Grammarly, ProWritingAid and Hemingway

[Cedar]

I've seen recommendations for these Web-based programs from several CC authors. But I admit to feeling a little paranoid, lol. If I enter my article into these programs, will they save the text, causing the CC editors to reject my article and accuse me of plagiarism?

If you've used these programs, please tell me what you think of them. Thanks!

[Lysis]

I had a customer a while ago ask me to always put my stuff through Hemingway. What a PITA. It just basically tells you to get rid of all ly words and other nonsense. I should have charged him more just for that bs.

Using Hemingway is similar to getting too drunk at a company party. Never again.

[HiredGun]

If you follow Hemingway's suggestions, you'll likely strip out most of the 'flavor' of your content.
Might as well just have an artificial intelligence/machine learning powered robot write your content.
Hemingway can help you gain an understanding of repetitive patterns in your writing, but don't take the suggestions as the gospel on writing. Some Constant Content buyers prefer a little flavor with their prose purchases.

[Lysis]

It's been 2 years since I used it, but my customer wanted me to get my rating down to 8th grade reading, I believe. So basically, any sentences with commas or longer than 5 words were a no-no. It was pretty ridiculous. I don't know why writers do all that stuff. I see people saying that they run their stuff through these AI sites, and then I see people copyscaping their stuff. Why? I don't plagiarize and I can proof without help. Why would I do any of this?

The lame SEOs spread this stupid stuff as if it matters to Google. I was a little annoyed at a private client asking me to run my stuff through copyscape. I told him that I don't plagiarize. He said "blah blah Google blah." So now I just tell him that yeah, I run it all through copyscape which is a big hock of hooey. I've never used copyscape in my life. So then he runs it through copyscape and congratulates me on writing 100% unique content. Oh wow, that's amazing, says me.

The flipside is writers who think that something passes copyscape, so it's "original." Copyscape just looks for exact matches. Run a sentence through Google and you'll find the plagiarism. Passing copyscape is not "original" work. Jeeez. Go to college or something.

[Cedar]

Do any of you find Grammarly or ProWritingAid helpful for proofreading purposes?

[PaulMaplesden]

I like Hemingway - Because I tend to write "how to" and informative articles, the more direct approach of Hemingway forces me to shorten my sentences and use clearer language. In other words, it complements and improves on my natural writing style. As far as I know, there are no issues with putting work into Hemingway to check it (it doesn't save or copy your text anywhere.) If you're really concerned, they have a desktop app you can download for $10, that's completely offline.

Grammarly doesn't save your work either, so I think you'll be fine with both apps. Since I started using them both, I have seen my acceptance rate rise from about 65% to 90%, so the extra time is worth it for my articles.

[Cedar]

Ah, that's good to know. Do you have a paid subscription to Grammarly, or do you use the free thingy on their site?

[PaulMaplesden]

Ah, that's good to know. Do you have a paid subscription to Grammarly, or do you use the free thingy on their site?

I use the free function as a plugin on Chrome - I find the free version gives me everything I need.

[DCOrange]

Just for the heck of it, I pasted into Grammarly a paragraph from Christopher Buckley's newest novel, the Relic Master. Grammarly did find "significant plagiarism" (thank goodness), but it also found -- in a graph of no more than 150 words -- six "writing issues." I didn't sign up, so I don't know what those issues are, but I'm not sure that I care. Buckley can really write and I don't trust a computer program to tell me that he has issues.