Should you Use Software for Proofreading?

Whether you’re writing a document as a student, academic, lecturer, content creator, businessperson, lawyer, sports enthusiast, or – for that matter – anything else, spelling and grammar mistakes are inevitable.

Professional proofreading plays an important role in the preparation of all documents, however big or small, and this is one of the reasons why professional proofreading services are becoming increasingly popular today. After all, given the difficulties that all writers have in producing error-free documents, it is understandable that professional proofreading services are in high demand. 

While professional proofreading is one option that you need to consider, you may not always have the budget, the time, or the inclination to work with experts in the field. Also, it’s often the case that the document you’re preparing is too small to be worth sending to a proofreader (e.g., an email).

With all this in mind, the option of using software to assist in proofreading is something that cannot be overlooked. There are many excellent proofreading tools available online, both for free and paid, and – whether you are working with a professional or not – it is strongly recommended that you exploit these.

Having established that you should always be using software to improve your documents, the purpose of the rest of this article is to examine the pros and cons of two well-known pieces of writing software: Grammarly and ProWritingAid.

 

Grammarly

Grammarly is both a free and paid spellchecking tool to help with proofreading, style, and readability in your mission-critical documents. It is powered by artificial intelligence, it is available on all devices, and it even offers a built-in plagiarism detector, which is perfect for academic writing.

An important benefit of using Grammarly is that it helps you to catch basic spelling and grammar errors that you might otherwise overlook. Alongside this, the software enables you to maintain a consistent tone and writing style throughout your document, which your readers will definitely appreciate.

On the positive side, Grammarly is user-friendly and, in the opinion of almost all experienced proofreaders, is an indispensable tool. One of the most effect

ive uses of Grammarly is to integrate it into your web browser (e.g., Google Chrome), which is great when editing WordPress posts or writing emails.

On the negative side, many professional writers find that the paid version of Grammarly leaves a lot to be desired. The suggestions that the Grammarly AI system makes are not always on point, and, in many cases, they are incorrect. However, when used by proofreaders as a tool – not as a replacement – this piece of software is extremely valuable.

 

ProWritingAid

Compared to Grammarly’s more restricted focus on grammar and punctuation, ProWritingAid is a comprehensive tool that focuses on content style, structure, and syntax.

While Grammarly is great for getting rid of errors in short blog posts, ProWritingAid is better suited for extended pieces of writing where in-depth explanations for suggestions are needed.

Similar to Grammarly, one of the most powerful features of ProWritingAid is its ability to integrate with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and Google Chrome.

Broadly speaking, ProWritingAid shines the most when it is used as a style-checker rather than a spellchecker. For this reason, professional writers and proofreaders often use both ProWritingAid and Grammarly alongside one another, with the two tools nicely complementing each other.