Writing Hacks: Why You Need Grammarly To Ace Your Assignments

As you might know, I’ve enrolled in a writing course this semester… and I’ve not regretted this decision at all. It made me learn so much about my own creative self and pretty much revived my inner child. Now that it’s over, all I’ve left to do is to wait for the final grade.

Okay, so let me tell you a few things about being graded on a piece of fiction you’ve written. At first glance, it sounds like a very subjective process, which could make it unfair because we all wouldn’t have the same preferences as our teacher, but in reality, there is always a marking scheme for every type of assignment out there, at my university at least.

In the end, the actual creative story only comprises around 20-30% of the total grade.

But can you guess what else makes up 20% of the grade? Yes. Grammar and spelling. 

Since the beginning of the course, my teacher would put a lot of emphasis on spell-checking our assignments, proofreading them, and looking for any grammatical mistakes or doubts. After our first assignments, she said that, in fact, these aspects of writing are very easily overlooked by students. It was proven through our internal grades.

So, she recommended that we try out Grammarly.

I’m not sure about the other students, but I’d usually rely on Microsoft Words to correct any grammatical/spelling mistake. I was also among the lucky ones to have scored high on the first assignments. Nevertheless, I decided to give Grammarly a try.

My Grammarly editor dashboard 🙂

I’ve heard about Grammarly for a while, but I’ve never been curious enough to find out more about it. For those who have no clue what it’s all about, it’s a grammar and spell checker tool that you can install as a browser extension, which will then allow it to proofread everything you write on the internet. From tweets to emails to blog posts… and they even have their own editor website, where you can just upload or paste the text you would like to check, and BAM! Done.

Furthermore, it’s a free tool. And frankly, being a lover of language (and a bit of a Grammar addict, not a Nazi… yet?), I love it!

Grammarly as a free tool detects and corrects:

• Grammatical errors
• Spelling mistakes
• Misuse of punctuation!

I love to be constantly paying attention to my English grammar. I guess I’m a real nerd. 😉

But I believe that it’s become a crucial aspect of being a writer, whether it’s writing snippets of your novel, writing on your blog or even writing LinkedIn updates.

Grammarly also has a premium upgrade, which not only points out your grammatical and spelling mistakes, but also the overuse of words, tips on sentence structure, and a suggested vocabulary! I’m trying it out right now for a while, and if you are a student who plans to get serious about getting full marks on grammar and spelling in your assignments, maybe you could give it a try 🙂

The only downside I found was that it does tend to frustrate me at the end of the day because… who likes to constantly be reminded of even the tiniest punctuation mistake they make in Tweets? Seeing those red and yellow underlinings all day! The solution to this is to simply turn the function off (which can be done directly from your browser) when you don’t need it.

In the end, I’m glad I listened to my teacher. Hopefully awaiting my third and final HD (High Distinction)* for that last major writing assignment!

An Evil Nymph.

*HD or High Distinction is the equivalent of A*/A+. This grading system is mainly used in Australian universities.

Disclaimer: This is an affiliated post.