Would you show up dressed for a fancy party in dirty, wrinkled clothes?
Presenting yourself for the world to see in a disheveled outfit is the equivalent of presenting a blog post for the world to see full of grammar mistakes.
You don’t have to be a linguist or a grammarian to ensure your post is rid of grammar errors.
Fortunately, free tools exist today to help you. Grammarly is one of those tools.
Blogger Pat Flynn recommends Grammarly. He calls it The spell-check tool I use, on steroids. Through my browser, anything I write automatically goes through their database of spelling and grammatical checks to make sure I write properly.
I have invited guest author Sofie van Nierop to explain why she uses Grammarly, the value it holds for other bloggers, and how to use the site.
What Can Grammarly Do For You and Your Blog?
[Grammarly is] one simple plugin that can improve your writing drastically.
[Admin Blogger’s Note: You do not have to self-host to use Grammarly. You plug it in to your internet browser.]Did you ever struggle with grammar, typos or spelling mistakes in your posts? As a blogger, I try to maintain a good quality of writing in every post. Unfortunately, I’m not the best at grammar or spelling. A bad grammar mistake can make your post unreadable or you will fail to get your point across.
Luckily, earlier this year I found an easy solution that made my writing a lot better. I found a simple and free program that not only checks your spelling in a way that your browser never could.
If you have Google Chrome as a browser, this is a really easy way to improve your blog quality.
About Grammarly:
Grammarly is a Google Chrome browser plugin. This means that you install the program in your Chrome browser. The program then works all across the web.
The browser version of Grammarly shows up whenever you are writing. This includes Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress. This is great not only for you blog but also for your social media. Never send a tweet with a spelling/grammar mistake again.
What You Can Do with Grammarly:
- It checks if you have used the right word in the right context.
- It checks actual grammar mistakes. (Like a and an and wrong tenses of verbs.)
- It will give you the meaning/definition of words if you double click it.
The plugin has both a free version and a premium version you need to pay for. But personally, I think that with the free version alone you already have a big advantage. The free version has already all the features that I need to have better writing.
There is also a Windows version that works on your desktop. That version is great for when you want to edit bigger documents. You can simply import them into the program and edit them in the same way.
How to Install Grammarly:
Since Grammarly is a Chrome plugin, you start with opening Google Chrome. In the top right corner of your browser, there is a hamburger menu. Click it and go to more tools and then extensions.
It will bring you to all the currently installed extensions. At the bottom of that page, it has a link to the actual store. There it is easy to find the Grammarly plugin by just using the search option.
It should tell you there at the top of the description if this plugin is compatible with your device.
After that, you just have to download and install and you are done.
It comes with a personal webpage where you can log in and edit documents. It also has a tutorial document where you can try out Grammarly easily for the first time.
How to Use Grammarly:
After you have installed it, it will have a green button in the right corner of your browser.
Now, if you write in a text window you will get a button in the right bottom corner. It will be green when you have no mistakes. When it detects a mistake, the button will turn red and have a number on it for the number of mistakes.
Now you have two options:
- You can click the red underlined word and it will tell you why it is registered as a mistake. You can then either click the right option when given any, or it will say “correct in Grammarly” and a small red arrow.
- You can also open the editor from the beginning. (You do this by pressing the Grammarly button in the corner of your text box.) I love this feature for bigger texts like blog posts. It makes the blog posts so much easier to edit when I can see all the mistakes and then go through them one by one. After you are done, you can simply close the editor and the text will be edited in the original text field.
It is also very easy to check old blog posts, and I’m very happy that the editing process is so quick. My old blog posts were full of mistakes that this simple plugin fixes within minutes.
One little sidenote, though– even though this editor is great, it is still a computer program, so you should still check what you are writing. This program does not know if you mean feature or future, but both are correct words, so it will not register as a mistake.
Regardless, I love how much my writing has improved since I have started using this plugin. As someone whose first language is not English, making mistakes is easy, but this feature has not only made it easier to correct them but also taught me a lot about grammar.
With the report, I get every week I can see how much my writing is improved and what kind of mistakes I should watch for.
It is a simple and great feature. I highly recommend this extension to any blogger who wants to improve their blog through better writing.
Author Bio:
I’m Sofie van Nierop, and I am a young artist, blogger and entrepreneur. I blog mostly about art, blogging, starting my own business and my journey through all of it. When I am not blogging or painting, I like to read or go on hikes.
Admin Blogger’s Commentary:
After you make an account, Grammarly will send you updates on how your writing is progressing from week to week. Even when I forget to use Grammarly, the site alerts me that I forgot to check my grammar the week before.
Sofie did a great job explaining Grammarly’s value. The site is not just valuable for bloggers. It is valuable for everyone. Wherever you go on the Internet, Grammarly will be there with you making sure you leave grammar errors out of your writing.
Readers, please share, so other writers know the value of Grammarly.
Have you heard of Grammarly? Do you use it? If yes, would you recommend it to others? If not, how do you ensure your posts are error-free? Is there another tool you use and would recommend? I look forward to your views.
After you share and comment, go thank Sofie for the great job she did with this article by visiting her blog SofieDoesArt.com.
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