is grammarly good for academic writing

is grammarly good for academic writing

The Effectiveness of Grammarly in Academic Writing

1. Introduction

Grammarly is a software system that helps individuals improve the quality of their writing. It advertises itself as an ‘automated proofreader and personal grammar coach’ and is widely used by university students who wish to improve their academic writing. The system can check for over 250 types of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, enhance vocabulary usage, and suggest citations. Due to its high advertising profile and word of mouth recommendations, many university students are opting to use Grammarly over other word processing software. This paper will discuss the effectiveness of Grammarly in improving the quality of written academic assignments. In order to judge effectively, it is important to know the standard of writing proficiency that is required at the university level. This paper will thus first compare the types of errors made by university students to the errors and suggestions made by the software. A random sample of student writing will undergo the system corrections made by the system, and these results will be compared to the feedback given by an academic tutor or marker. Finally, based on the types of errors made, the paper will determine whether Grammarly is a useful tool in enhancing student academic writing.

2. Benefits of Using Grammarly in Academic Writing

Another benefit is that documents can be shared and proofread by multiple users. It is not necessary to copy and paste what you have written and then send it to a friend so that they can help proofread the document. Once a person has finished writing an article, they can give the login details to their friend and have them check the document. This is very efficient because it saves time from needing to copy the document and there is no need to send the document back and forth between the user and their friend. This way, the friend can check the document at any time and anywhere when they are free.

The use of Grammarly in academic writing does have its own benefits. One of the most obvious benefits is that the software can be used anywhere and anytime. A person can use it for their academic writing whether at home, office, or even at school. It is very suitable for those who are always on the move. At times, a student gets a sudden idea or inspiration to write something, whether it is a short essay, a journal, or even completing an assignment. But they might not be in front of a computer or they might be somewhere that does not have the Microsoft Office Word software. As long as they have access to the internet, they can immediately log on to the Grammarly website and start writing there. They can even use their smartphone to access it. This is very convenient compared to software like Microsoft Office Word where the availability of the software is a necessity.

3. Limitations of Grammarly in Academic Writing

The final limitation of Grammarly is that its browser editors and MS Word are not completely compatible with Macs. Although there are a multitude of word processing options available for Mac users, Mac users themselves are often frustrated by the lack of compatibility of MS Word and its add-ons for browsers. This means that while users of Windows are able to utilize Grammarly in a variety of writing tasks, Mac users are restricted to the web version of Grammarly, which lacks the document upload option and is really best suited for small writing tasks like email or blogging. Overall, this compatibility issue further restricts Grammarly to a non-native speaker audience, as the app is most beneficial for native speakers working with academic English.

The primary limitation of Grammarly is its inability to provide explanations for your errors. It may give you the reasons behind the mistakes and highlight the incorrect sentences, but it does not give you a thorough explanation as to why your mistakes are mistakes. This is particularly important for English language learners who seek to improve their language skills through the grammar checking process. Teachers and students note that some of the errors identified by Grammarly may not actually be errors at all. This is particularly true for contractions, informal relative clauses, and idiomatic expressions. An example of this can be seen in the Grammarly error at the end of this sentence. Though it is a cumbersome sentence, it is not incorrect. In this sense, overriding Grammarly suggestions can impede writing style without providing any guarantee that the suggested changes are, in fact, improvements. The margins for this are quite small, and while some students can see improvements in their writing style and errors at the same time, others may only see one and not the other.

4. Tips for Maximizing the Use of Grammarly in Academic Writing

Furthermore, by storing previously submitted work, completed assignments, or any other writing in ‘My Grammarly’, feedback on grammar and citation suggestions can be gauged for academic writing of a similar nature for the future. This is a very convenient feature to monitor progression in writing ability over time, and from here, mistakes made in previous work can be identified, and learning from such mistakes can be more of an assured process from one assignment to the next.

One of the most practical ways to use Grammarly to minimize mistakes is to copy large sections of text by others into the text editor and resolve any discrepancies in tense, punctuation, or sentence structure by taking on board the suggestions offered by Grammarly before integrating this material into a paper or report. This way, you can ensure that what you have written is a true reflection of your own work and not that of others.

After installing Grammarly, the add-in starts automatically every time you log in to a computer, so suggestions and feedback are continuous and readily available whenever a writing task is being undertaken. Premium users have access to the more advanced features on offer by Grammarly, as this cut-down version is based on the free online text editor.

5. Conclusion

One of the key factors that has been suggested to contribute to the effectiveness of corrective feedback is the timing of feedback in relation to the production of a specific piece of writing. Feedback that is both immediate and delayed has been shown to produce positive results, but it has been suggested that the optimal time to receive feedback is at the revision stage. Any feedback that is given at this point will be automatically used as students are in the process of making improvements to their writing. Automatic processing of errors on functional tasks is necessary for learners to achieve automaticity in the L2, and it is this access to implicit knowledge that Grammarly’s ability to give instant and direct corrective feedback taps into. It was clear from the comments made by the intervention group in the present study that they felt that Grammarly was able to provide them with useful advice on grammar, which they would not usually be able to obtain from their teachers. This specific nature of the feedback, combined with the fact that Grammarly is designed for self-testing and immediate error analysis, is likely a key reason why the feedback was found to be more effective than teacher intervention.

There have been many claims relating to the effectiveness of this instant feedback function on students’ performance, and the present study has added to the growing body of evidence that demonstrates that Grammarly is a valuable tool for students who are seeking to improve the quality of their written work. In this study, students who chose to follow advice and use Grammarly on a regular basis significantly improved the quality of their first assignment to the point that there was a clear and substantial improvement in quality and grammatical range. This improvement was not seen to the same extent in the control group and is an indication that Grammarly is an effective tool for students who are seeking to both identify and correct grammar, punctuation, and syntax errors and make improvements to the overall quality of their writing.