Skip to main content

On-line Proofreading: Grammarly Lite plug-in worth getting

Just added the Grammarly plug-in for Chrome and have found it to be a great little app.

The plug-in is free and for the Chrome browser you can download it here.

At first I was not impressed. The 'lite' version says it checks spelling, grammar and punctuation when you are typing online. However, I found that it does not do a good job on grammar or punctuation (in fact it does a horrible job).

That said, it does a great job on spelling, allowing you to double click on a word you've misspelled and replace it with the right one from a drop down menu. You can also right click on a word and get a list of synonyms.  For those that have ever had to Google search to find out how to spell a word correctly, you'll know what a pain that is. Grammarly makes it super easy to fix your mistakes without leaving your document.

Now with regards to grammar and punctuation. I find it misses a ton of mistakes and the ones that it does catch, it fails to make it easy for you to find the mistake. For instance, it will notify you that you have three grammar mistakes, but there's no way to click on a hyperlink or something to take you to those mistakes in your document. Instead, you are forced to visually scan through the document to find the spot with a red squiggly line.

That may not sound like a big deal, but if you've written a long post it can be very annoying when you can't find the squiggly line.

In addition, it sometimes picks up mistakes that aren't mistakes. For instance, two words may be separated by a space yet it identifies a mistakes as though there were two spaces. No matter what you do - inserting a comma or various other things - it continues to say there is a mistake.

In addition, it does not offer alternatives. So it may notify you that your grammar is wrong, but doesn't tell you what is wrong or how to fix it.

Overall though, if only for the spell check and easy fixes for misspelled words, the free Grammarly plug-in is worth getting. It definitely makes you feel more at ease that anything you've posted online isn't filled with egregious errors.

It's also a smart little marketing tool to expose people to the Grammarly service.  The full (paid) service offers far more than the lite version and I have to say, if my editing needs grew I'd definitely consider Grammarly.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Featured Post: Where Can You Buy My Books?

Interested in purchasing one of my books? Below are the links that will take you to the right place on Amazon. A Manufactured Mind On Amazon On Kobo On Barnes and Noble On iTunes Obey On Amazon On Kobo  On B&N  On iTunes  The Fall of Man Trilogy Days of Judgment (Book One) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes System Crash (Book Two) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes A Fool's Requiem (Book Three) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes
Post a Comment
Read more

E-cigarettes: A PR battle Health Canada cannot win?

So I've now been using an e-cigarette (e-cig) for two months and thought I'd talk a bit about how I see the upcoming battle between Health Canada and e-cigs going. First though, let's do a quick overview of what exactly an e-cig is. Basically an e-cig vaporizes liquid that contains nicotine. The vapor is then inhaled. People who use e-cigs are called vapers (not smokers). Because the liquid is atomized (ie. vaporized), not burned the way tobacco is, vapers do not consider themselves 'smokers' in anyway. An e-cig is comprised of basically three components: The tank - this is the component that holds the juice (sometimes referred to as e-juice or e-liquid). The atomizer - this a coil and wick unit that atomizes the juice. When the coil is heated (from the battery) it atomizes the juice that has soaked into the wick. The battery - batteries for e-cigs come in various capacities (some last 8 hours, others 40+ hours, depending on their size).  The ba...
3 comments
Read more

More evidence of the Internet Revolution

Bell ushers in new era with CTV deal  So Bell has purchased CTV.  Not really that big a deal under normal circumstances, except when you realize why they did it... Driving convergence this time, the Internet-enabled mobile devices such as smart phones and computer tablets are threatening home television’s lock on viewers. Bell, like its rivals, wants to offer more content to its subscribers, however they receive the signal. Viewers are increasingly interested in watching their favourite shows on their phones while they ride the bus or sit in the park, and the cable and phone companies that have served as middle men between viewers and broadcasters were in danger of being marginalized. You know what sort of worries me about this kind of acquisition? It's clearly an attempt to own (control) content. When they say marginalized what they really mean is service providers being nothing more than dumb pipes - providing connectivity to the internet and nothing more. As ...
Post a Comment
Read more