Free editing tools for writers/authors and others

Are you a writer?

The answer is probably yes. Even if you don’t write books or poems, there will be things you write. A shopping list (okay not much editing required for these, I guess), a letter or email to a loved one, a job application, a blog post, anything really.

When you write a letter to a loved one, the occasional spelling or grammar mistake will usually be forgiven. Special attention to spelling and grammar are more important when you write a job application. A well-constructed letter makes a far better impression on a potential employer than one carrying a lot of spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

So, where should you go?

That is really up to you but I can suggest a few to you. And the good news? They are all available free to use!

1.    Grammarly – This is a free programme which checks a few basic spelling and grammatical errors. In the free version, it looks at contextual spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and style. You can also upgrade to a Premium service. This one includes advanced issues, genre, vocabulary enhancement, plagiarism and the possibility to send the document to Proofreaders.
Don’t worry, the free version will do beautifully for beginners. The good news is, the free programme even integrates with Word!
2.   ProWritingAid – Another free programme available to us is ProWritingAid. In its free format, it is only available on the internet and you can check documents up to 500 words. Of course, it is possible to check longer documents but in that case; you need to do it in sections. There are several points where your document can be scrutinised in this programme. Online there is the opportunity to have real-time, which shows you the errors and suggestions for improvement as you write. There is a summary which informs you of the quality of the document you have written. Style is the next section to look at and it will inform you when words may be superfluous and better left out. The grammar check is the next tab and speaks for itself. The next tab shows you which words are overused. E.g. you have written ‘have’ in nearly every sentence. ProWritingAid will advise you to remove several of them to make the document one more easily read. Readability and clichés follow informing you whether the readability of your document is good or poor. The programme will suggest keeping the use of clichés (down in the dumps, etc) down to a minimum. It also advises you on sticky sentences and advises on how to make them less sticky. Diction is the next tab, followed by all repeats and echoes. If we repeat ourselves too much, the document becomes annoying to read. Structure, sentence and thesaurus are the next items to check our document against. This is closely followed by dialogue and consistency. Dialogue tells us which part of our work contains dialogue or dialogue tags. Consistency picks up on the use of quote marks, capitals, spelling (whether using American English or British English or being inconsistent in this), and hyphenation. Pacing shows us whether our work is slow or fast-paced. Overuse of pronouns or overuse of pronouns at the start of a sentence can be annoying to readers. The pronoun tab shows us whether the percentage of pronouns in our work is good or too high and whether we have too many starting a sentence. It is also possible to search our documents for alliterations and homonyms and whether there is sufficient transition within the document. A search for plagiarism is possible, have you accidentally plagiarised someone else’s work? House and combo errors are also checked for and you can search for acronyms.
3.   Hemingway Editor – This online app also allows us to check the quality of our work. It looks at the use of adverbs, passive voice, complex phrases, hard and very hard to read sentences. Although this is already covered in the above-mentioned editors, it can pick up something more.

So, which one is the best?

If I had to choose only one, I would probably choose ProWritingAid. However, why choose?

In my writing, I use all three of them. During the editing process, I copy and paste the scenes into ProWritingAid online. My browser already has Grammarly installed as an extension. While editing it within the app, it gets ‘blasted’ by both programmes at the same time. Once I’m happy with the adjustments made, I copy and paste it to Hemingway Editor for some last-minute adjustments and copy it back to the document.

And voila, the document has received its first edit.

Why don’t you try them out yourself? I certainly love them.

Joni.