{"id":541,"date":"2018-04-12T12:55:52","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T19:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/?p=541"},"modified":"2018-04-12T12:55:52","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T19:55:52","slug":"online-grammar-checkers-friend-or-foe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/2018\/04\/12\/online-grammar-checkers-friend-or-foe\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Grammar Checkers: Friend or Foe?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Gillian Saunders<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Gillian and Buster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grammar not your strong suit? You\u2019re not the only one. At the Centre for Academic Communication, almost half of those who use the centre identify \u201cwriting grammatically correct sentences\u201d and editing their own work as a challenge, and some variation of \u201cgrammar help\u201d or \u201cgrammar checking\u201d is one of the most common requests our tutors receive.<\/p>\n

With the rapid expansion of technology available, I wanted to know if there was a tool that could help writers identify their errors and fix them. I knew already, from over 10 years of teaching English as an additional language, that translation programs and other tools have come a long way, and I set out to find something that might at least act as a complement to the instruction and feedback that a tutor or instructor can provide. It\u2019s not usually possible for a human to read and give feedback on an entire thesis, and the limit for tutoring at the CAC is 50 minutes per week. Might there be a miracle product out there that could alert writers to at least some of their most common mistakes, so that tutors and professors can focus on higher order concerns and content, instead of nit-picking at punctuation and missing plural \u201cs\u201d issues? I submitted a proposal about online grammar checkers for the Vancouver Island BCTEAL conference, and began my research. What follows is based on my conference presentation from February 2018.<\/p>\n

First, I made a list of the most widely referenced grammar and writing checkers available, and eliminated any that weren\u2019t free or suited to academic writing. My final list included Ginger (http:\/\/www.gingersoftware.com\/grammarcheck<\/a>), Scribens (https:\/\/www.scribens.com\/<\/a>), Virtual Writing Tutor (https:\/\/virtualwritingtutor.com\/<\/a>), PaperRater (https:\/\/www.paperrater.com\/<\/a>), and, of course, Grammarly (https:\/\/www.grammarly.com\/<\/a>). I also tested the advanced functions of Microsoft Word. In order to get an idea of the types of writing that might benefit from use of these tools, I tested them using two writing samples: one was a former student\u2019s TOEFL writing test (good overall, with some grammatical issues), and one was my own proposal for the BCTEAL conference (graduate-level writing, I hope!).<\/p>\n

Did I find what I was looking for? Well, yes and no. I did find a few useful features that I hadn\u2019t previously known about, but I didn\u2019t find anything that would accurately flag or correct a lot of the types of errors in grammar and punctuation that many writers tend to make. In high-level writing, too, the tools tended to introduce more new errors than they caught existing ones, which is a problem I had anticipated.<\/p>\n

Among the most useful findings was Virtual Writing Tutor\u2019s \u201cCheck Vocabulary\u201d feature, which identifies and lists words that make your paper seem \u201cacademic\u201d or \u201cconversational.\u201d This might be a good option if you\u2019re struggling with finding an academic tone or your writing is too informal. The \u201cCheck Grammar\u201d tool also caught a number of errors in the EAL student writing sample and suggested mostly accurate revisions, but could not distinguish between the word \u201cstyle\u201d as a verb and as a noun in my writing and offered a revision that would have been incorrect. I had high hopes for this tool\u2019s \u201cParaphrase Checker,\u201d but it was completely useless: two 100% identical sentences were only identified as being 68% the same.<\/p>\n

Paper Rater also revealed a few interesting features: It can be adjusted for the type of writing you\u2019re doing and for grade level, and gives a \u201cgrade\u201d and some feedback. Although I wouldn\u2019t recommend relying on this as an indicator of the grade a professor would assign, Paper Rater gave my writing 95% and my student\u2019s writing 75%, and I thought these grades were more or less appropriate. Ignore the letter grades though! They don\u2019t seem to correspond to any grading scale I\u2019m familiar with. Paper Rater is also great for assessing the variety in your sentence beginnings, telling you if your vocabulary is \u201cacademic,\u201d and reporting on use of the passive voice. Overall, I can see this tool being useful for high-level writers who want to get a sense of the general quality and patterns of their work.<\/p>\n

As for the others, Ginger was pretty useless and introduced errors that weren\u2019t there to begin with. It doesn\u2019t do much if you don\u2019t pay to upgrade it, and based on what I saw with the free version I wouldn\u2019t recommend doing that. Scribens was able to do a few basic tasks, such as identify long sentences, but did the most ridiculous things with vocabulary suggestions. Should I change \u201ccommunicate with different<\/em> people and use<\/em> modern technology\u201d to \u201ccommunicate with peculiar<\/em> people and exploit<\/em> modern technology\u201d? These were options suggested, and I think this feature would be potentially catastrophic to writers without an unwaveringly confident grasp of English vocabulary and usage.<\/p>\n

Grammarly is also available in a free and paid version. I used the free one and installed it in Word, and relied on Grammarist\u2019s (http<\/a>:\/\/grammarist.com\/articles\/grammarly-review\/<\/a>) review of the paid version as a comparison. Although Grammarly is probably the best-known and most widely used grammar checker available, both Grammarist and I found it limited for a number of reasons. Grammarly\u2019s rigorous testing revealed a 72% accuracy with 43 items of grammar and style. It scored very highly for style, but not grammar, and I also found that it introduced errors and could not assess words that functioned as two different parts of speech, like \u201cstyle.\u201d Its plagiarism checker was also useless: although it knew that two identical pieces were identical, it gave the same paragraph a thumbs-up when just a few words were changed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Grammarly\u2019s assessment of EAL student writing (when installed in Microsoft Word), with examples of incorrect suggestions for revision.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And finally, although I love Word\u2019s ability to check (very accurately) for passive voice and long sentences, and to assess readability, it isn\u2019t good for many grammatical issues. The advanced checking tools can be activated in \u201cProofing\u201d options. Word\u2019s default is usually to check only \u201cgrammar\u201d and not \u201cgrammar and style,\u201d which is easy to fix.<\/p>\n

In the end, then, while I did find some options that I might recommend to students with specific issues (e.g., sentences beginning with \u201cIt is\u2026\u201d, non-academic tone, or overuse of passive voice), for many writers I think better options include peer review or a visit to the CAC for an assessment of most frequent errors. Once you know what you\u2019re looking for, \u201cFind and Replace\u201d can work miracles! For writers who wish to improve their grammatical accuracy, some of these tools might be a good place to start, but be careful not to get overwhelmed. If you can, focus on just one or two types of errors at a time, and remember that good writing skills take time to cultivate and lots of dedicated practice and feedback.<\/p>\n

\n

Gillian is an English as an Additional Language Specialist at UVic and a PhD student in Education. Her background is in English literature, and she has been teaching English, first in South Korea and now in Canada, for over ten years. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gillian Saunders Grammar not your strong suit? You\u2019re not the only one. At the Centre for Academic Communication, almost half of those who use the centre identify \u201cwriting grammatically correct sentences\u201d and editing their own work as a challenge, and some variation of \u201cgrammar help\u201d or \u201cgrammar checking\u201d is one of the most common … Continue reading Online Grammar Checkers: Friend or Foe?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10,57,34,49,101,67,48,11,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-centre-for-academic-communication","category-eal-graduate-students","category-editors-and-editing","category-grammar-and-punctuation","category-grammar-checkers","category-international-graduate-students","category-posts-by-gillian","category-tutoring","category-writing-resources"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":547,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/gradwriters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}