I have always enjoyed writing but I wasn’t the best English student. I don’t always remember all the grammar rules. Sometimes there are words that I know how to spell, but they look funny when I see them. So how do I improve the grammar, spelling, and tone of my blog posts? The answer is simple. I cheat. And I’m going to teach you how I do it.
The Tools I Use
I use a combination of Grammarly and Hemingway when I write my blog posts. Grammarly has browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge (Version 15+). Hemingway has a desktop app or you can paste or type directly into the app on their website for free.
Hemingway for Readability
I often paste the text from my blog posts into Hemingway while I’m writing to see how I’m doing. The app will tell me what grade level I’m writing and how many words I’ve used so far. It highlights potential issues within a sentence like passive voice and complicated phrasing. It also highlights entire sentences that it feels are either “hard to read” or “very hard to read.”
Grammarly for Spellcheck
The Grammarly browser extension scans the text you’ve typed in the browser and underlines any grammar and spelling issues it finds. Many people use spell checkers, but many of those will only catch misspelled words. It suggests words that, while spelled correctly, may be misused, like effect instead of affect. The free version of Grammarly will tell you about all the issues with your post, but it doesn’t show you how to fix all of them. Only the premium version will show you all of them. You can also paste your full text into Scribens for an additional grammar check.
Grammarly for Tone
Grammarly also lets you know about the tone of your writing. This is very important because if your tone is off, you might be misunderstood. For example, Grammarly is telling me that the tone of this blog post is “informative” and I hope that it has been. That’s how I improve the grammar, spelling, and tone of my blog posts.
What’s Next?
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