I’m a sloppy writer. I simply transcribe the voice in my head, paying minimal attention to the words I’m typing. Being a lifelong touch typist, I can clip along, stopping only to correct all those red underlined misspellings. Moreover, I tend to read what I expect to read, so between these two characteristics, I can read my manuscript three to six times and still miss many double words, many missing little words, and never see the difference between where and were, or its and it’s. I need a copy editor. I need my wife. And my beta readers. And Google Docs and now, Grammarly.
I write in LibreOffice, which has a rudimentary grammar checking function – one that begins and ends at telling me when to use “a” and “an.” Several years ago, I discovered that Google Docs has a much better one, so I uploaded and ran all my books through Google Docs to clean them up a bit. For my newest novel, I decided to add the free version of Grammarly to my proofreading arsenal. So how does this system work? Can you rely on Google Docs or Grammarly, or both to do your proofreading for you?
Google Docs does a good job of finding double words, some wrong words, and most missing words. But not all, as I discovered when I uploaded the Google corrected copy to Grammarly. It is good for detecting the proper tense, but it doesn’t pay much attention to punctuation or spacing.
For Grammarly, I used the free web version to proofread my latest book after running it through Google Docs. I uploaded it chapter by chapter to be edited. Before Grammarly edits your work, you’re given several options to choose from to set the level and aim of Grammarly’s editing process. I chose “Expert” “Informal” and “Tell a story” as my guidelines. So how did Grammarly do?
First off, Grammarly loves compound words. Google Doc never mentioned them. Before, I never knew when to compound adjectives, so that I almost never did. But after Grammarly, I’m going to compound every damn pair, as it seems that anything and everything goes. I’m exaggerating, but it was a lesson in the use of compound words. Besides telling me to use all those hyphens, I’d say 75% of the suggested edits involved adding or subtracting commas. I made the lazy editorial decision just to go along with Grammarly on commas, it should know, right? Before, I put them in places that I knew they belonged and when the voice in my head paused, and where I think the auto-narrator of my books should pause as well. However, Grammarly not only put in more of them, but I think it eliminated commas that my wife thinks should’ve been there. Though to be fair, while I believe that I would’ve also put in the missing ones – they were places that I would’ve put them – I can’t swear that I did actually have them there before Grammarly removed them. Grammarly also found more missing words, and corrected the wrong words, i.e. where instead of were, et al that Google Doc missed. So it was a plus, overall.
Grammarly also offered several suggestions for phases that it thought were too wordy. I ignored those suggestions. Given free reign, I’ve a feeling that Grammarly would strip creative writers of their authorial voice. Thus, my readers will read a few extra words, like it or lump it. It also would occasionally tease its premium service, telling me of two hundred ways it could make my chapter less wordy and confusing, if I paid them. The whole experience, however, was easy. You just click a button to make the suggested changes you approve of, so that it didn’t take me more than two hours to go through a 105K novel. However, you can, and should be fussier than I was. Lesson learned.
I was confident that when I handed this Google Doc & Grammarly proofread ms over to my wife, it would be a clean copy. It wasn’t. There was that question of missing commas, which can easily be addressed in the future, but both services also didn’t catch a few missing word – those little “to”s and “the”s – and neither made any objections to the semicolons I used, which my wife, a stickler for semicolons, objected to.
Note; for example, I’m editing this in Google Docs, and it underlined in red “semi-colon” just now, and suggested “semicolon,” but it didn’t object to the “semi-colon” when it appeared in the line above. These are the inconsistencies that make the Google Doc less than perfect for proofreading.)
Anyway, the semicolon issue can be fixed by going back to always using em-dashes for everything, like I have in the past.
So, looking at the big picture, when I started writing, my wife would find half a dozen or more typos and errors on every page. I’ve gotten more mindful over the last decade, so that now, together with Doc and Grammarly, there can be two, three, four pages without a single error, and most of those errors involve commas this time around. Which is to say, I’ve seen a significant improvement in the process. And knowing all the errors I corrected in Google Docs and Grammarly, I have to give a lot of that credit to Docs and Grammarly.
So, is it worthwhile to upload your ms to Google Docs, or upload it to Grammarly, or use both, seeing that neither are perfect?
The first thing to remember is that both services are free. You can’t beat the price, especially if you’re considering hiring a proofreader or editor. You have no way of knowing if that professional editor is simply using Grammarly Pro to do their work for them. I don’t think human proofreaders guaranteed their work to be error free or your money back. Given this, it would seem to me to be time well spent doing your own proofreading with the help of these two free programs. And if you want more of an editor than a simple proofreader, it might be well worth spending a little money on a month of Grammarly premium to see all those hundreds of suggestions it has to improve your writing instead of big bucks on a professional editor. All in all, I think that the free version is good enough for most of us, especially if you’re better at proofreading than I. It could simply serve as a quick quality check, and perhaps a tutorial on the use of commas and compound words.
Bottom line; you get more than what you pay for. They’re not quite good enough to produce a perfectly clean copy all by themselves, but they certainly can save a lot of time in the proofreading process.
Writers Supporting Writers 
For some reason I don’t want to add the step of running my writing through one of these grammar checkers. Maybe I ought to, just as an experiment. Who knows, I may find it worthwhile.
A couple of years ago I bought a print copy of the Chicago Manual of Style and have consulted it about fiddly things like capitalization and hyphenation of certain words. As for commas, I suspect they are always problematic. I’m always deleting and adding them when I go through anything I’ve written.
Something I heard about recently is Autocrit. I just read an enthusiastic review of it here: https://kindlepreneur.com/autocrit-review/
It does a lot more than correct grammar and punctuation. Naturally, I’m suspicious of it.
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I knew when I wrote this that many, if not most of the readers here know their English a whole lot better than me. (A very low bar to jump.) Still, I would be curious as to what they think of these grammar programs. Certainly they have their own internal style guides, and you have to wonder just what they are. I also have to wonder if, for example, accepted English usage has changed in 50 years when, let’s say, my wife, was learning it in school. She says no, but English is not a dead language, and even back in the day the Chicago Manual of Style was not the only bible of English usage. I will have to investigate autocrit. Thanks for the link.
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I use Word’s spell checker to catch typos, misspellings, double words, etc. Like Audrey, I use Chicago Manual of Style for questions of grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc. I’ve also been writing long enough that I know which elements always trip me up (compound words being a big one!).
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I used Word for a year when I had it for free, and even back six years ago it was far better than LibreOffice, and might be comparable to Google Docs, Grammarly today, so that those programs might not be necessary for Word users. It is, however, interesting what all these apps consider misspellings for example, or how they treat compound words, hyphens, commas and such – if they even bother. Clearly, you’ll never please everyone, so just pick a hill and die defending it.
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I’m not at all happy with having to pay for a subscription, but I need the versatility of Word.
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Thank you for a most useful post, on reading the opening paragraph, ‘Not just me then’ went through my head.
Using WORD, I experimented with going to ‘Review’ on the toolbar then selecting ‘Read Aloud’ (I had been activating it by error for some time- still don’t know how!).
The slightly robotic voice proved beneficial for the following reasons:
1. It would pick up the typing and ‘dreamy day’ errors which were also ‘true’ words but stood out when read eg: ‘Cloud’ / ‘Clod’
2. Useful for picking up on places where on hearing you think…’That sentence needs shortening’
3. Invaluable for ‘Naah, that word / phrase does just not ‘Sound’ right’ interludes
4. Pointing out the piece which when you wrote it seemed in your head a masterpiece of eloquence, description, rationale, yet when read out loud just sounds so much elongated hoohah.
5. (Similar to 4 but harsh) And of course those painful ‘Oh my. That is bad! What was I thinking?’ pieces.
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Hearing my words spoken gives me the willies, but you’re right; it does highlight your errors (Who knows how many versions had gone by with “stem” instead of “stern” in one of my stories, noted only after the auto-narrator pronounced it aloud.) As well as the awkward sentences that didn’t sound awkward at all when you said them in your head.
I believe that some of those grammar features are available on the free web version of Word 360. I should look into that. Perhaps at some point I will take a chapter from a new unproofread novel of mine and run it through all the various grammar programs, including Word, the one Audrey linked to, and any other free ones I can find just to see the differences between them. It might prove interesting.
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It’s always worth running work through free programmes as you say to see the differences.
One things which is bemusing for me as a Brit is using free Grammarly, US based. Not just the spelling (our dogged use of ‘U’ in between ‘O’ and ‘R) but also the tweaks Grammarly wishes to make in pieces which are perfectly acceptable in UK English.
PS: One spelling highlight in Word which has me huffing as only a Brit can:
‘Copse’ as in small wood. Word insists (even when I’ve added the word to My Dictionary) that the correct word is ‘Cops’.
WP has similar problems.
Oh well, it all serves to keep us on our toes.
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The only one of these programs I’ve looked at is the one that Word has, and I don’t trust it at all. As you point out with Google Docs, it is inconsistent, and frequently, I don’t agree with its suggestions. So, I just ignore it and go with what comes to me naturally. I trust my gut. For better or worse.
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I don’t follow their writing advice; I just have used them for proofreading, which, alas, my work desperately needs. They save my wife a lot of work.
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I’ve heard good things about prowritingaid (.com) as well. The problem I have with enabling grammarly or PWA in Google Docs is the invasive access they demand. “Give us access to everything you have in GDrive – NOW!”
GoogleDocs is the only way to write — IF you want to group-read or group-edit your work. “Share with Suggest” Done. You see all their suggestions, and can accept or reject them. Save as epub, pdf, Docx, all there. Especially handy is the “publish” capability — and then just link it to a web page.
“read what I expect to read” — totally there. I hated English in school. “Grammar? I don’t need no stinkin’ grammar.” I loved to write, though. Still do. What still gets me is how the oral version need only the most basic of syntax, and spelling could be utterly phonetic. While, somehow, the written version needs all these fiddly bits? And now, having adopted those fiddly bits, I can barely ready anything without finding nits to pick on. Oy!
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I just used the web version of Grammarly because when I went to download the Windows app, it wanted access to everything as well. I like writing on my computer rather than the cloud, using Google Docs merely for corrections and backup. I’ve seen some people use Docs for beta readers who can comment and make proposed change during the process.
I’m with you on the simplicity of the oral language. I was telling my wife that I hate question marks. I think they’re unnecessary and wanted to just skip them, since a reader can gather what’s a question and what’s not from the context (at least in dialog). Let’s just say she thought I was crazy.
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And the Spanish put a question mark at the front of a sentence — upside down.
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Hi,
I’m new to “proofreading”, however proofreading ( rephrasing stuff to be more precise interests me). Could you kindly tell me what one might need work on to be able to get into proofreading? I know what Google says already but I want to know from you, thank you!
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My idea of proofreading is correcting spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and trust me, those things have to pop out and yell at you when you see them if you want to proofread for money. I have half a dozen people looking over my work, and they all see stuff that others miss, and miss stuff that others see, so it seems to take a special talent I have no idea how one could break in, except by offering your services on something like “Fiver” were people offer all sorts of services, and if you’re good, and inexpensive, perhaps word of mouth in time. Sorry, I can’t be more helpful.
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That’d be enough, thank you!
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