What I’m Learning from 6 Months on Grammarly

I started my Grammarly subscription upon my enrollment in graduate school. It was part of a suite of tools recommended by the university. This version would be the paid subscription — and if the inquiry is, if it is worth it, my answer is a resounding YES!

Grammarly is tracking along with everything I write on my laptop. It’s checking for grammatical and spelling errors. It alerts me when I write and gathers all of its recommendations for me to review when I am ready to edit. In the past, on still on occasion will use tools like Hemingway App, which is a free desktop tool that will highlight run-on and complex sentences. It also makes similar recommendations to limit passive voice and the overuse of adjectives.

The help with the writing as you write your emails, articles, or reports can be tremendously helpful. But what surprised me about Grammarly were the emails tracking your tone, progress, and most common mistakes. It not only gives you feedback on one piece of writing but how you are generally doing as a writer. As a result, I am finding a whole new level of motivation and insight. This type of feedback captures who I am as a writer but also who I want to be.

The emails from Grammarly started to catch my eye when it told me sometime in the Fall it alerted me I’d written 700,000 words since May. I celebrated when I hit the 1,000,000 word mark six months from the time it started counting. I used that to write a blog about what I learned from writing a million words. I then set my intention for what I wanted to write with my next million words. But what surprised me the most was that a week later, I now suddenly had written 197,000 more words.

In business terms, the idea is that you can manage what you measure. Now, as a writer, I have a tool to measure my writing. In this way, I can now better manage it too. It creates a gamification tool. It’s a bit like having a step counter. In one of my former jobs, the insurance company provided us with cash rewards for playing up to three games a day, with a $1 paid for every game won. One counted the total number of steps in a day. The other counted a certain number of steps taken at least an hour apart for a total of 7 interspersed walks, and the last one counted one continuous walk with a certain amount of steps in a day which typically took about 20–30 minutes to complete. I played and I earned money and thought overall a great idea.

Grammarly’s word counting tool doesn’t actually pay me, but it could be the measure to help me better monetize my writing. It’s definitely motivating. Since my 1,000,000 word milestone, which was achieved in November, I committed to new writing goals. What I would not realize is that a week later it would alert me that I’d achieved 196,506 words written in one week. That brings me to a total tally 30 weeks from when the counting began of 1,197,213 words.

Let’s look at some other helpful insights. It captures the tone in my writing.

It let me know my most common mistakes. And fortunately, it’s there for me as I write to catch and help me correct these errors.

It lets me know about my productivity and levels and the number of unique words I use when I write.

And here are my 1,000,000 word milestone and my word count just one week later.

Thank you, Grammarly. Thank you for tracking my words and giving me helpful insights. And most importantly, thank you for the motivation to keep going. I’m sure I’m not using nearly all of the tools, and I’d love to learn more. But just using it as passively as I am has been super helpful. It can also let me know my tone for the particular piece I am writing. For this article, you can see if you agree.

In conclusion, I recommend Grammarly for anyone who writes.

I am personally exploring where writing can take me next. If you like this, please subscribe to my Medium page, and give a clap or a comment. Where can writing take you? Where can it take us together? Metrics matter, and as a new member of the Medium Partner Program — I’d love to see if I can turn a word into a penny. At my current word rate, you’ll all help me yield $11,972.13. Let’s do this!

Philippa Burgess is a creative and business professional. Learn more and connect at www.linktr.ee.com/philippaburgess