SOFTWARE REVIEW: GRAMMARLY

Part of every job is to use different software and hardware tools. Unfortunately, some of these software and hardware are doing us more damage than good, and some are so useful that you cannot work without them. In this article series, I will discuss the software and hardware I use as a mechanical design engineer. In this article, I will talk about the software Grammarly I use to check how I write my e-mails, documents, articles, blog posts, etc.

Introduction

I am not a native English speaker. My first language is Croatian, but I started learning English very young. When I began to work with native English speakers, I started paying more attention to my grammar and how I was writing. Each e-mail or report would take a lot of time for me to write because I would repeatedly check to see if I had missed something.

Usually, you cannot directly translate from Croatian to English; many things are in a different context in one language than in another, so I had to pay special attention to details when writing. The biggest challenge in English (and German) for me are articles. In the Croatian language, the concept of articles (“the” and “a”) does not exist, and I always forget to write them in a foreign language.

Somehow, I found Grammarly, and my writing confidence skyrocketed. I feel that Grammarly is in real life for non-native English speakers, like cheat codes in video games. I use Grammarly when writing e-mails, reports, presentations, articles, blog posts, or any other official communication. While Grammarly is not always 100% correct, and you should have a certain English knowledge, it helps you elevate your writing to a higher level.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is an app that helps you with grammar, spelling, style, and tone. It is a comprehensive grammar and spell checker that you can use both online and offline. You can use Grammarly directly on their website, as a desktop app, you can use it as a browser extension, etc.

Features

Here is the list of Grammarly’s features:

Spelling (free and premium),
Grammar (free and premium),
Punctuation (free and premium),
Conciseness ((free and premium),
Clarity-focused sentence rewrites (premium),
Tone adjustment (premium),
Plagiarism detection (premium),
Word choice (premium),
Fluency(premium), etc.

In addition to the above, you can connect Grammarly with Gmail, Google docs, Microsoft Outlook and Word, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Buying options

There are two options for using Grammarly: free and premium.

A free version, of course, has limited functionality, while the premium version offers a full range of services for a monthly fee.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

Wide range of available services,
Ability to connect with other applications,
Increases writing confidence,
If you are keen to learn better English, Grammarly can help,
Excellent return on investment for non-native English speakers.

Cons:

Certain knowledge of English is still required,
Price could be a problem for some users.

Conclusion

As a non-native English speaker, I cannot express enough how valuable Grammarly is to me. I was worried about starting a website and teaching people about mechanical design engineering without knowing grammar enough to write professionally. I was thinking of hiring someone to proofread articles and blog posts, but that option was way too expensive for me.

But with the knowledge that I have together with Grammarly, I have written and proofread all articles and blog posts myself, without second thoughts about it. Of course, there will be mistakes, and not everything will be perfect, but I believe that my articles and blog posts are written at a higher level than they would be without Grammarly. Furthermore, when you are working a full-time job and afterward you work on your side hustle, Grammarly always comes as a good sanity check in case you, due to tiredness, oversee something.

This is my experience with using Grammarly. Do you have experience with it? Are you thinking about trying it? Share your experience and thoughts in the comments below!

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