Grammarly: Ultimate Guide for Absolute Beginners

If you’re a frequent writer (bloggers, authors, content creators, thought leaders, students, professors, copywriters, business writers, and so on), you are likely to have a demand for a skilled editor who will proofread your work and make the necessary modifications in a timely manner.

However, this isn’t always feasible since you may not be able to afford the services of a professional editor or proofreader.

It’s also possible that you don’t have a lot of time to spare and hence cannot always be waiting for the editors to take their time to edit your write-up. What if you have a deadline approaching quickly and need to submit a write-up for a competition or scholarship and your editor isn’t available?

Grammarly is,  in fact, the solution to all the aforementioned concerns, as well as other variations of the problem. Grammarly serves as an artificial intelligence-powered professional editor that works the same time as you write, saving you time and money.

This ultimate guide is a great resource for anyone who is tired of having typos and grammatical errors in their writings. 

Let’s have a look at what Grammarly has to offer and how to use it judiciously to make your writing life much easier than it is today.

What is the purpose of Grammarly?

In recent times, Grammarly is the most widely used online tool for proofreading and editing English. The tool is available in various forms and has very intuitive user interfaces that almost everyone enjoys.

This tool can be very helpful to you if you work in any capacity that necessitates writing and it will be your lifesaver if your work requires a lot of writing.

Grammarly value proposition is summarized as “Clear, concise, and compelling writing”. This tool helps you improve the quality of your writing while also increasing your writing productivity.

Grammarly can help you with the following tasks:

• Checking of spellings of words in your write-ups
• Checking and correcting grammatical errors in your write-ups
• Checking punctuations and making recommendations on the right punctuations to use
• It also helps improve the clarity, engagements, and delivery of the message or content you are typing
• It helps to improve your vocabulary by making suggestions
• Grammarly also provides formatting and fluency suggestions
• It detects the tone of your writing and lets you know whether your write up is formal or informal
• Grammarly also offers a plagiarism checker to help you make your writings as unique as possible

How does Grammarly work?

Grammarly can be considered as a digital assistant that offers you assistance with your writing. It works to make sure you are putting out the best of work devoid of typos, wrong punctuations, and wrong grammatical constructions.

Grammarly’s functions are aided by various artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to facilitate its functions. Grammarly was launched in 2009 and has been improving its algorithms ever since.

The good thing about having such artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms is that they learn on their own and hence, continuously improve their services.

This tool works by scanning the content you are writing word for word and also tries to grasp the context. This is what distinguishes Grammarly from the competition. 

During the scanning process, it flags all issues or potential issues it identifies from the writings. It then provides very user-friendly feedback to the end-user in real-time. As a result, Grammarly wouldn’t necessarily wait till you are finished before providing suggestions.

It displays errors as soon as it identifies them, which can be immediately after making the error.

Grammarly allows you to define writing goals based on which it provides the best feedback on your writing in order to help you develop your writing skills. 

 Audience, domains, and formality are used to group such goals.

So, basically, by setting your writing goals, you are telling Grammarly about the kind of individuals who will be reading your work, the level of formality that you desire, and the kind of writing you want to do (academic, business, general, casual, email, e.t.c.).

As a result, Grammarly provides you an overall score for your content by taking into consideration your writing goal, how correct your sentences are, how readable they are and the expected level of engagement from your writing.

Another interesting feature is that it does not only gives you the score but a breakdown of it. Grammarly provides you suggestions on how to improve each aspect and also shows you in detail the reason for which something is marked as inappropriate or wrong.

Nevertheless, these are all just suggestions that the tool is offering and you as the writer have the ultimate power to decide whether to go with the suggestions or ignore them.

Where can I use Grammarly?

Grammarly is a cross-platform tool and therefore you can have access to it irrespective of the operating system or the device that you are using.

So, whether you are on a Linux-based system, windows or Mac, as well as with an Android phone or an iOS device, Grammarly is still available to you.

The tool has the benefit of allowing you to use the same account on multiple devices at the same time. So, if you happen to work with numerous devices, you can equally use the same Grammarly account on all the devices simultaneously without having to log out of any of them.

For as long as you have an Internet connection, you can use Grammarly from anywhere on any device.

What are the forms in which you can get Grammarly?

As mentioned earlier, Grammarly exists in several forms and there is a version of Grammarly for any device or platform you are using.

Below are the various forms of Grammarly you can find out there:

– Browser extensions

There are Grammarly browser extensions for almost all the popular browsers out there. Currently, the common Grammarly browser extensions available include: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari 

To use this form of Grammarly, you need to download the respective version for your browser. You can use the links below to download them:

• Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft Edge
• Safari

– Microsoft Word add-on

– Desktop Application

– Android and iOS applications

– Grammarly keyboard

– Grammarly online web editor

How to use Grammarly

Now let’s take a look at how to use the various forms of Grammarly available. So, let’s take them one after the other.

How to use the Grammarly Desktop App

Just like any desktop app, you will need to install the Grammarly Desktop app on your computer to be able to use it. There is an app available for both Windows PC and Mac OS machines. 

How to install Grammarly on Desktop

To install the Grammarly desktop app, follow the steps below

Step 1: Visit the Grammarly desktop app downloader page

Step 2: Click on the green “Download Grammarly It’s free” button to begin your download. Grammarly will automatically begin the download process.

Step 3: Find the downloaded file in your downloads when it is done

Step 4: Double click on the installer or setup file you downloaded to begin the Grammarly Installation process.

Step 5: Go ahead and sign up if you don’t already have an account or sign in if you already have an account.

Step 6: After logging in, you will have an interface like this below. Click on Open Grammarly. 

Step 7: After clicking on the open Grammarly button, you will be redirected back to the desktop application you just installed.

Step 8: Read the instructions and click on Next to continue the process. Continue until you reach the pricing part

Click next, if you want to continue with the free plan, or click on the “Upgrade to Premium” if you are interested in using the premium plan.

To complete the process, click the “Start using Grammarly” option.

Grammarly has now been installed on your computer. You may verify this by looking it up on your computer.

Now that you have successfully installed it on your computer, let’s take a look at how to use it.

Step by step guide on how to use Grammarly on your Desktop

Step 1: To use the Grammarly Desktop App, start by opening it using the desktop icon or searching for it from the start menu and double-clicking it to open.

Step 2: Click on “New document” at the bottom.

It launches in a browser and prompts you to write in a text editor. After that, you can type your content into the editor for further analysis.

Everything else that you can do will be discussed under the web editor form since it is all the same.

How to use the Grammarly Browser Extension

Get to know the particular browser you are using and click on the respective link to download it. In this example, I am using Chrome as my browser.

I will therefore go ahead and click on the link for the chrome extension. This takes me to the chrome extensions store as you can see below:

• Click on “Add to Chrome” button.

A pop-up appears, requesting that you install the Grammarly extension for Chrome. Select “Add extension” from the drop-down menu.

The extension will then start downloading on its own. Allow for the download to finish. The extension will be installed immediately after the download is complete.

After a successful installation, you will be redirected to Grammarly’s website with a success message.

Now, your browser extension is ready for use. The steps outlined above are also applicable to other browsers.

How does the Grammarly Web browser extension work?

After installing the Grammarly extension, you may need to refresh your browser for Grammarly to begin to work. The extension will work on every page you visit within your browser and will check any content you write. 

So, whether you are using an online text editor, publishing a blog post, or writing a message on a social media platform using your browser, you will have Grammarly checking your writings.

Here is what you need to know about Grammarly when it comes to working as a browser extension.

Note 1: 

The moment you start typing or even sometimes when you are done typing, you will find the Grammarly logo on the text editor where you typed your work.

When you see the Grammarly logo, it means that it is now assessing whatever you have written. When Grammarly finds an issue, you’ll see a red number. When it’s green, it means Grammarly found no issue.

Note 2:

After Grammarly is done analyzing your writings, it will make some suggestions by underlining some parts of the writing with various colors.

You have to continually review and accept the necessary suggestions made by Grammarly. Hover over the underlines to view Grammarly’s recommendation, then click to make the change

Note 3: 

If you want details on the suggestions that Grammarly has made, you have to hover over any of the suggestions, then click on the Grammarly logo (“See more in Grammarly‘) that shows up in the popup. 

Clicking the Grammarly logo will open an editing window. Here you can see additional details about Grammarly’s suggestions.

Step by step guide on how to use Grammarly web editor.

Unlike the Desktop version or the browser extension of Grammarly, when using the web editor, you don’t need to do any form of installation. All you need to begin with is access to their web portal.

You can access their web editor using this link: Grammarly web editor or Grammarly web app

Here is the simple web editor that Grammarly provides you with.

With the simple web editor, you just have to type your text into it or copy and paste your content. After you are done typing, click on the “Check your text” button.

Grammarly will then analyze your text and give you the outcome afterward.

Here is a sample result page for some text that I pasted into the simple web editor.

Here is the web application that Grammarly offers you the opportunity to type your content directly or upload a file that you have already created.

If you want to type directly into it, then you would have to click on “New” but if you already have your file created then you would have to click on “Upload”.

Once you upload your file or type out your content, Grammarly will provide you with a score and offer you some suggestions.

You will also be shown some information concerning the extent of correctness, clarity, and engagement of the content you have written.

The suggestions will plainly state what you need to do to improve the content you have written. See an example in the image below:

How to use Grammarly keyboard for both Android and iOS devices

To make Grammarly easier and more convenient for us, the company introduced its keyboard for both Android and iOS phones.

Users of either type of phone, therefore, wouldn’t have to stress much to benefit from the robust capabilities of Grammarly.

All you require is to install the app on your phone and you will see the power of Grammarly in action. To download any of them, use the link below:

Download Grammarly Keyboard for Android

Download Grammarly Keyboard for iOS

Once you have the keyboard installed on your phone, you get the following benefits:

• Real-time writing suggestions
• Tone detection
• Multi-word text predictions
• Smart autocorrect
• Emoji predictions and search bar

The Grammarly Keyboard and proofreader will enable you to write clearly, confidently, and mistake-free when using any app on your phone. 

You will also enjoy advanced features like the synonyms tool which will help you enhance your vocabulary. It will also check your spelling and overall improve your writing.

Pricing: How much does it cost to use Grammarly?

Grammarly offers three different pricing options or packages that you can pick from. The first is a free option that you may use indefinitely, while the other two are paid alternatives.

The plan you choose determines which of the Grammarly features you will be able to access or not.

The three plans are:

• Free
• Premium
• Business

Let’s take a look at which features are available with each of the plans before we finally look at how much the other two plans cost.

The features of Grammarly can be subcategorized. So we will take each category and then look at which of the plans the various subcategories will be available for or not.

Category 1: Correctness

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Grammar, spelling, punctuation	✓	✓	✓
Consistency in spelling and punctuation	–	✓	✓
Fluency	–	✓	✓

Category 2: Clarity

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Conciseness	✓	✓	✓
Clarity-focused sentence rewrites	–	✓	✓
Formatting	–	✓	✓

Category 3: Engagement

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Compelling vocabulary	–	✓	✓
Lively sentence variety	–	✓	✓

Category 4: Delivery

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Tone Detection	✓	✓	✓
Confident Writing	–	✓	✓
Politeness	–	✓	✓
Formality level	–	✓	✓
Inclusive language	–	✓	✓

Category 5: Plagiarism

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Plagiarism detection	–	✓	✓

Category 6: Where to access it

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Desktop Apps (Mac OS and Windows)	✓	✓	✓
Web Browser Extensions	✓	✓	✓
iPhone and iPad	✓	✓	✓
Android devices	✓	✓	✓

Category 6: Team management

Subcategory	Free plan	Premium plan	Business plan
Number of licenses	1 user	1 user	3+ users
Individual accounts	✓	✓	✓
Analytics dashboard	–	–	✓
Priority email support	–	–	✓
Account roles and permissions	–	–	✓

From the above, you realize that you get almost the same features with either the premium or business plan.

The main difference between the two plans is that with the business plan, multiple people can have access to the account while the premium plan is limited to just one person.

How much do you pay for a Grammarly plan?

The first plan is free forever and hence you do not have to pay anything at all to use it. For the premium plan, you are charged $12.00 every month.

The business plan on the other hand comes with a charge of $12.50 per user per month. 

This means that if you have the business plan, the total fee you pay per month will be dependent on how many people have been included in the account.

The total charge will be $12.50 multiplied by the total number of users.