Friday, April 13, 2012

Making Grammar Easy for Bloggers

Besides working on new projects this spring, I've also been spring cleaning my blog. Sprucing up graphics, upgrading my photo editing and improving my post writing is as critical as making the crafts.   These things have a significant impact on how people see your blog.  No matter how fabulous projects are, seeing basic spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in the text can create a negative impression.  Wrong word choices in your blog or written work can do that too.  One of my personal pet peeves as a French major is seeing "wa-lah" written when someone means "voilĂ ", but some people have no idea it's even French so how would they know to check it?


So I was interested in an offer to try out a grammar checker tool, called Grammarly.com, that not only proofreads for spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but also word style and plagiarism.


This on-line grammar checker provides a straightforward format where you can just copy & paste your content and then see a full report that points out any issues and offers suggestions.  As someone who doesn't have a writing background (and is usually writing in interrupted moments or late at night), I like the idea of being able to check that everything is written accurately in my work.  You can even tailor the review to the type of writing style, like technical, casual or creative.


As a homeschooling family it's also a helpful tool for explaining grammar and improving writing, so my growing writers can benefit from using it.  I ran this post through it and was impressed with it's its suggestions and reasons for using them.


Grammarly.com offers a free 7 day trial of unlimited use to check all the writing you want and then has monthly subscription service.  There's also a free grammar handbook that anyone can access for writing tips and questions.   I like the idea of improving my writing and how easy this tool can make that! 

7 comments:

  1. I haven't tried the site, but if you ran this post through it and then corrected your post, it missed a big error in the following sentence:

    "I ran this post through it and was impressed with it's suggestions and reasons for using them."

    It's is the contraction for it is and its is the possessive form of the adjective, which is the one that the sentence should use.

    I hope this doesn't come across as rude. I just thought it was amusing to see the error in the sentence where you say that you ran the post through the grammar check!

    I love your blog and have been enjoying reading your posts and will continue to do so, grammar mistakes or not! :)

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    1. Actually I added that last sentence after I ran everything through. Which definitely proves the point that I need this tool.

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  2. That's a pretty cool tool. I'm not sure it would like my writing style; however I hate finding out I have had spelling mistakes or wrong word usage. Please note the awesome semicolon in my previous sentence. I love semicolons!
    Janelle

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    1. I hear you Janelle. I was pleased there weren't TONS of errors, but I definitely have a "habit" in the way I write too - it showed me just how much I love using dashes and specific words. It will be good to help me to branch out in the right direction!

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  3. Great idea!! Grammer is a hobby for me, a natural born proof reader. Mistakes jump off of pages to me & it is annoying to see simple spelling mistakes written by adults. Sometimes I don't think they even proof thier own posts!!!! Thanks for bringing this matter to light, this looks like a FABULOUS program for bloggers!!
    Chelle kweenbee_612@yahoo.com

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  4. One of my personal pet peeves as a French major is seeing "wa-lah" written when someone means "voilĂ ", but some people have no idea it's even French so how would they know to check it? I absolutely 100% agree with you having been born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, Canada I also have a degree in translations and when I see errors it sends shivers up my spine....but then again many of the errors are in English (the blogs)!! Most people don't bother to check their spelling or grammar! Just ran across your post and it is is great....looking forward to reading your next post.

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    Replies
    1. Glad I'm not the only one! Hope you enjoy the other posts you find - happy to have another craft lover joining me:)

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Getting your comments brightens my day. I'd love if you left one:)

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