if you want to improve your writing you might be thinking about using some free
spelling or grammar apps plug-in websites the thing is are those any good
in today's episode I'm gonna show you the capabilities of some of the free
products on there to help you polish your work here we go
some might think that using a spelling or grammar app as a writer is akin to
using autotune as a singer in a way you are bypassing the skills and discipline
of writing and that is having a good handle of the tools which are the
vocabulary and the structure which is a grammar of the written language yet in
this day and age to not use a tool that is available it feels like a stupid
thing to do it can be debated that what is important are the ideas being
communicated so anything that can help you communicate your ideas better should
definitely be taken advantage of and spelling and grammar apps plugins and
websites are definitely there to help you do that personally I'm a proponent
of spelling and grammar apps because writing is not editing as a writer you
always want another set of eyes to check your work just to catch mistakes that
you've made typos little grammatical errors before you send it off to your
company to read not every writer has the luxury of time and community to review
the work and that is why I think spelling and grammar apps are helpful
that way also the writers who choose not to use spelling and grammar apps still
have access to them it's like choosing to walk but the bus is still there it's
still an option you can still use it with all that off my chest today I want
to share with you for spelling and grammar tools that are free available to
you right now but I want to review them to show you what they're capable of
what they will miss and what they will catch that way you can use them
strategically in your next project all right
we go let's get started so in order for me to review these tools I had to write
a paragraph full of spelling and grammatical errors to see if these tools
can actually catch them so I wrote one of the worst paragraphs I have ever
written thinking about trying to write a paragraph full of mistakes it's actually
really hard give it a try so I wrote this really bad paragraph above the city
I live in Vancouver it includes spelling mistakes passive voice run-on sentences
comma splice stuff like that so now that I have this paragraph I'm
gonna drop it into one of these tools and to see what they actually catch all
right so the first tool I want to review is called polished my writing calm so
here's how it works I copy my paragraph my really bad
paragraph and I paste it into the text box and I click check writing suddenly
all these different color squiggly lines will pop up so right away I see that
polish my writing com missed out on a lot of spelling errors and run-on
sentences but what it did pick up are the complex phrases and words these are
words and phrases I could omit from my story kinda I take a look at the
paragraph and what has been underlined and I still I don't know if it's super
helpful I think this tool may be useful as a final touch sort of scenario maybe
after you do a more thorough edit it definitely missed a lot of spelling
mistakes and probably won't save you from any embarrassment if you're relying
on it solely so the next app I want to talk about is the Hemingway app which is
modeled after Ernest Hemingway who is known for his brevity once again I'll
grab my paragraph and I will throw it into the Hemingway app
what is great about this app is that it shows you the readability of your work
so if you're using a really complex word it'll let you know if you're using too
many words to describe a concept it'll let you know if you're using run-on
sentences I'll let you know what it doesn't do is pick up on spelling
mistakes what it won't do is pick up on grammatical errors this app is
definitely not a spell checker and should not be used that way but if
you're writing content for a really wide audience this is actually a really good
app because it helps you write in plain English it shows you where you're being
too complicated and how you could simplify it the next app I want to talk
about but you've probably heard about is grammerly now I'm not reviewing the any
of the paid version I'm just reviewing the free version here these are all free
keep that in mind I'm gonna open up the grammar early browser which link to all
these products are in the description and i'ma see what it comes up with there
you go a bunch of red lines this looks familiar so grandma Lee actually did a
really good job catching most of the spelling errors and punctuation mistakes
but it was not too helpful in catching passive voice run-on sentences and vague
descriptions so there you go grandma Lee is probably the best choice so far if
what you want is to make sure everything is spelled correctly so the last app I
want to talk about today is expresso so while all the other apps today that I
reviewed focused on catching mistakes here and there this one is more of an
analyzer so I'm gonna work the same way I'm gonna copy and paste that bad
paragraph I have into expresso app and I get something called metrics for editing
now this app has a lot of details and suggestions and in doing so it could be
a little confusing especially when all you want is to help check to see if
there's any mistakes this is not really the app for that
if you're not confident in your spelling and grammar' in the first place to be
able to correct mistakes that have been identified I don't know if this is the
best place to go paste your writing in and then click into each category and
try to understand why this word or phrase was highlighted not every
highlight is a suggestion to change it's more or less just noted for you to
consider whether you choose to replace it or not that is up to you it's just
telling you that that is that so those are for free spelling and grammar apps
and tools for you to consider using my favorite app in this review is grammarly
I think it's the most useful one it has a plug in it catches little spelling
grammar mistakes just when you're moving quickly it's a good tool to have just to
clean up your writing really fast my runner-up is definitely the Hemingway
app if what I'm writing needs to be clear and concise I hope you found this
video helpful if you did don't forget to hit that like button and if you want to
see more writing tips tricks ideas inspirations please subscribe I'll see
you in the next video bye