It’s no secret, out of all the talents I may have, the acuity for perfect grammar is not one of them. As a child, my poor spelling was covered up only by my even worse handwriting. As hard as I try, remembering to use “then” instead of “than” seems to find a way to slip by me!
Spellcheck and other technology gave me the confidence I needed to write more often, and a 140 character limit on Twitter helps force you to find more value in fewer words. However, those technologies are limited in scope and miss simple word confusion like “then” and “than” that slip by now and again.
If there are others out there like me, and it sounds like there are THEN I need you to check out this great new tool! It will help you push out more consistently proofed and well-manicured copies of writing THAN you’ve ever had before!
The tool is called Grammerly.com. I’ve only been using it for less than 24 hours, but I’m already impressed. The basic plan is free, and it comes with this neat little Chrome extension that super-charges your browser-based text. Here are a few of examples:
Unfortunately, it still missed some “then” and “than” mix-ups, as well as a few situations where two words should be one (e.g. proofreading). These are mistakes that only a person would catch. That’s where the fun part comes in.
They have this neat feature called “Professional Proofreading,” and for $0.02 per word, you can request a real live human to read over your material. Below is my experience and what provoked me to write up this blog!
Of course, you wouldn’t use a professional proofreader all the time, but for important emails to the public or to double-check each blog post, it may be money, and time, well spent. Enjoy!
Sean Shadmand 