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July 27, 2017 All, English Grammar, Writing in English

The Best Online Proofreading Services for your English Writing

Robert
Brand Author
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These tools will help you write error free articles, every time. Rather than talk about ALL the many proofreading tools out there, I’m going to talk about the ones that are (in my experience) the best!

 

Automated

In the world of hundreds of automated grammar checkers, two stand out of the pack for me. While most aren’t even as good as what you would find on Microsoft Word or any other text editor with a spell check function, these two are worth checking out.

 

Keep in mind that no automated editor is perfect. If you use these only these services, you’re writing is still likely to be left with some serious mistakes. And, if you’re a non-native English speaker, it can be hard to distinguish what mistakes actually need to be changed, and which are so called “false positives”. It can also be hard to tell how to fix the problem areas these softwares show, because often their suggestions change the intended meaning of your writing. But, that’s still better than using nothing at all!

 

Grammarly

 

Grammarly is an automated online proofreading service that corrects your spelling and grammar mistakes online. There are a lot of these checkers (and a few more are mentioned below), but Grammarly is the best I’ve found. Grammarly is somewhat similar to the spelling and grammar checker you might find on Microsoft word, but it catches more errors, and is generally more descriptive in explaining your writing errors. However this accuracy comes with a price, as a monthly subscription with Grammarly is $29.95 per month (less on annual or quarterly plans).

 

It’s also important to note that Grammarly is an automated software, and as such, is prone to making incorrect recommendations, and will also likely miss some mistakes in your writing. It’s definitely better than nothing, but it’s far from perfect!

 

Ginger Software

 

Another automated, paid service, Ginger is a little cheaper, with its premium service costing $14.60 per month. Ginger is a little behind Grammarly when it comes to usability and accuracy of edits, as far as the grammar checker goes. Ginger’s main features are word prediction, grammar checker, sentence rephraser, dictionary, text reader, personal trainer, translator, smart word prediction, and emoji. These features are built with nonnative English speakers in mind to help train English learners in the language as they write, so if you’re not a native speaker this may be worth a look!

 

Hemmingway

 

Hemmingway is a service I’ve just found out about recently. It provides you with some advanced English writing tips, such as showing you when you’re using the passive voice in your writing, or when your sentences are too long to follow. It’s a great tool, but should definitely not be used on its own, and its recommendations don’t apply for all document types, so make sure you understand why it’s making the suggestions it does before applying them. I still laugh when I use it and it highlights words like “similar” and “however” as being too difficult and candidates for replacement. It’s useful as a quick check though, and shouldn’t be disregarded.

 

Human

 

The above services are great for quick grammar checks, but if you need real accuracy, an automated service just isn’t going to do the job for you. This is especially true if you are a not a native English speaker, since 10 out of 10 language learners agree that it’s WAY harder to proofread your own writing in a foreign language!

 

This is where a real English speaker reading your writing will come in handy. If only there were services that did that… wait… there’s a lot of them? All on the internet? Perfect!

 

 Writesaver

 

Writesaver is the most affordable of the human proofreader options, with prices at less than half of its competitors pricing. We also offer a 24-hour turnaround guarantee. After you submit your document, Writesaver instantly has a team of proofreaders who begin proofreading and editing your document, and your entire document is checked by two separate proofreaders for errors. Because multiple people read over every document, your document is edited faster than possible with other services, and accuracy is guaranteed because your entire document is double checked by two native English speakers.

 

We don’t offer plagiarism checking or a service for formatting references however, so if you need these services check out our next recommendation.

 

 

Papertrue

 

Papertrue is a proofreading service that provides accurate proofreads, with documents edited within 24 hours. Their service is significantly more expensive than Writesaver, but they do offer reference checks as well as free revisions of your edited document.

 

 

 

Regardless of which service you choose; you need to proofread! And if English is not your first language, having a real person proofread your work is essential for important documents. See importance of proper grammar for more on how improper writing can affect your grades, job, and even how much money you make! It’s too important to mess up!

 

 

 

 

Have other services you’ve used that you like? Let us know below:

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