Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

What Tools do you use to support your Editing? Grammarly? Spiel Chuckers?

burka_oz 🚫

For many years I have put text stories into Word and used that Spell chucker as a guide. Later on, I took notice of the suggestions it would make for Grammar and would follow if I agreed with the suggestion.
At present I am working through a big story - 350,000 words - so I have set Grammarly up into Word and set both of them to use American English instead of my native Australian English.
The combo seems to be working well for me and the price of Free fits my available budget nicely.
(Well I have a Family Account for Office so it is not that far off of free for my work)
What I am wondering is if there are other editing tools out there that could be used to support me as I work through this opus? ;)
Particularly, something that will let me switch Grammar rules to match different national styles to suit the native Grammar style of the Author.

Replies: Keet irvmull Switch Blayde Ernest Bywater Grey Wolf Goldfisherman Bud Ugly Eddie Davidson Eddie Davidson traddis

Keet 🚫

@burka_oz

Particularly, something that will let me switch Grammar rules to match different national styles to suit the native Grammar style of the Author.

Don't know about switching grammar but I know that in LibreOffice you can select a piece of text and set a different language for that part. That's only for spelling as far as I know. I'm sure you can do the same in MS Word.
If you get that far maybe the grammarly plugin for Word respects the set language and checks it accordingly. From your post I understand that you have all the tools to check if that works.

Replies: Ernest Bywater

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Keet

Don't know about switching grammar but I know that in LibreOffice you can select a piece of text and set a different language for that part. That's only for spelling as far as I know. I'm sure you can do the same in MS Word.

you can assign the different dictionaries in the same way - I have some stories with a mix of UK and US English and they show that way.

irvmull 🚫

@burka_oz

Spiel Chucker: someone who invites you to lunch and tries to sell you a timeshare in Florida.

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@burka_oz

Grammar Girl is a great resource for grammar questions. Simply add "grammar girl" to the beginning of your Google questions, such as:

grammar girl lie vs lay
or
grammar girl common grammar myths

btw, that last example brings you to: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/top-ten-grammar-myths which is really interesting reading.

Ernest Bywater 🚫
Updated:

@burka_oz

I use the built-in dictionary in Libre Office Writer, my one knowledge of English, and live editors who know the language. When I first started writing I trusted some software like Grammarly and found they stuffed up the language terribly. However, I should state most of the problem is I write using colloquial English and the software is all designed and set for the formal English used by academics and university assignments, thus they only provide advise based on heavily formal English options which aren't really suited for good story writing.

Replies: Quasirandom

Quasirandom 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Hear him! Especially about Grammerly and the like aiming for formal language. That's fine if that's what you're aiming for, but that's not most storytelling.

(Answering the question in the topic subject, I don't. But I'm a professional copy editor, which is admittedly not an option for everyone.)

Grey Wolf 🚫

@burka_oz

I use ProWritingAid; I find it significantly better than Grammarly for my purposes. It integrates pretty well with Scrivener (better with Word, but Scrivener works well).

The desktop-integration version isn't free (isn't even cheap, though it's easy to find discounts of varying levels), but the online version is, and there's a free trial period for the desktop version, so it's easy enough to check out.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@Grey Wolf

I use ProWritingAid

I confused myself for a couple of seconds. On the first pass I read that as ProWrestlingAid. :)

Replies: Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf 🚫

@Dominions Son

Sometimes getting the words just right is a form of wrestling, it feels like.

Goldfisherman 🚫

@burka_oz

I primarily use LibreOffice writer with the spell checker (expanded) then Webster's instead of Random

Bud Ugly 🚫

@burka_oz

I use both Pro Writing Aid and Grammarly, as well as referring to Grammar Girl, the Grammarist, and Merriam-Webster.
Microsoft Word 2019's grammar check has improved greatly since Word 2013--and it's still crap. I've turned it off, because it's useless.
I've found Grammarly to be fairly good, though I have to say that I only use about half their suggestions. They regularly piss me off with their beta features--which are rarely useful and you cannot turn off.
IMHO, Pro Writing Aid's grammar check isn't nearly as good as Grammarly's, but they offer many more checks that Grammarly does not, such as repeated sentence starts, long sentences, dialect, and more. I do find those useful (though their readability check sucks donkey dick).
So I pay for and use both tools. Fortunately, you can buy a lifetime subscription to Pro Writing Aid, as opposed to Grammarly's annual tax. If Pro Writing Aid would improve their grammar check, I'd tell Grammarly to go pound sand.

Replies: Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf 🚫

@Bud Ugly

I can agree with this, but I only use PWA, mostly because 1) PWA cooperates with Scrivener, and Grammarly doesn't, and 2) my problem is usually not grammar per se but things like passive voice, repeated sentence starts, etc, which PWA is much better at catching.

PWA needs to improve their grammar check, and there are some really simple changes that would make their Scrivener integration much more useful. Also, they've been promising a way to turn rules on and off forever; still not there. You can - allegedly - turn them off forever, but I doubt many people like the idea of 'forever'.

Most useful tool for me, but still a long way to go.

Eddie Davidson 🚫
Updated:

@burka_oz

The grammarly app allows you to specify what type of writing you're doing formal, informal, tell a story. Let's you pick a tone of creative, positive etc

The downside is (at least for me) is that it is very slow and even on an 8 to 9 page story it rechecks the entire thing from top to bottom every time you make one edit which slows you down. It can easily take 10 to 30 seconds between edits.

They recently added a feature that lets you do bulk changes for consistent spelling issues but it is difficult to review those in the format that it uses. I don't use the plug-in for word.

Eddie Davidson 🚫

@burka_oz

I tried the pro-writing aid plugin for word - it slows things down a bit and I prefer the Grammarly interface a little better. Ideally, I'd like to be able to identify a particular rule and have it automatically repeat that rule across the entire chapter.

I have been hoping a new product comes out that is whiz-bang cool.

traddis 🚫

@burka_oz

Jarte Plus has spelling and grammar aid

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Forum: Editors/Reviewers Hangout

What Tools do you use to support your Editing? Grammarly? Spiel Chuckers?

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