essay writing grammarly

How to Use Grammarly: Step-by-Step

In this tutorial , discover how to use Grammarly to improve your writing skills and get the most from its powerful writing tools.

Grammarly is a popular writing assistant for writers and professionals who want to improve their grammar, punctuation, and writing style. I’ve used Grammarly for years for blog posts, papers, academic documents, and books. It helps me press send, submit, or publish much faster. I also use it to vet and edit work by freelance writers.

Using Grammarly is easy. Once set up, it can provide real-time feedback as you write. Aside from catching minor mistakes like spelling and grammar mistakes, Grammarly can also provide writing suggestions that you can accept at a click. In this Grammarly tutorial, I will walk through setting it up set by step. However, if you’re already familiar with it, the below table summarizes how to use Grammarly’s key reports.

• Grammarly Report Check

• ✓ Best-in-class grammar checker
• ✓ Rewrite and edit at a click/span>
• ✓ Powerful AI-writing assistant

Watch Our Grammarly Tutorial

Why is it important to use grammarly, create a grammarly account, install the grammarly browser extensions, install the grammarly desktop app, install grammarly keyboard, class=”wp-block-heading”>upgrade to grammarly premium, language preferences, writing preferences, grammarly snippets, set writing goals with grammarly, understanding the grammarly scores, 1. correctness report, 2. clarity report, 3. engagement report, 4. delivery report, grammarly limitations.

In this Grammarly tutorial, I provide an overview of how to set up and use n:enhancement-98da7657-f353-49d8-8f15-864c3cc7a04c” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly to grammar check and edit your work quickly and easily.

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Grammarly can help professional writers edit their work faster. It can also help new writers learn the finer points of English grammar by improving their work. And it can help professionals write anything for work with confidence. It can also dramatically reduce the time spent editing and revising, thanks to artificial intelligence.

It’s easy to set up your ss=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly account. Simply visit ta-mce-href=”http://grammarly.com/”>Grammarly.com and select Get Grammarly. It’s Free” in the menu bar.

Sign up using your best Google, Facebook, Apple, or personal email address. Later, you can upgrade to the premium version, but you can use the free version of -cc8f-426b-b354-093615748ce7″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly to complete many steps in this tutorial. Alternatively, install Grammarly for your browser and follow the sign-up prompts.

Grammarly automatically provides the right app, depending on what device you use via its homepage. However, you can also install the 2c9a-4b5b-9edc-fdaeb83fe826″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly Chrome extension and others via the web app.

• Visit Grammarly.com
• Select “Get Grammarly. It’s Free” in the menu bar

— wp:list –>

• Grammarly automatically provides the right app for your browser. Download it.
• Install and log in with your Grammarly account.
• ammarly in the Apple App, Google Play, or Chrome web stores. –
• –>

The Grammarly desktop app works across all 7be4f60a97dd” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/post_tag/writing-apps”>writing apps on a computer, including Microsoft Office and Google Docs. Unfortunately, browsers like Opera or Brave are not supported. If you get stuck at this step, I’ve created separate Grammarly installation instructions below: 

Installing the desktop app is the easiest and best way to use a6-4eb0-4cff-bc52-ce288ae5c228″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly. To install it:

• Log in to app.grammarly.com
• Select apps on the left-hand side-bar

automatically

• provides the right app for your operating system. Downl

graph –>

p><span< span=””> id=”urn:enhancement-ebf244ac-df73-4ce8-b3b0-d3d74190a42d” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly</span<>

• Desktop works in the background on Mac and Windows computers. Once installed, y
• write in any application as normal without installing additional plugins.
• — /wp:paragraph –>

When ready to edit, click the floating a25c8e68″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly icon or G. It automatically triggers grammar and spelling suggestions. You can turn this on or off by clicking the cog on the <span id=”urn:enhancement-9241dbad-9736-4df4-9bfe-27df2dbecfa0″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly icon or opening the 238″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly desktop app. If you get stuck, we’ve provided additional instructions below:> </s

How to Add Grammarly to Google Docs

How to Add Grammarly to Microsoft Word

How to Add Grammarly to Gmail

To install the Grammarly keyboard for iOS or Android, search for it in the Apple App or Google Pay Store. Then, log in with your account. Be sure the grant the app the correct privileges. Now tap the G icon on the bottom of your screen when writing to activate it.

The basic version of s=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly is free to use. ass=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly Premium costs $30 per month. Prices vary depending on what ement-3ed9f505-6811-491f-b962-d23b57cccd0d” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/post_tag/promotion”>promotion Grammarly is running. I cover the differences in more detail in this 7″ href=”https://becomeawritertoday.com/grammarly-free-vs-premium/” data-mce-href=”https://becomeawritertoday.com/grammarly-free-vs-premium/”>Grammarly Free Vs. Premium article, but some c” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly Premium benefits include:

• Advanced grammar, punctuation, and style checks
• Genre-specific writing style checks

Grammarly Business is for professional teams. It provides enhanced collaboration tools, centralized billing, and additional functionality for teams. The business plan costs $12.50 per month per user, billed annually.

If you’re a new writer or starting, the free version of d18f0-0f03-4e60-adec-f8262b71a35b” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly free is fine. It will help you find and fix more errors than a traditional grammar or spelling checker. The premium version is good if you write professionally or want to improve your professional English :enhancement-c7804044-98b2-41e6-8f47-b6d541eff927″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/post_tag/writing-skills”>writing skills. 

Customize Grammarly’s Settings

Grammarly offers several useful advanced features if you want to tailor this grammar checker to how you write, who you write for, and where you publish your work. If you find Grammarly’s suggestions unhelpful or not relevant or are writing something specific, adjust these settings. They are available via the admin panel in the web app/

If you use specific words or terms that c4cc64fbf5c0″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly flags as an error, add them to your custom dictionary by clicking the ment-f4485463-6c0c-494b-a8b3-a9c55bab6b1e” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly icon. You can also manage this custom dictionary via the admin panel on the <span id=”urn:enhancement-bfd4522b-867a-4b4b-96e3-2a5d18e23f19″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly web app. Examples of words to add include technical terms or phrases related to your company or business. Fiction writers could add character names, spells, locations, etc.&nbsp;</sp

After installing Grammarly, set whether you’re writing American, British, Canadian, or Australian English. Open up a <span id= “urn:enhancement-15ae55fc-0bf9-4f47-83fc-413f57daea86″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly document, click on the hamburger menu, and select your relevant language preferences. You can change between English variations at any time.p> <p>There are differences in spellings between these English language variations. For example, in the United States, “I reali<strong>ze I n</strongeed to improve my grammar skills” is correct. In the United Kingdom, they write, “I reali sng>e I need to improve my nt-0d3fca00-5730-412a-aabe-ee2f2bf80f14″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly skills,” is correct. </span

At the time of writing, “textan notation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly only supports the English language. However, the company plans to support other languages at some point.

The writing preferences section of 7-b1fc7ec87fe8″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly is for configuring its suggestions. ass=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly surfaces versus ignoring. Basically, use the settings here to adjust the functionality of Grammarly. It’s accessible via the admin panel or settings in the web app. If you find some suggestion types irrelevant, you can turn these off. For example, you can turn on on our off rules relating to:

• The usage of the Oxford comma
• Inserting a full stop between AM and PM, i.e., A.M., P.M.
• Punctuation mistakes as per your preferred style
• Biased language
• Word variations
• Gender pronouns 

Grammarly regularly reported I needed to change my straight apostrophes to curly apostrophes. It was always the first error that popped up and was irrelevant to my publishing workflow. So, I turned this writing style rule off. 

If you’re unsure, leave everything turned on. On the other hand, if you need more advanced controls, Grammarly Business supports dedicated style guides. To learn more, read our -id=”414173″ href=”https://becomeawritertoday.com/grammarly-business-review/” data-mce-href=”https://becomeawritertoday.com/grammarly-business-review/”>Grammarly Business Review.

If you regularly use specific terms or phrases, ba65529140″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly can turn these into snippets . Simply, add the term or phrase to your snippet library and select an abbreviation. Now, Grammarly will expand these for you. Or you can access your snippet library by taping \. For example, I created the snippet BAWT which Grammarly expands to Become a Writer Today.

Open the goals section and pick a goal based on your document and audience. If unsure, it’s OK to select: “General,” “Inform,” “Knowledgeable,” and “Neutral.” 

However, changing these goals tailors the number of suggestions -4197-a0be-cb06871daf73″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly surfaces in its Clarity and Delivery reports. With a few exceptions, don’t worry about goals at the start of the grammar-checking process. Instead, start using id=”urn:enhancement-7fdd4a0f-3e01-49ef-82e6-8085d669307e” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly.

Suppose you’re writing something academic or technical. Then, select formal, expert, and academic. Also, pick a preferred citation style. That way, ement-73bfac35-7d92-429a-b062-7b79ae8146c6″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly will provide more relevant suggestions in its reports. However, these are overkill for casual writers.>

p-block-heading”>How Grammarly Works

Grammarly is an intelligent tool that provides writers with valuable feedback and suggestions for their writing. It provides an overall report for your work, four more specific reports, and access to a plagiarism detector:

Write an article, email, blog post, or whatever you’re working on as usual. When ready, click on the floating 3e218″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly icon, identified with a G or a number, to activate it. That triggers urn:enhancement-bc61e2a1-07bd-41f9-a6a1-876312c855d4″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly and underlines sections of your work in red.

Conversely, you can turn <sp< span=””>an id=”urn:enhancement-c06ca93f-fad5-42ae-8648-fa772fcf10b7″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly</sp<> off inside a specific app by selecting the gear cog on this icon. Your other option is to write as usual and then upload the file to the <span id=”urn:enhancement-3eb78d40-e3d1-4b1d-9138-367299bc216a” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly editor or web app to check for errors. Once activated, t-4c716bde-953e-4c86-b90d-17e4769f749c” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly presents its other writing reports. All are accessible via tooltips or a pop-up. Work through each of the 467-2e6230202f39″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly reports individually rather than all at once. </s

I don’t start with the reports, though. My favorite “textann otation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly premium feature is the ability to apply multiple fixes at a click. I check these suggestions at the top of the c766ff-cfda-40b3-bd28-3445378d346b” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly sidebar. Often this includes typo fixes and copyediting suggestions from the 2cb-f80b0d8c990b” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly rewrite. Click on it, and Grammarly presents the most critical suggestions in a document. Bin the ones that don’t make sense and apply the rest.

The Grammarly score provides writers with a way to evaluate the quality of their writing based on grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and other issues. It also considers the clarity, engagement, and readability of the piece.

Use this report to find information about how many characters, words, and sentences are in a document. cea2765-84ee-4fad-8d5e-272eab7cae64″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly reports on speaking time too. A few years ago, I narrated an audiobook. I used the speaking time reports to gauge how long it would take to narrate specific chapters from my book.

<p>It’s best to aim for a score above 70. Aim to get the readability score as high as possible because it’ll make it easier for your readers to understand what you want to say. That said, it’s tough to get a readability score above 80 or 90. Learn more aboutrtoday.com/grammarly-readability-score/” data-lasso-id=”414179″ data-mce-href=”https://becomeawritertoday.com/grammarly-readability-score/”> how the Grammarly Readability report works. If your writing is below 70, work through the below reports.

<!– wp:heading {“level”:3,”UAGDay”:[]} –>

The spelling and grammar error report is the most critical of all four. rn:enhancement-5912c03c-24c7-48e6-9c24-210bc5d668c6″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly underlines any misused or misspelled words in red. It also highlights grammar and punctuation errors. By hovering over the underlined word, writers can see the suggested correction and choose to accept or ignore it as part of a more comprehensive grammar check.

This report’s punctuation suggestions can help writers correctly place commas, periods, and other punctuation marks.

<span id=”urn:enhancement-851fec72-012f-4139-be4c-a6fec4feb2ef” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly underlines phrases and sentences that are hard to read in blue. Its suggestions pertain to a-4aaa-a950-61d5c090e3ef” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/sentence-structure”>sentence structure, word usage, and the readability of your work. Writers can accept or ignore the suggestions. d=”urn:enhancement-f0deb28d-fe70-4d41-a7b0-194b13663148″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly Premium will propose full-sentence rewrites here too. Grammarly’s suggestions vary based on your preferred style and writing goals. I use this feature daily to rewrite or edit freelance writers’ works for my sites.</s

The engagement report is useful for writers who want to improve their word choice. 18-edb0-45ae-ae2b-2413c409452b” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly highlights overused words, phrases, and terms in green and proposes alternatives. You can also double-click on any word inside the 841c4fa0871c” class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly web app to access a thesaurus.

To make the most out of Grammarly, users should review each suggestion carefully and consider whether the proposed change would improve the quality of their writing. If in doubt, start with the grammar check report in red and review the other reports if you have more time.

In a 24-hour period, you can check 100 documents or 50,000 words. In a 30-day period, you can check up to 300 documents or 150,000 words with <span id=”urn:enhancement-913ff3db-92c0-4e3f-8a5d-027ad3104de9″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly. These limitations also apply to the plagiarism checker. For context, a age-length-of-a-book/” data-lasso-id=”414182″ data-mce-href=”https://becomeawritertoday.com/average-length-of-a-book/”>non-fiction book averages between 50,000-70,000 words a novel averages one hundred thousand words. In my years using <span id=”urn:enhancement-2d6722e9-6c42-4465-ae13-5d5948f89641″ class=”textannotation disambiguated wl-thing” itemid=”https://data.wordlift.io/wl1503639/category/grammarly-fr”>Grammarly, I’ve never hit this limitation, and I use it to check my writing and the writing of other team members.</span

• Get Organized

I Improved My Writing With Grammarly, and So Can You

The popular online writing tool catches more errors than any spellchecker, but you have to be a confident enough writer to know when to take its suggestions and when to ignore them.

I've been contributing to PCMag since 2011 and am currently the deputy managing editor for the software team. My column, Get Organized , has been running on PCMag since 2012. It gives advice on how to manage all the devices, apps, digital photos, email, and other technology that can make you feel like you're going to have a panic attack.

The first time I tried the online writing tool Grammarly , I admit that I was mostly interested in uncovering its faults. I was caught off guard by what the app did well, though unsurprised (and hopefully not too smug) about where it came up short. That was in 2016. Grammarly has grown and improved since then, with new features that let you choose what kind of document you're writing and what type of audience will read it.

Grammarly is a writing app that benefits all kinds of writers, from non-native speakers to busy professionals. It helps you nip typos, errors, and poor word choices in the bud. Even experienced writers may find that sending their copy for a quick spin through Grammarly forces them to at least reconsider a few words and phrases they may have overlooked.

What Is Grammarly?

Grammarly analyzes writing and suggests improvements. Despite its name, Grammarly is much more than just a grammar checker. It looks for repetitive words, jargon, homonyms, and hackneyed phrases, as well as words that non-native speakers commonly misuse.

There are two options for using Grammarly. The easiest way, although not the way I prefer, is to install an extension in Google Chrome and other apps so that Grammarly checks your work as you type. I don't like this option because the immediate feedback is distracting; plus I have privacy concerns about letting a plug-in read everything I write all the time. The second option—and this is the method I use—is to write your document in whatever writing app or word processor you typically use, and then paste your text into the Grammarly app. You can choose between a web app and a desktop app. This method works well for documents, but it's not as convenient for emails and other daily business communication where copying and pasting between programs would cost you time.

Take Grammarly for a Test Drive

When it's at its best, Grammarly identifies vague words such as "great," and suggests you swap them for more descriptive ones. It finds typos and offers corrections, which you can accept in one click. It underlines words you use with high frequency and recommends synonyms. Even if you reject its suggestions, Grammarly forces you to pause and reconsider your word choices, which is beneficial in itself.

When Grammarly is at its worst, it suggests words that change the meaning of your sentences or deplete the effectiveness of reusing a word or phrase intentionally. My biggest disappointment came when Grammarly couldn't suss out the fact that "however" has more than one meaning, and it suggested I make a change that would have introduced an error. It can also be as fussy as an eighth-grader in an advanced composition course about comma usage. If only someone would tell Grammarly that most commas are discretionary.

Was I getting too cocky about my writing? Should I have been accepting more of Grammarly's suggestions? Second-guessing myself wasn't making anything better.

Analysis of Professional, Polished Writing

Out of curiosity and to give myself a sanity check, I copied and pasted into Grammarly a creative nonfiction essay published in The Paris Review . At the time of its publication, this piece had garnered all kinds of attention and praise. What would Grammarly think of it?

I set some goals for the piece, calling it casual and for a general audience. The analysis of this pro's work was more of the same. Grammarly thought the word "character" could be changed to "style" even though the author was referring to a fictional person in this instance. The app wanted "Tell me I look nice" to be "Tell me, I look nice," stripping away all of its power as a command. Could we get a few more commas? Grammarly sure thought so.

In short, you have to be confident about what you ignore from Grammarly. It's better at catching dumb mistakes than making something shine.

Technology's Understanding of Language

When I first learned about Grammarly, I got in touch with a computational linguist who works there, Mariana Romanyshyn. We talked by video conference back in 2016 about how hard it is for computers to parse language and what Grammarly is doing to make computing systems better at it.

"Language is very ambiguous," she said. "It's not always possible for a machine to detect even what part of speech a word is." She said Grammarly sometimes makes incorrect suggestions and misses errors because of limitations with part-of-speech taggers. "This ambiguity is a really tricky task for computers to solve."

I asked her for some examples. "There's this classic linguistic sentence: The old man the boat. The word 'man' is the verb." In other words, it means, "those who are old are the ones who man the boat."

Recommended by Our Editors

"An automatic language processing system would never be able to detect that," Romanyshyn said. Machines will always assume that "man" is a noun in this context. Another example of a sentence that always tricks computers is one well known to linguists: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." It is a grammatically correct sentence. Please puzzle over it for a moment before reading about how to parse it .

As far as privacy goes, be careful what you feed into Grammarly, as the company could conceivably see everything it analyzes. PCMag reviewer Ben Moore addresses this topic in detail in his review of Grammarly .

Grammarly Makes (Bad) Writing Better

Since my first experience with the app, I've used it for a few writing assignments when an editor required that I submit a Grammarly report alongside my copy. Another writing team I worked with gave all its writers a hearty nudge to use the app to catch and correct the kinds of writing faux pas that made one cranky editor crankier.

When I'm on a deadline and have only written the first draft, Grammarly does the boring work of finding and bringing to my attention errors, typos, and needless repetition. It's a handy productivity hack. As I mentioned earlier, though, the suggestions are only beneficial when I can confidently throw away the bad ones. 

Grammarly isn't cheap, either. The free version is limited, and Premium plans cost $30 per month, $60 per quarter, or $144 per year. But when you're on deadline with an important piece of writing that you know could be better, it may be money well spent.

Many people need help with their writing, sometimes in high-stakes scenarios. Job seekers working on cover letters only get one chance to make a first impression. Students may find that bad writing makes the difference between passing and failing. And business professionals putting together presentations that make or break their quarter can always use some help. Practically everyone has a vested interest in writing as clearly and as well as they can, and Grammarly can help, if you know enough to take its best suggestions and discard its worst.

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About Jill Duffy

Columnist and deputy managing editor, software.

My latest book is The Everything Guide to Remote Work , which goes into great detail about a subject that I've been covering as a writer and participating in personally since well before the COVID-19 pandemic.

I specialize in apps for productivity and collaboration, including project management software. I also test and analyze online learning services, particularly for learning languages.

Prior to working for PCMag, I was the managing editor of Game Developer magazine. I've also worked at the Association for Computing Machinery, The Examiner newspaper in San Francisco, and The American Institute of Physics. I was once profiled in an article in Vogue India alongside Marie Kondo.

Follow me on Mastodon .

Read Jill's full bio

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• Academic writing
• A step-by-step guide to the writing process

The Writing Process | 5 Steps with Examples & Tips

Published on April 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on December 8, 2023.

Good academic writing requires effective planning, drafting, and revision.

The writing process looks different for everyone, but there are five basic steps that will help you structure your time when writing any kind of text.

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Table of contents

Step 1: prewriting, step 2: planning and outlining, step 3: writing a first draft, step 4: redrafting and revising, step 5: editing and proofreading, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about the writing process.

Before you start writing, you need to decide exactly what you’ll write about and do the necessary research.

Coming up with a topic

If you have to come up with your own topic for an assignment, think of what you’ve covered in class— is there a particular area that intrigued, interested, or even confused you? Topics that left you with additional questions are perfect, as these are questions you can explore in your writing.

The scope depends on what type of text you’re writing—for example, an essay or a research paper will be less in-depth than a dissertation topic . Don’t pick anything too ambitious to cover within the word count, or too limited for you to find much to say.

Narrow down your idea to a specific argument or question. For example, an appropriate topic for an essay might be narrowed down like this:

Doing the research

Once you know your topic, it’s time to search for relevant sources and gather the information you need. This process varies according to your field of study and the scope of the assignment. It might involve:

• Searching for primary and secondary sources .
• Reading the relevant texts closely (e.g. for literary analysis ).
• Collecting data using relevant research methods (e.g. experiments , interviews or surveys )

From a writing perspective, the important thing is to take plenty of notes while you do the research. Keep track of the titles, authors, publication dates, and relevant quotations from your sources; the data you gathered; and your initial analysis or interpretation of the questions you’re addressing.

Especially in academic writing , it’s important to use a logical structure to convey information effectively. It’s far better to plan this out in advance than to try to work out your structure once you’ve already begun writing.

Creating an essay outline is a useful way to plan out your structure before you start writing. This should help you work out the main ideas you want to focus on and how you’ll organize them. The outline doesn’t have to be final—it’s okay if your structure changes throughout the writing process.

Use bullet points or numbering to make your structure clear at a glance. Even for a short text that won’t use headings, it’s useful to summarize what you’ll discuss in each paragraph.

An outline for a literary analysis essay might look something like this:

• Describe the theatricality of Austen’s works
• Outline the role theater plays in Mansfield Park
• Introduce the research question: How does Austen use theater to express the characters’ morality in Mansfield Park ?
• Discuss Austen’s depiction of the performance at the end of the first volume
• Discuss how Sir Bertram reacts to the acting scheme
• Introduce Austen’s use of stage direction–like details during dialogue
• Explore how these are deployed to show the characters’ self-absorption
• Discuss Austen’s description of Maria and Julia’s relationship as polite but affectionless
• Compare Mrs. Norris’s self-conceit as charitable despite her idleness
• Summarize the three themes: The acting scheme, stage directions, and the performance of morals
• Answer the research question
• Indicate areas for further study

Once you have a clear idea of your structure, it’s time to produce a full first draft.

This process can be quite non-linear. For example, it’s reasonable to begin writing with the main body of the text, saving the introduction for later once you have a clearer idea of the text you’re introducing.

To give structure to your writing, use your outline as a framework. Make sure that each paragraph has a clear central focus that relates to your overall argument.

Hover over the parts of the example, from a literary analysis essay on Mansfield Park , to see how a paragraph is constructed.

The character of Mrs. Norris provides another example of the performance of morals in Mansfield Park . Early in the novel, she is described in scathing terms as one who knows “how to dictate liberality to others: but her love of money was equal to her love of directing” (p. 7). This hypocrisy does not interfere with her self-conceit as “the most liberal-minded sister and aunt in the world” (p. 7). Mrs. Norris is strongly concerned with appearing charitable, but unwilling to make any personal sacrifices to accomplish this. Instead, she stage-manages the charitable actions of others, never acknowledging that her schemes do not put her own time or money on the line. In this way, Austen again shows us a character whose morally upright behavior is fundamentally a performance—for whom the goal of doing good is less important than the goal of seeming good.

When you move onto a different topic, start a new paragraph. Use appropriate transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas.

The goal at this stage is to get a draft completed, not to make everything perfect as you go along. Once you have a full draft in front of you, you’ll have a clearer idea of where improvement is needed.

Give yourself a first draft deadline that leaves you a reasonable length of time to revise, edit, and proofread before the final deadline. For a longer text like a dissertation, you and your supervisor might agree on deadlines for individual chapters.

Now it’s time to look critically at your first draft and find potential areas for improvement. Redrafting means substantially adding or removing content, while revising involves making changes to structure and reformulating arguments.

Evaluating the first draft

It can be difficult to look objectively at your own writing. Your perspective might be positively or negatively biased—especially if you try to assess your work shortly after finishing it.

It’s best to leave your work alone for at least a day or two after completing the first draft. Come back after a break to evaluate it with fresh eyes; you’ll spot things you wouldn’t have otherwise.

When evaluating your writing at this stage, you’re mainly looking for larger issues such as changes to your arguments or structure. Starting with bigger concerns saves you time—there’s no point perfecting the grammar of something you end up cutting out anyway.

Right now, you’re looking for:

• Arguments that are unclear or illogical.
• Areas where information would be better presented in a different order.
• Passages where additional information or explanation is needed.
• Passages that are irrelevant to your overall argument.

For example, in our paper on Mansfield Park , we might realize the argument would be stronger with more direct consideration of the protagonist Fanny Price, and decide to try to find space for this in paragraph IV.

For some assignments, you’ll receive feedback on your first draft from a supervisor or peer. Be sure to pay close attention to what they tell you, as their advice will usually give you a clearer sense of which aspects of your text need improvement.

Redrafting and revising

Once you’ve decided where changes are needed, make the big changes first, as these are likely to have knock-on effects on the rest. Depending on what your text needs, this step might involve:

• Making changes to your overall argument.
• Reordering the text.
• Cutting parts of the text.
• Adding new text.

You can go back and forth between writing, redrafting and revising several times until you have a final draft that you’re happy with.

Think about what changes you can realistically accomplish in the time you have. If you are running low on time, you don’t want to leave your text in a messy state halfway through redrafting, so make sure to prioritize the most important changes.

Editing focuses on local concerns like clarity and sentence structure. Proofreading involves reading the text closely to remove typos and ensure stylistic consistency. You can check all your drafts and texts in minutes with an AI proofreader .

Editing for grammar and clarity

When editing, you want to ensure your text is clear, concise, and grammatically correct. You’re looking out for:

• Grammatical errors.
• Ambiguous phrasings.
• Redundancy and repetition .

In your initial draft, it’s common to end up with a lot of sentences that are poorly formulated. Look critically at where your meaning could be conveyed in a more effective way or in fewer words, and watch out for common sentence structure mistakes like run-on sentences and sentence fragments:

• Austen’s style is frequently humorous, her characters are often described as “witty.” Although this is less true of Mansfield Park .
• Austen’s style is frequently humorous. Her characters are often described as “witty,” although this is less true of Mansfield Park .

To make your sentences run smoothly, you can always use a paraphrasing tool to rewrite them in a clearer way.

Proofreading for small mistakes and typos

When proofreading, first look out for typos in your text:

• Spelling errors.
• Missing words.
• Confused word choices .
• Punctuation errors .
• Missing or excess spaces.

Use a grammar checker , but be sure to do another manual check after. Read through your text line by line, watching out for problem areas highlighted by the software but also for any other issues it might have missed.

For example, in the following phrase we notice several errors:

• Mary Crawfords character is a complicate one and her relationships with Fanny and Edmund undergoes several transformations through out the novel.
• Mary Crawford’s character is a complicated one, and her relationships with both Fanny and Edmund undergo several transformations throughout the novel.

Proofreading for stylistic consistency

There are several issues in academic writing where you can choose between multiple different standards. For example:

• Whether you use the serial comma .
• Whether you use American or British spellings and punctuation (you can use a punctuation checker for this).
• Where you use numerals vs. words for numbers.
• How you capitalize your titles and headings.

Unless you’re given specific guidance on these issues, it’s your choice which standards you follow. The important thing is to consistently follow one standard for each issue. For example, don’t use a mixture of American and British spellings in your paper.

Additionally, you will probably be provided with specific guidelines for issues related to format (how your text is presented on the page) and citations (how you acknowledge your sources). Always follow these instructions carefully.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

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• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
• Plagiarism Checker
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Revising, proofreading, and editing are different stages of the writing process .

• Revising is making structural and logical changes to your text—reformulating arguments and reordering information.
• Editing refers to making more local changes to things like sentence structure and phrasing to make sure your meaning is conveyed clearly and concisely.
• Proofreading involves looking at the text closely, line by line, to spot any typos and issues with consistency and correct them.

Whether you’re publishing a blog, submitting a research paper , or even just writing an important email, there are a few techniques you can use to make sure it’s error-free:

• Take a break : Set your work aside for at least a few hours so that you can look at it with fresh eyes.
• Proofread a printout : Staring at a screen for too long can cause fatigue – sit down with a pen and paper to check the final version.
• Use digital shortcuts : Take note of any recurring mistakes (for example, misspelling a particular word, switching between US and UK English , or inconsistently capitalizing a term), and use Find and Replace to fix it throughout the document.

If you want to be confident that an important text is error-free, it might be worth choosing a professional proofreading service instead.

If you’ve gone over the word limit set for your assignment, shorten your sentences and cut repetition and redundancy during the editing process. If you use a lot of long quotes , consider shortening them to just the essentials.

If you need to remove a lot of words, you may have to cut certain passages. Remember that everything in the text should be there to support your argument; look for any information that’s not essential to your point and remove it.

To make this process easier and faster, you can use a paraphrasing tool . With this tool, you can rewrite your text to make it simpler and shorter. If that’s not enough, you can copy-paste your paraphrased text into the summarizer . This tool will distill your text to its core message.

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Caulfield, J. (2023, December 08). The Writing Process | 5 Steps with Examples & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved September 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-writing/writing-process/

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03-09-2023 TECH

Grammarly’s next step: writing the whole essay for you

After building a business around revisions for writers, Grammarly jumps into generating text wholesale with AI.

[Animation: courtesy of Grammarly]

BY  Jared Newman 4 minute read

Next month, the company will launch GrammarlyGo, an AI assistant that lets users create text from scratch through simple prompts, similar to ChatGPT. The tool can also summarize emails and offer one-click responses, and it can rewrite entire paragraphs to be more concise, personable, or professional.

It’s big expansion in scope for Grammarly, which until now has functioned as a tool for revising what people have already written. With GrammarlyGo, users won’t have to write much of anything at all.

“We deeply believe that AI is there to help users gain superpowers, and that’s what we want our product to do,” says Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, Grammarly’s global head of product.

AI wherever you write

Grammarly’s underlying AI isn’t much different from what’s already available in other generative AI tools . Roy-Chowdhury says it’s based on GPT-3, but with some additional classifiers to avoid generating or interacting with harmful text. (ChatGPT is based on GPT-3.5, a slightly more advanced model.)

So compared to tools like ChatGPT, the main difference with GrammarlyGo is where it’s available. AI features will be built into Grammarly’s existing desktop apps and browser extensions, so it can function inside of practically any text field. That universal presence might give Grammarly an edge against the likes of Microsoft, which has already integrated ChatGPT with Bing and reportedly plans to bring it to Office apps , such as Word and Outlook.

“We are everywhere that people write, and GrammarlyGo’s going to show up in all of those places, not just one app or one use case,” Roy-Chowdhury says.

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Jared Newman covers apps and technology from his remote Cincinnati outpost. He also writes two newsletters, Cord Cutter Weekly and Advisorator .   More

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How to Start an Essay: 7 Tips for a Knockout Essay Introduction

Sometimes, the most difficult part of writing an essay is getting started. You might have an outline already and know what you want to write, but struggle to find the right words to get it going. Don’t worry; you aren’t the first person to grapple with starting an essay, and you certainly won’t be the last. 

Writing an essay isn’t the same as writing a book. Or writing a poem. Or writing a scientific research paper. Essay writing is a unique process that involves clear sequencing, backing up your positions with quality sources, and engaging language. But it’s also got one important thing in common with every other type of writing: You need to hook your reader’s attention within the first few sentences. 

Give your essays extra polish Grammarly helps you write with confidence Write with Grammarly

Intriguing ways to start an essay

There are many different ways to write an essay introduction. Each has its benefits and potential drawbacks, and each is best suited for certain kinds of essays . Although these essay introductions use different rhetorical devices and prime the reader in different ways, they all achieve the same goal: hooking the reader and enticing them to keep reading.

To “hook” a reader simply means to capture their attention and make them want to continue reading your work. An essay introduction that successfully hooks readers in one essay won’t necessarily hook readers in another essay, which is why it’s so important for you to understand why different types of essay openings are effective. 

Take a look at these common ways to start an essay:

Share a shocking or amusing fact

One way to start your essay is with a shocking, unexpected, or amusing fact about the topic you’re covering. This grabs the reader’s attention and makes them want to read further, expecting explanation, context, and/or elaboration on the fact you presented. 

Check out these essay introduction examples that use relevant, engaging facts to capture the reader’s attention:

“More than half of Iceland’s population believe that elves exist or that they possibly can exist. Although this might sound strange to foreigners, many of us have similar beliefs that would sound just as strange to those outside our cultures.”

“Undergraduate students involved in federal work-study programs earn an average of just $1,794 per year. That’s just slightly more than the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in our city.”

Relevance is key here. Make sure the fact you choose directly relates to the topic you’re covering in your essay. Otherwise, it will feel random, confusing, or at best, shoehorned into the essay. In any case, it will undermine your essay as a whole by making it seem like you don’t have a full grasp on your topic. 

If you’re writing an expository or persuasive essay , including a shocking or amusing fact in your introduction can be a great way to pique your reader’s curiosity. The fact you present can be one that supports the position you argue in the essay or it can be part of the body of data your expository essay explains. 

Ask a question

By asking a question in your essay opening, you’re directly inviting the reader to interact with your work. They don’t get to be a passive consumer; they’re now part of the conversation. This can be a very engaging way to start an essay. 

Take a look at these examples of essay openings that use questions to hook readers:

“How many times have you been late to class because you couldn’t find parking? You’re not alone—our campus is in desperate need of a new parking deck.”

“How frequently do you shop at fast fashion retailers? These retailers include H&M, Zara, Uniqlo and other brands that specialize in inexpensive clothing meant for short-term use.” 

Asking a question is an effective choice for a persuasive essay because it asks the reader to insert themselves into the topic or even pick a side. While it can also work in other kinds of essays, it really shines in any essay that directly addresses the reader and puts them in a position to reflect on what you’re asking. 

Dramatize a scene

Another effective way to write an essay introduction is to dramatize a scene related to your essay. Generally, this approach is best used with creative essays, like personal statements and literary essays. Here are a few examples of essay introductions that immerse readers in the action through dramatized scenes:

“The rain pounded against the roof, loudly drowning out any conversations we attempted to have. I’d promised them I’d play the latest song I wrote for guitar, but Mother Earth prevented any concert from happening that night.”

“Imagine you’ve just gotten off an airplane. You’re hot, you’re tired, you’re uncomfortable, and suddenly, you’re under arrest.”

Beyond creative essays, this kind of opening can work when you’re using emotional appeal to underscore your position in a persuasive essay. It’s also a great tool for a dramatic essay, and could be just the first of multiple dramatized scenes throughout the piece. 

Kick it off with a quote

When you’re wondering how to write an essay introduction, remember that you can always borrow wisdom from other writers. This is a powerful way to kick off any kind of essay. Take a look at these examples:

“‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ —William Faulkner. In his novel Requiem for a Nun , our changing perspective of the past is a primary theme.”

“‘It always seems impossible until it’s done.’ —Nelson Mandela. Before I joined the military, boot camp seemed impossible. But now, it’s done.”

Just as in choosing a fact or statistic to open your essay, any quote you choose needs to be relevant to your essay’s topic . If your reader has to perform a web search for your quote to figure out how it relates to the rest of your essay, it’s not relevant enough to use. Go with another quote that your text can easily explain. 

State your thesis directly

The most straightforward kind of essay introduction is one where you simply state your thesis. Take a look at these examples:

“Fraternity culture is dangerous and contrary to campus values. Banning it is in the campus community’s best interest.”

“We can’t afford to ignore the evidence any longer; we need climate action now.”

How to write an essay introduction

Pick the right tone for your essay.

You probably shouldn’t use a funny quote to start a persuasive essay on a serious subject. Similarly, a statistic that can evoke strong emotions in the reader might not be the right choice for an expository essay because it could potentially be construed as your attempt to argue for a certain viewpoint, rather than state facts. 

Read your essay’s first paragraph aloud and listen to your writing’s tone. Does the opening line’s tone match the rest of the paragraph, or is there a noticeable tone shift from the first line or two to the rest? In many cases, you can hear whether your tone is appropriate for your essay. Beyond listening for the right tone, use Grammarly’s tone detector to ensure that your essay introduction—as well as the rest of your essay—maintains the right tone for the subject you’re covering.   

When you’re stuck, work backwards

Starting an essay can be difficult. If you find yourself so caught up on how to write an essay introduction that you’re staring at a blank screen as the clock ticks closer to your deadline, skip the introduction and move onto your essay’s body paragraphs . Once you have some text on the page, it can be easier to go back and write an introduction that leads into that content. 

You may even want to start from the very end of your essay. If you know where your essay is going, but not necessarily how it will get there, write your conclusion first. Then, write the paragraph that comes right before your conclusion. Next, write the paragraph before that, working your way backwards until you’re in your introduction paragraph. By then, writing an effective essay introduction should be easy because you already have the content you need to introduce. 

Polish your essays until they shine

Got a draft of a great essay? Awesome! But don’t hit “submit” just yet—you’re only halfway to the finish line. Make sure you’re always submitting your best work by using Grammarly to catch misspelled words, grammar mistakes, and places where you can swap in different words to improve your writing’s clarity. 

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• Experts Discuss How Tech Tools Can Help Students Improve Essay Structure and Grammar

The Importance of Essay Structure and Grammar

So, before suggesting some tech tools, let’s discuss why good essay structure is important. A good structure allows readers to read the writer’s thoughts more easily. The essay works better and is more convincing. Good grammar, on the other hand, helps the writer’s words to be clear. Without using proper grammar, the writer’s thoughts can be misunderstood. Once the writer can utilize both the good structure and grammar, the writer is able to express the ideas better, which in turn will help to get better marks in school and to communicate more effectively.

Word Processors: The Foundation of Digital Writing

The word processor – such as Microsoft Word, Google ( News - Alert ) Docs and Apple Pages – is the most basic of technology tools for essay writing. These programmes provide far more than just a digital page on which students can type. In fact, they are now equipped with in-built lines of defense against errors, including spell checker and grammar checkers. A spellchecker can pick up misspelled words, while a grammar checker might suggest a correction for a grammar mistake (eg: ‘I am a great writer’ might be turned into ‘I am a good writer’) or alert the student to a more profound problem with the sentence (eg: ‘Would you lend me your horse?’ would be picked up for having two subjects, ‘you’ and ‘your horse’).

Tech tools can significantly improve essay structure and grammar, but pairing them with legit essay writing services can offer even more comprehensive support. Lastly, many word processors come with features to help structure essays. Students can use their word processors to create headings and subheadings, which enable them to better organize their thoughts. Outline views enable students to see the structure of their essay, making it clear whether or not the essay contains a cohesive flow of ideas. Some word processors come with templates for specific essay types, helping students gain a model for essay structure.

Grammar and Style Checkers: Beyond Basic Proofreading

Word processors have the basic error-catching features, but grammar and style checkers do even more. Programs such as Grammarly, ProWritingAid and the Hemingway Editor go beyond the workplace word processor features to provide a detailed diagnosis of your writing with suggested fixes for grammar, spelling, sentence structure, word choice and level of readability.

A grammar checker can help students avoid, for example, run-ons, comma splices, and subject-verb agreement problems. And they often provide explanations for their suggestions, so that the student can learn over time. A style checker can help students improve clarity and brevity by alerting them to passive voice, unwieldy sentences, and word repetition.

Plagiarism Checkers: Ensuring Academic Integrity

Although not strictly related to the structure and grammar of academic writing, plagiarism checkers are no less important for students. Services like Turnitin and Copyscape help writers check if their work is original. By comparing an essay with millions of existing sources, these checkers signal any excerpts that potentially represent plagiarism.

When students use plagiarism checkers, the constant feedback about a need to cite or paraphrase more often and better induces them to develop good habits, like including sources in their writing. So, arguably, this approach proves indirectly beneficial to essay structure and, more importantly, helps avoid the severe costs of the ‘mistakes’ that today’s culture equates with plagiarism.

AI-Powered Writing Assistants: The Future of Essay Help

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) will become increasingly effective. There is an array of intelligent writing assistance tools being offered. For example, OpenAI’s GPT-3 can be used to fine-tune writing in different domains to enhance writing style and individuality. It can do everything from acting as a personal thesaurus, to providing feedback on essay structures. With these tools, it is now possible to ‘read’ and score an essay to see how well its narrative holds together, and what might need to be altered to make the writing more effective.

But such applications should not give students the impression they can hand an essay over to an AI writing assistant and it will magically produce a polished final draft. AI writing assistants can be valuable learning tools, but students should use them to enhance their own writing skills, not as substitutes.

Citation Generators: Mastering Academic Formatting

Another is making sure all citations are correct (after all, having a good argument will be useless if readers don't take you seriously because you didn't cite your sources correctly). Citation generators such as Zotero, Mendeley and EasyBib can create both citations and a bibliography in a variety of styles (APA, MLA or Chicago). It's a huge time saver but, more importantly, it helps a student learn how to format citations in the style required.

The fact that online citation generators can take away this task from students means that they can spend more time thinking about the content of their essays and not worry about the mechanics of the citations. Additionally, students can allocate more time to organizing their arguments, which can result in better-structured essays.

Comparison of Popular Tech Tools for Essay Improvement

Text-to-Speech Tools: Hearing Your Essay

Another technique to combat these problems is to read the essay aloud to the student; the awkwardness of the phrasing or error becomes far more apparent to the ear than it is to the eyes. There are a number of tools for converting text into speech, including a free one called Natural Reader (http://naturalreaders.com/). Most operating systems have screen readers built in. Reading the essay aloud is especially helpful as an earcheck for flow problems in essay structure.

Reading their essays out loud can also help students develop a better feel for language, improving their sense of grammar and style as they go along. Hearing the language aloud will help them catch mistakes before the piece is complete, such as run-on sentences, the use of a word more than once in a few paragraphs, or other structural problems that aren’t obvious otherwise.

Mind Mapping Software: Organizing Ideas Visually

Prior to writing an essay, a student needs to order her thinking. There are tools available that can help the student brainstorm and organize her ideas in a visual fashion using mind mapping software such as MindMeister, XMind or anything even simpler such as a Microsoft OneNote, which is free and available for all university students. The way to use this software is to create an idea diagram showing how ideas are related.

Using mind-mapping software can also aid essay organization, sometimes dramatically, as it forces the student to think about the structure of the argument before they write anything. They are prompted to think about how different points hang together and develop a structure that will best present their arguments in an easy-to-follow order. Students are able to produce much more reasonable and logical essays once they have organized their thoughts in this manner.

Writing Analytics Tools: Understanding Your Writing Habits

Tools, such as Writefull and the Expresso App, offer detailed metrics on writing. They disclose statistics to students concerning their writing – such as sentence length, vocabulary breadth and grammar errors – which aids them in recognising bad habits which may need modification, not only in terms of sentence structure but also grammar.

For example, if a student learns that she writes very long sentences, she can focus on breaking them up; if a student learns that he overuses certain words, he can focus on expanding his vocabulary. This data-centric path to better writing should appeal to many students.

Online Writing Communities: Peer Feedback and Support

While not exactly a tool, online writing communities can be invaluable for redundant drafts. With sites such as Scribophile or Reddit’s r/WriteWithMe, students can share their work with others and receive feedback. The peer reviewing process can serve as a second set of eyes, potentially pointing out what a student might have missed in a line-by-line editing pass of his own essay.

Working with a community of writers can also show students what kinds of writing their peers produce, and what sorts of prosody or structures work for others. Engaging with a writing community can also show students where mistakes are made and, hopefully, where skills are held. The kind of feedback given to others might better equip students to spot issues in their own writing, such as structural flaws or grammatical errors.

Conclusion: Balancing Tech Tools with Personal Skill Development

For example, technology today can provide students with a multitude of tools to support the process of building a solid essay structure, organizing thoughts and arguments, and mastering grammar. There are simple word processors and complex AI essay-writing assistants that can guide a writer from an early brainstorming stage to the final proofreading of the text. Yet, technology is just an assistant, not a substitute for developing one’s own skills.

The best way to use a tech tool is as a learning aid. The student should pay attention to what the tool is recommending and try to tease out the rationale from the suggestions. After some time, the student can begin to internalize rules of good writing, and will naturally write better essays.

In the end, the students will become better writers, not just better users of writing tools. When equipped with the right tools and combined with dedicated practice and learning, students can improve their ability to write essays, which in turn will help them prepare for the writing needed in both academic and professional life.

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