As a writer, I'm no stranger to spell check and grammar check. What surprises me is that I can read over a story again and again and it isn't until a month passes that I realize that I missed a huge editing error. That's why I love using ProWritingAid. It is the extra pair of eyes that I need before I send a story out. Let's walk through why I love it so much.
You start out by uploading a document and in realtime, ProWritingAid goes through the piece of writing and makes suggestions to you. I used ProWritingAid to go through a story that I wanted to send out to the literary world. Well, it caught more than a few things I missed.
Obviously, ProWritingAid goes through your story and makes grammar suggestions. Like any grammar software, I don't always agree with the suggestions, but what I do love, is the readability feature. For example, I wrote, "Since everyone else loved it, she bit her lip and didn’t say anything." ProWritingAid suggested that I write, "Since everyone else loved it, she bit her lip and said nothing." It's a small change, but I loved the suggestion immediately and changed my story based on their feedback.
It also calls me out on passive voice, which is kind of a weakness for me. I wrote the words, "She didn't want to give management the impression she was distracted by her cell phone." ProWritingAid suggested, "She didn't want to give management the impression her cell phone distracted her."
One of my favorite features is the summary section. It's a humbling examination of how my writing did overall. ProWritingAid even offers feedback on where you can improve. For this particular story, they suggested I reduce filler words. They also let me know my readability measures, overused words, and even cliches. (You know my sentence up there I mentioned? The one where the character "bit her lip"? Well, ProWritingAid called me out on that. They mentioned it was a cliche.)
Another favorite section of mine is the thesaurus check. Every now and then, I am stumped for a better word choice. Not every word needs to be replaced with an enhanced one, but sometimes it matters if someone saunters into a room versus someone who slinks into a room. Those don't always come to me in the first - or fifth draft. So, with ProWritingAid, you can highlight a section of writing (1,000 words at a time) and you can get suggestions on different words you can use. I wrote the sentence, "A flash of concern appeared on Lauren's face." The words "flash," "concern," "appeared" and "face" was underlined by their Thesaurus check. When I hover over each of those words, different suggestions come up.
With ProWritingAid you get an exhaustive examination of your writing. They go over things like overused words, sentence structure, sentence length check, and a ton of other reports that you can generate to assess your writing further. ProWritingAid dives deep into the quality of your writing, word choices, and so much more.
I'm so excited to announce that we are giving away three premium licenses to ProWritingAid!
To win a premium license of ProWritingAid ($70) value, please enter the Rafflecopter form below. The giveaway ends May 5th at 11:59pm Central. We will choose 3 winners on May 6 and announce them in the Rafflecopter form. We'll also follow up by email. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You start out by uploading a document and in realtime, ProWritingAid goes through the piece of writing and makes suggestions to you. I used ProWritingAid to go through a story that I wanted to send out to the literary world. Well, it caught more than a few things I missed.
Obviously, ProWritingAid goes through your story and makes grammar suggestions. Like any grammar software, I don't always agree with the suggestions, but what I do love, is the readability feature. For example, I wrote, "Since everyone else loved it, she bit her lip and didn’t say anything." ProWritingAid suggested that I write, "Since everyone else loved it, she bit her lip and said nothing." It's a small change, but I loved the suggestion immediately and changed my story based on their feedback.
It also calls me out on passive voice, which is kind of a weakness for me. I wrote the words, "She didn't want to give management the impression she was distracted by her cell phone." ProWritingAid suggested, "She didn't want to give management the impression her cell phone distracted her."
One of my favorite features is the summary section. It's a humbling examination of how my writing did overall. ProWritingAid even offers feedback on where you can improve. For this particular story, they suggested I reduce filler words. They also let me know my readability measures, overused words, and even cliches. (You know my sentence up there I mentioned? The one where the character "bit her lip"? Well, ProWritingAid called me out on that. They mentioned it was a cliche.)
Another favorite section of mine is the thesaurus check. Every now and then, I am stumped for a better word choice. Not every word needs to be replaced with an enhanced one, but sometimes it matters if someone saunters into a room versus someone who slinks into a room. Those don't always come to me in the first - or fifth draft. So, with ProWritingAid, you can highlight a section of writing (1,000 words at a time) and you can get suggestions on different words you can use. I wrote the sentence, "A flash of concern appeared on Lauren's face." The words "flash," "concern," "appeared" and "face" was underlined by their Thesaurus check. When I hover over each of those words, different suggestions come up.
With ProWritingAid you get an exhaustive examination of your writing. They go over things like overused words, sentence structure, sentence length check, and a ton of other reports that you can generate to assess your writing further. ProWritingAid dives deep into the quality of your writing, word choices, and so much more.
I'm so excited to announce that we are giving away three premium licenses to ProWritingAid!
***** GIVEAWAY *****
To win a premium license of ProWritingAid ($70) value, please enter the Rafflecopter form below. The giveaway ends May 5th at 11:59pm Central. We will choose 3 winners on May 6 and announce them in the Rafflecopter form. We'll also follow up by email. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for trying this out, Nicole! It sounds like a great piece of software. I think I would use it for the thesaurus feature alone--I feel like I'm always racking my brain to come up with new ways to say things and I'm guilty of using a lot of filler words. I'm interested in how it compares to something like Grammarly. I haven't used it but my daughter has, and she even asked for a premium subscription for Christmas but it was so expensive we decided not to buy it.
ReplyDeleteNicole--I need this. I'm going to cross my fingers (and my eyes ;).
ReplyDeleteOverused words and phrases are so hard to catch. Thank you for the recommendation and the opportunity!
ReplyDelete--SueBE
@Renee - Thanks Renee! Yeah that thesaurus feature is so helpful to me - I love it! I find I use the same descriptive words so much. I've use the Grammarly pro too but it isn't nearly as exhaustive in terms of what it looks for in writing (at least, that's what I thought).
ReplyDelete@Sioux - Thanks!! Good luck!
@Sue - they really are!
My daughter has been writing college admittance and scholarship essays. This program would be a great help
ReplyDeleteabfantom at yahoo dot com
Wow! This is really going to help me go through the contest entry i'm currently working on. It will also relief me of the stress of having to take my work to more than one person for proofreading .
ReplyDeleteI've toyed with several ideas of writing. With the stay-at-home orders seems like a good time to focus on that
ReplyDeleteI've got half a dozen novels started! I am always thinking of new storylines, it's the best part of writing for me.
ReplyDeleteIt would be really cool to win this! Right now I use the free version and upload my stories 500 words at a time. Fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteWhat an incredible aid to writing. My husband and I were just saying how needful a good edit is, especially for grammar and redundant words.
ReplyDeleteThis software looks very useful. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete