Is Grammarly Useful for Your School Papers? - An Expert Opinion

Last Updated: 11 May 2024

One of the biggest challenges of academic writing is ensuring your work is of high quality. This means checking for sentence structure, grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and plagiarism. This is where Grammarly comes in.

Grammarly is a tool that claims to enhance and refine your work to perfection. While it promises all this, the biggest question on most people's minds is, should you use Grammarly to edit school papers?

Besides, some students also feel that using Grammarly to edit their papers amounts to cheating. Although it might feel like you are delegating the proofreading and editing work to software rather than doing it yourself, you are at an advantage over those who do not use Grammarly.

Grammarly is super helpful for your grades on written papers.

We recommend using Grammarly, as it is a great tool for writing academic and business papers. If you are a student and not using it, we are here to share with you the reasons why you should begin using it.

In this article, we will review Grammarly and identify its pros and cons, as well as cheaper alternatives.

What is Grammarly and What Does it Do?

Grammarly is a cloud-based typing assistant based in San Francisco that provides suggestions to remove grammatically incorrect spelling, punctuation, style errors, poor sentence structure, and wordiness. Its main goal is to help you move beyond "just good enough" to a high-quality document.

Grammarly is an app that helps students and professionals edit their assignments and written papers.

How does Grammarly work? You ask.

Well, the tool combines machine learning, deep learning, and natural language selection to make suggestions on areas to edit in your paper.

However, it is not just a spell checker. It offers meaningful suggestions on how to make sentences concise, clearer, and easier to read.

For many students who use it, it is an absolute game changer.

When you hover the cursor over the underlined words, you will see tooltip suggestions for what to change. Depending on how you feel about the suggestion, you can either accept or skip the change.

In short, Grammarly helps you find errors and fix them to improve clarity, conciseness, coherence, completeness, and connectedness in your writing. Based on its algorithm, it highlights sentences and words it feels have been misplaced or not written well.

For every document, you can set goals to get customized suggestions. For instance, you can choose whether you want formal or casual writing.

Grammarly provides a performance report, which shows different aspects of the document to help improve your writing. The report has the following features:

Grammarly is designed to work where you are working and across various applications, browsers and even devices. It is available on the following web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. You can use it on your desktop and mobile devices by downloading the mobile keyboards for either Adobe, iOS or iPad apps.

If you are wondering whether Grammarly can be trusted, the answer is simple: yes, it can. Grammarly complies with HIPAA security, privacy, and breach notification rules to ensure the protection of all your information.

Pros of Using Grammarly

Many students wonder whether it is okay to use Grammarly for school; well, the truth is, it is okay to use Grammarly to edit essays, homework, assignments, term papers, and research papers. The following are the benefits of using Grammarly:

Corrects Grammar and Spelling

The primary function of Grammarly is to act as a virtual assistant by scanning your document to identify grammar and spelling mistakes. The tool goes beyond identifying these issues but also provides accurate suggestions to help you make the corrections.

Enhances Clarity and Readability

Grammarly provides suggestions for spelling, grammar, spelling style errors, and alternative word choices that help improve the clarity and readability of your text. In addition, the tools help you restructure your sentences and provide explanations for these words and phrases to help you learn from your mistakes.

When you use Grammarly, it will help you do the following to improve clarity and readability:

Improve Vocabulary

The tool helps improve your vocabulary and how you express yourself by providing contextual vocabulary improvement.

By providing synonyms and alternative words and phrases, Grammarly will help add variety and depth to your text.

In addition, Grammarly will help improve your vocabulary by providing more precise suggestions about word choice and sentence structure.

Supporting Originality

Grammarly helps in flagging plagiarized words, phrases, and sentences and the possible sources for them.

The tool has a plagiarism checker that compares your document with millions of articles across different web pages to identify similar text. 

The tool can also point out unclear and clichéd phrases and sentences, which could lead to unintentional plagiarism.

By encouraging you to use fresh language, the tool helps you avoid copying text from other sources, thus promoting originality.

Provides Clear Explanations of Words and Phrases

The proofreading tool on Grammarly highlights problems provides explanations as to why they are problematic, and offers alternative suggestions. Grammarly breaks down the responses into the following categories:

Cons of Using Grammarly

While Grammarly is a great tool for improving writing, it has several drawbacks. These include:

Performance Issues

In some cases, users face performance issues when using the tool. Some users may not be able to see suggestions or corrections.

Other times, AI assistance may need to be available, which could pose a problem for users relying only on the tool.

Limited Language Support

Grammarly is only available in English. This means those who speak and write only in indigenous languages may not benefit from the tool. Fortunately, the tool can recognize words, phrases, spelling, punctuation, and grammar in different English languages. This means you can write in American, British, Canadian, or Australian English.

Privacy Concerns

Grammarly stores data of all the information uploaded on the tool. While the company claims to ensure data security and privacy, users are encouraged to be mindful at all times.

Autocorrect Annoyance

Sometimes, the autocorrect feature can be extremely annoying. For instance, if there are names, words, or phrases outside the tool's recognition, it will provide incorrect suggestions, which can be annoying.

Limited Offline Access

Users must have a reliable internet connection to use Grammarly. This means that if you cannot afford the internet or are in a place with low internet connectivity, you will not use the tool.

Over-Reliance of the Tool

While Grammarly is a good tool for editing your assignments and formal tasks, it can lead to over-reliance. Relying solely on the tool could prevent users from growth, which occurs from learning through mistakes.

Features of Grammarly Free Vs. Premium Version

Grammarly uses various features to improve and refine your writing. However, Grammarly is not 100% free. The toll has both free and premium versions. Not every feature is available in the free version. There are features that people using the premium version enjoy that those using the free do not.

The Grammarly free version provides the following basic suggestions

If you want more suggestions or customizable features, use the Grammarly premium version. The features available in the premium version include:

Plagiarism Checker Tool

Plagiarism is a serious offense with consequences such as a low grade and even disqualification from the school. Grammarly offers a solution that ensures you do not face these consequences by identifying plagiarized texts. By entering your essay, research papers, or any other document, the tool will compare with other texts on the web and flag similar text.

However, those using the free version do not enjoy the plagiarism-checking feature. It is only available for the premium version.

AI Writing Assistant

Grammarly has generative AI that understands the context of your text and communication, generates high-quality and relevant text, and suggests revisions until your work is at its best. This tool is your co-creator and confidence booster by helping you:

In addition, Grammarly has features that facilitate your writing process. However, since using AI in academic writing is still a gray area, turn off this feature as your entire paper might be flagged as non-human or AI-generated content. You might be forced to face the consequences or redo your paper within a short time, which can send panic and stress to your brain.

An Easier Way to Be Inclusive

At this age, when LGBTQIA and hate crimes are on the rise, there is a need to ensure that gender-fluid people feel safe. One of the measures organizations, including Grammarly, are taking is using and encouraging the use of gender-inclusive language. Using gender-inclusive language means choosing a neutral language and avoiding making preferences towards a particular language.

Grammarly's inclusive feature provides suggestions that allow you to write using words and phrases that make people feel comfortable. These features also include explanations about the selected words to help you make better choices.

Accurate Citations

Making correct and relevant citations can be challenging, especially when you are in a hurry to finish your academic assignments. By using Grammarly, you can keep your citations and formatting consistent with the chosen style guide. This means whether you are using APA, MLA, Chicago or any other style, your work will be consistent right from the title page to the reference list section.

Grammarly premium also includes the following:

Expert Proofreading

If you are still not satisfied with your writing even after using Grammarly AI assistance, you can request expert proofreading. Grammarly has an expert writing service, which is an optional feature offered alongside the premium features. All you need to do is send your document to their team of writing experts.

Grammarly expert proofreading is offered in two options:

To access this feature, click on the "Get Expert Writing Help" button located in the lower right-hand corner of your document.

The premium version also includes a Tone detector, grammar checker, vocabulary enhancement tool, and writing style coach.

Tone detector features help you determine whether your tone is formal, joyful, aggressive, etc.

Grammar checker. This feature will detect several errors in your text, such as word order, agreement in tense and overall grammatical correctness, and then parse the sentence into a form that matches grammar.

Related Readings:

The Different Ways to Use Grammarly

You can use Grammarly in different ways, including:

Chrome Extension

The Grammarly Chrome extension offers real-time writing suggestions anywhere you write on the web, such as Gmail, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. To use the tool, visit the Chrome store on Google Chrome and install the Grammarly browser extension.

Grammarly for Your Desktop

The Grammarly app for your desktop allows you to write seamlessly. You can write messages, documents, assignments, and social media posts clearly and error-free. To get this app, install Grammarly from Windows or Mac.

Grammarly Web Tool

If you do not want to install the Chrome extension or download the app, use it online with the Grammarly Editor. In other words, access Grammarly through any web browser, including Chrome.

Grammarly for MS Office

You can use Grammarly in Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

How Much Does Grammarly Cost?

As mentioned, Grammarly has both free and paid versions. With the free version, you can access only limited features, but you will still be able to write without mistakes. See your writing tone and generate text with 100 AI prompts.

On the other hand, Grammarly premium costs $12 per month ($144 in total when you make one payment) when billed annually and $29 a month when you choose to pay per month.

What's more, Grammarly has a business option for professionals. This version combines AI writing assistance with your organization's knowledge to ensure the writing is professional.

Grammarly business costs $25 a month, and a seat is billed as one payment for a seat.

Unfortunately, Grammarly does not offer a student discount. This can be problematic if you are on a tight budget.

So, is it really worth paying for Grammarly? Yes, for students and professionals who are looking to write in a more specific style or tone, choosing to pay Grammarly premium is a good move.

Can I Use Grammarly for College Papers?

College papers, like other academic papers, require certain standards. This means that you must always submit a high-quality paper. Grammarly helps you ensure that your work does not have any errors that could cost you a good grade.

Using all the Grammarly features in the premium version will help refine their writing and ensure your work is of high quality.

However, for a casual writer who rarely uses the tool, paying $30 a month is not smart. The free tool is more comprehensive than other similar editing tools. You can stick to these free versions to improve your grammar and spelling and eliminate wordiness.

Additionally, if you are a student with a limited budget and feel the premium version is expensive, the free version will suffice. In fact, the free version is much better than Microsoft Word spell checker. However, using the free version means you will miss some errors, which can only be fixed with the premium version.

Is There a Better Editor than Grammarly?

While Grammarly premium is considered the best feature for improving your writing, it can be expensive for those on a tight budget. The free version is okay, but it does not offer all the key suggestions necessary to improve your writing. That said, there are grammar checker apps that are quite affordable compared to Grammarly. Some of these Apps are:

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is a self-editing tool that provides instant analysis and improvements in your writing to make it easier for readers to read and understand your content. You can edit your work for free using the Web Editor. However, you will only edit 500 words at a time.

Unlike Grammarly Premium, ProWritingAid is cheaper. It costs $10 a month, billed annually at $120.

So, is ProWritingAid better than Grammarly? Yes, ProWritingAid is a better alternative to Grammarly because it is not only cheaper but also good at grammar checking.

Hemingway App

Hemingway Editor is a tool for writing and revising. It cuts the fluff to make your writing simpler and more direct, which makes it good for academic writing. The tool has a free version and a paid plan. The paid version, Hemingway Editor Plus, incorporates AI to improve your writing. It costs $10 per month or $100 billed yearly, or $8.3 if paid upfront.

WhiteSmoke

Whitesmoke is a proofreading tool compatible with all browsers that checks grammar, spelling, style, punctuation, and plagiarism checkers. The tool costs $10 a month. However, there is a 50% discount when you make one payment, which means the price is $5, and you will pay $59.95.

So, is WhiteSmoke better than Grammarly? Well, while WhiteSmoke is cheaper, Grammarly is better for long-term content.

The Bottom Line: Is Grammarly Actually Useful?

Yes, Grammarly is useful for both school assignments and professional writing. It checks every word, phrase, and sentence to ensure there are no spelling, punctuation, or punctuation errors in your work.

However, since the English language is ever-changing, Grammarly and similar tools could face the monumental task of trying to keep up. Therefore, even after editing your work using Grammarly, ensure you go through the work one more time to ensure there are no errors.

At GradeCrest.com, we use Grammarly to countercheck the flow, fluency, tone, omissions, errors, and mistakes in the papers we write. However, we have the AI feature turned off because we want our papers not to be flagged as written by AI. You can rest assured that your paper will be of the highest quality, which meets the top grade band in your professor’s rubric. Trust us for the short or long papers and see the magic we have to offer. We are the best website to get college, undergraduate, and graduate essay or assignment writing help.

If you want to get instant, affordable, confidential, and reliable help, place your order today.