Content riddled with spelling mistakes, misplaced punctuation, and other grammatical errors look unprofessional and careless. Editing your own work is difficult because you’re often too close to it to notice the errors.
Your best ideas may be lost if people have to wade through all the mistakes to find them. Fortunately, it’s possible to use some really good editing tools today to improve your articles, emails, reports, white papers and more.
The editing tools go way beyond the simple spelling and grammar checks that old word processors used to provide. Here are some interesting editing tools for you to check out.
#1 Grammarly
This is probably one of the most well-known spelling and grammar checkers. Grammarly is available as a web-based tool or a Google Chrome extension. A free version exists that will find the most common spelling and grammar mistakes and fix them.
The premium version is available via a subscription plan and comes with a plagiarism detection feature. If you thought your grammar was good, you’ll be surprised at how many grammatical mistakes Grammarly uncovers. Grammarly covers all contextual spelling errors and can also detect and correct over 250 types of grammar errors.
#2 Hemingway
This is a text editing tool that will help you to make your writing much more readable. When writing web content, you need to adopt a straightforward style so readers can easily understand what you’re trying to say.
You will find out where you’ve used passive voice, be able to eliminate excessive adverbs and find out where your sentences are too complex and lengthy.
Hemingway breaks down reading time, number of paragraphs and word count, giving you a readability grade. Sentences with problems are color coded to highlight the problem areas, making them easy to fix.
#3 Visual Thesaurus
This is handy if you’re struggling to find a better word to express what you want to say. It’s a great tool for people who think visually.
You can zero in on the word you’re looking for and follow a trail of related concepts. Hear words pronounced correctly and expand your search to the Web for images or more information. Try it out for free but you need a subscription for regular use.
#4 ProofreadBot
This is a site where new errors are added every day to expand the site. You have the option of submitting an error to the site and if it’s approved, you can have 25 000 words checked (otherwise you pay to have your writing checked).
ProofreadBot highlights mistakes, gives an explanation of the mistake and makes suggestions about how to fix it. This is helpful for those who don’t just want their writing corrected but want to improve it. You also receive a readability score. Proofreadbot not free but it is affordable.
#5 ProWritingAid
This is a tool that you can use in MS Word, Scrivner, Chrome and Google Docs. It offers a free and premium version. The free version is only available online and allows you to analyze up to 3,000 words.
One premium version does not restrict your word limit and another more expensive one includes a plagiarism checker you can use up to 50 times a year.
ProWritingAid tool looks for common problems in writing structure and provides feedback you can use to fix them. It checks for repetition and overuse, clichés, and alliteration. Denise Richards, a writer for EssayOnTime, says it missed some of the smaller punctuation errors that Grammarly picked up but it’s a useful tool for students.
#6 SmartEdit
This is a downloadable editing tool. It can stand alone or work within MS Word and is only available to Windows users at present.
SmartEdit will do 20 different types of checks on your content, including looking for repeated phrases, highlighting adverbs and checking for spelling mistakes and misused words. It also checks for clichés and redundancies. Check out all of its features with a 10-day free trial.
#7 CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
This headline Analyzer has been specifically developed to analyze the headlines of your article and help you make them more enticing. Enter your headline into this free tool, submit some personal details and receive your results.
The tool gives you a score, based on your usage of uncommon words, power words, length of your headline and its impact. Improve potentially poor-performing headlines before hitting publish.
#8 Slick Write
This is a fast, free online grammar checker. No download or installation is necessary. The features tab shows stylistic flaws in your document. You simply click the underlined region to get more information, such as passive voice and unnecessary adjectives.
A second tab shows structure and you can hover over a sentence to see its word count and detects an overabundance of complex sentences. The vocabulary tab highlights areas with the least variety in red and the most variety in bright green.
#9 CorrectEnglish
This is a popular tool that helps to improve readability of your writing and your grammar. It is not a free tool and you need a yearly subscription. The product is completely web-based and you can purchase different packages.
CorrectEnglish supports MLA and APA style guides and is geared towards the education field. The actual grammar and spell checker is more than adequate and it catches many errors. It’s accurate, easy to use and includes a dictionary and thesaurus. You can try it out for 30 days.
#10 EditMinion
This tool is probably not the best editor on this list but it is free and isolates some of the common grammar errors professional editors despise. It’s also easy to use and very fast. It will show you your most frequently occurring words, average sentence length and longer sentences. It highlights adverbs, passive phrases, clichés and weak words.
To Conclude
Using good sentence structure and wording not only improves the readability of your contact but helps to build trust with readers. Using an automatic editor can help a great deal to improve your content writing. These tools cannot replace the sensitivity of a human editor, but they can help to eliminate spelling errors, redundancies, adverbs, passive voice and other problems that affect the impact of your writing.
Author Bio:
Serena Dorf is a social media savvy Los Angeles-based content writer. She is passionate about writing, personal development, and marketing. In her free time, she is reading classic American literature and learning Swedish. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter.
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