or title.

Example:  John, can you pass the salt?

Example:  Mr. Smith, please take a seat.

Before “and” or “but” in a Series

Use a comma before “and” or “but” when it joins two independent clauses.

Example:  She wanted to go, and he agreed.

Example:  They were tired, but they kept going.

With Adjectives

Use a comma between two or more adjectives that modify the same noun.

Example:  It was a big, beautiful garden.

Example:  He wore a red, white, and blue shirt.

In Quotations

Commas are used to set off dialogue or quoted material.

Example : She said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Example : The famous line from the movie is, “May the Force be with you.”

With Dates and Numbers

Use commas to separate thousands and millions in numbers.

Example:  The population of the city is 1,234,567.

Example:  The event took place on June 5, 2022.

Avoid Homophones Errors 

Homophones can be tricky. They’re words that sound the same but have different meanings and sometimes different spellings. When someone makes a mistake and uses the wrong homophone, it can cause confusion or incorrect usage in their speech or writing. Here are some common examples:

Their, They’re, and There

“Their” is a possessive pronoun indicating ownership by a group.

Example:  That’s their car.

“They’re” is a contraction of “they are.”

Example:  They’re going to the store.

“There” is an adverb indicating a place or existence.

Example:  The book is over there.

Homophone error: “Their going to the store” (incorrect) instead of “They’re going to the store” (correct).

Your and You’re

“Your” is a possessive pronoun indicating ownership.

Example:  Is this your book?

“You’re” is a contraction of “you are.”

Example:  You’re coming to the party, right?

Homophone error: “Your coming to the party” (incorrect) instead of “You’re coming to the party” (correct).

Its and It’s

“Its” is a possessive pronoun indicating ownership by an object or animal.

Example:  The cat chased its tail.

“It’s” is a contraction of “it is” or “it has.”

Example:  It’s raining outside.

Homophone error: “The dog wagged it’s tail” (incorrect) instead of “The dog wagged its tail” (correct).

Two, To, and Too

“Two” is a number.

Example:  I have two tickets.

“To” is a preposition indicating direction or a verb-infinitive marker.

Example:  I’m going to the store.

“Too” means also or excessively.

Example:  I want to go too.

Homophone error: “I want to go to” (incorrect) instead of “I want to go too” (correct).

Whose and Who’s

“Whose” is a possessive pronoun asking about ownership.

Example:  Whose bag is this?

“Who’s” is a contraction of “who is” or “who has.”

Example:  Who’s coming to the meeting?

Homophone error: “Who’s bag is this” (incorrect) instead of “Whose bag is this” (correct).

Grammar Rules for Students 

Word order is super important in English because it sets the structure and meaning of sentences. It’s what makes sure we’re communicating clearly, cohesively and effectively. Generally, English follows the subject-verb-object (SVO) pattern, but there are variations we can use to show different meanings. Let’s dig into learning the grammar rules for students with examples emphasizing the importance of word rules in English. 

Clarity and Comprehension

Sticking to the rules of word order is like sticking to the important English grammar rules. Plus doing that makes it easier for people to understand your message. English speakers are used to certain word order patterns, so it’s important to follow them.

Example:  “The cat chased the dog” (SVO order) is clear and straightforward.

Subject-Verb Agreement

The order of the words in a sentence is important when it comes to showing that the subject and verb agree with each other. The subject usually appears before the verb, which helps make sure the grammar is right.

Example:  “She plays the piano” (subject “She” agrees with the verb “plays”).

Modifiers and Descriptions

The way you arrange words lets you put modifiers like adverbs and adjectives in the right spot to give more info about nouns and verbs.

Example:  “The tall, dark man quickly ran” (adjectives “tall” and “dark” describe “man,” and the adverb “quickly” modifies “ran”).

Questions and Negations

Correct word order is essential for forming questions and negations.

Example (question):  “Did you eat lunch?” (Inversion of subject and auxiliary verb)

Example (negation):  “She does not like spicy food.” (Placement of “not” after the auxiliary verb)

Emphasis and Focus

Changing word order can alter the emphasis and focus of a sentence.

Example:  “I saw a movie yesterday” (neutral emphasis)

Example:  “Yesterday, I saw a movie” (emphasizing “yesterday”)

Subordination and Complex Sentences

Word order is crucial for forming complex sentences and indicating subordination.

Example (subordination):  “Because it was raining, we stayed indoors.”

Example (complex sentence):  “Although she was tired, she finished her work.”

Tense and Aspect

Correct word order is essential for expressing verb tenses and aspects.

Example (simple past tense):  “She danced at the party.”

Example (present continuous tense):  “They are playing soccer.”

Narrative Structure

Word order helps maintain the logical flow and coherence of narratives.

Example:  “First, they arrived at the airport. Then, they checked in and boarded the plane.”

Cultural and Stylistic Considerations

Different cultures and writing styles have their own rules about word order, so it’s important to understand and abide by them in order to communicate effectively.

Example:  In some poetry, word order may be rearranged for artistic purposes, but the intended meaning remains clear through context and creative language use.

Different Types of Sentences in English

Knowing the different types of sentences in English is really important for effective communication and writing. For instance, sentences can be broken down into various categories depending on their purpose and structure. Here’s a closer look at the different types of sentences in English with examples.

Declarative Sentences

Purpose:  Statements are being made or declared, giving you information and opinions.

Structure:  Declarative statements usually follow a pattern of subject-verb-object.

Example:  “She is going to the store.”

Interrogative Sentences

Purpose:  Interrogative sentences are used to ask questions.

Structure:  Interrogative sentences often begin with a question word (who, what, when, where, why, how) or an auxiliary verb (is, are, do, does, can, etc.), followed by the subject and the main verb.

Example:  “Where are you going?”

Imperative Sentences

Purpose:  Imperative sentences give commands, make requests, or offer invitations.

Structure:  Imperative sentences typically begin with the base form of a verb (without a subject).

Example:  “Please pass the salt.”

Exclamatory Sentences

Purpose:  Exclamatory sentences express strong emotions or excitement.

Structure:  Exclamatory sentences often begin with “What” or “How” and end with an exclamation point.

Example:  “What a beautiful sunset!”

Conditional Sentences

Purpose:  Conditional sentences express hypothetical or conditional situations, indicating what would happen under certain conditions.

Structure:  Conditional sentences consist of two clauses: the conditional (if) clause and the result (main) clause.

Free Online Tools to Remove Grammatical Mistakes

There are a bunch of free online tools out there that can help you make sure your writing is free of any grammar errors. They’re really great for making sure your essays, emails, reports, and other written materials are clear and error-free. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most popular free online tools to remove grammatical mistakes online.

Features:  Grammarly is one of the popular grammatical tools and spelling checker that catches a bunch of errors, like grammar goofs, punctuation slip-ups, spelling mistakes, sentence structure issues, and style blunders.

Usage:  You can access Grammarly online through your web browser, or you can get their browser extension. They also have a plugin for Microsoft Word.

Free Version:  Grammarly has a free option with basic grammar and spelling checks, and if you want even more help with your writing, you can upgrade to the premium version.

ProWritingAid

Features:  ProWritingAid is an awesome writing tool that checks your work for grammar, style, readability, and more – giving you tips on how you can make it even better.

Usage:  It can be used online or as a browser extension. It also integrates with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and other writing platforms.

Free Version:  ProWritingAid has a basic, free version that offers basic grammar and style checks. If you want the more advanced features, you have to pay for a subscription.

Features:  Ginger is a super handy AI-based writing tool that can help you find mistakes in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. It even has a feature to help you reword things.

Usage:  You can use Ginger either online or as an extension for your browser. Plus, if you’re always on the go, they’ve got a mobile app so you can proofread while you’re out.

Free Version:  Ginger has a free version with basic grammar and spelling checks, and you can upgrade for more features.

Hemingway Editor

Features: This editor helps you make your writing clearer and easier to read – it’ll point out sentences that are too complicated, show you when you’re using passive voice too much, and give you ideas on how to simplify things.

Usage:  Use to simplify the sentences and correct grammatical errors in a document.

Free Version:  You can get it for free if you use it online, but if you want to use it offline, there’s a paid desktop version, too.

LanguageTool

Features:  LanguageTool is an open-source grammar and style checker that supports multiple languages. It checks for grammatical errors, spelling, and style issues.

Usage:  You can use LanguageTool online, or you can install browser extensions for various browsers. It also offers a desktop version.

Free Version:  LanguageTool offers a free version with basic grammar checks. Premium features are available.

Features:  Scribens is a free, multilingual grammar checker that identifies grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. It offers style suggestions as well.

Usage:  You can use Scribens online without the need for any downloads or installations.

Free Version:  Scribens is entirely free to use.

Features:  Reverso not only checks grammar and spelling but also offers contextual suggestions, translations, and examples of word usage.

Usage:  It can be used online, and Reverso’s browser extension provides real-time corrections as you type.

Free Version:  Reverso offers a free version with basic grammar and spelling checks.

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She used Grammarly to proofread her paper. Now she's accused of 'unintentionally cheating.'

Whatever my school's rule is on artificial intelligence, i will abide by it. but the concern over grammarly makes me think of the debate over calculator use in schools from the 1970s..

Grammarly , the company that provides the eponymous grammar and syntax program, recently announced that it’s getting smarter and now offers “strategic suggestions” for its  30 million users . It might not be an innovation that helps the company.

As Grammarly gains more generative capabilities, its usefulness for students declines because it will place them at risk for unnecessary academic discipline. 

In a story that’s gone viral, University of North Georgia student Marley Stevens ended up on academic probation for using Grammarly on her criminal justice essay. Stevens said her professor accused her of “unintentionally cheating” on her academic work because she used the program to proofread her paper.

Stevens received a zero for the assignment, which she said put her scholarship at risk. Under Stevens’ TikTok video , comments indicated that she’s not the only student who’s been penalized for Grammarly use. 

Stevens’ case shows the murkier world of using artificial intelligence in schools – using it as an aid, a resource, rather than a replacement for one’s work. Until now, discussions of AI’s use in academics focused on its potential for plagiarism, the act of simply representing an AI product as one’s own work, which is admittedly indefensible.  Researchers from Stanford University say that concern is overblown. 

At my school, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, the use of generative AI is prohibited .

What's considered cheating may depend on your school

Grammarly hasn’t been necessarily generative in the ways we think of that type of intelligence; it couldn’t write a student’s essay like ChatGPT can. But now the “ strategic suggestions ” make the program more generative in nature – and more likely to fall under general AI bans. 

Here’s the rub, though: Many schools encourage and even pay for students to use Grammarly. It's expressly promoted in at least 3,000 educational institutions that have signed up for institutional accounts, according to Grammarly .

In Stevens’ case, the University of North Georgia promoted Grammarly on its website then removed it , then placed it on its website again. 

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While individual schools should be allowed to create their own policies, we are headed for a situation where what’s considered cheating is allowed at one school and not at another. Or in one course and not another.

That’s a problem because academic integrity is universal. Or at least it’s supposed to be. 

Whatever the rule is on using Grammarly, I will abide by it, but I notice that the concern over the type of assistance Grammarly provides hearkens back to the debate over calculator use in schools.

How is Grammarly different from a calculator – or autocorrect?

Back in the 1970s, some educators and parents worried that calculators might supplant math lessons . Research shows that they never did. It took 50 years, but with calculators now required in some courses and tests, we know that assistive technology doesn’t necessarily replace basic lessons – or do our work for us. 

We now prioritize agility of thought and creativity over memorization; that’s why some schools rid themselves of  spelling tests  in favor of critical thinking. 

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If anything, these devices and programs allow deeper learning, mostly because they’re used by students who are well past the age of initial math functions and grammar lessons. If anything, Grammarly is a refresher on grammar lessons of years past. 

Technically, autocorrect is a form of AI , but holding its use against a student whose typos were fixed would be overkill and defeat the purpose of these programs, which were created to meet the needs of education’s evolution. 

Whether using Grammarly constitutes cheating is a multibillion dollar question that remains unanswered; it's an ethical question that intersects with school finance. Use of Grammarly might cause students to lose scholarships, and schools don’t refund tuition if a student is expelled and that student may owe student loans. On top of that are the opportunity costs of being accused of cheating.

Marley Stevens’ fight wages on, but Grammarly donated $4,000 to her GoFundMe to assist her education. 

Beyond Stevens’ case, though, technology companies that provide programs to students need to consider how making their products more generative will create more problems for students who use them. And teachers and schools that ban these programs need to consider what kind of learning they want from students.  

Ultimately – in all areas, not just education – AI is a case of making sure our technology does not outpace our integrity or call into question honest work. Otherwise, we all may be cheating. Or worse, not learning as much as we can.

William Tang is a high school junior at Deerfield Academy and serves on the school’s Honor Committee.