Proofreading is an integral part of any writing process and while there are many tips out there for proofreading your own work, it’s often useful to implement the use of software to help you catch errors you may have overlooked. Content writing is a huge component of our day-to-day work and there are some tools that we simply couldn’t live without. Here are the proofreading tools we love to use.
Grammarly
If you’re at all present in the writing sphere then you’ve definitely heard of Grammarly. It’s widely recognised as one of the most essential tools for proofreading. Whether it’s an email, a blog or a Tweet, this tool provides valuable recommendations for improving your writing. Despite a paid version being available, we find that the capabilities of the free software provide plenty of insight when proofreading.
Grammarly is compatible with third-party word processors including Microsoft Office and Google Docs. It offers a browser extension and desktop app that aids in proofreading your writing across various programs and websites.
WriteWords
Guilty of using the same descriptors and phrases over and over again? WriteWords offers a word and phrase frequency calculator that allows you to instantly see how often you’ve used each word within your text. WriteWords is a site that consists of a large writing community that offers constructive feedback on written works. Alongside their free useful tools, it’s an excellent place to share your work or review other writers’ work for inspiration.
TTSReader
Reading a piece of writing in your head can often lead to overlooking major errors. Our eyes are experts at filling in the gaps so typos or poorly worded phrases can easily slip through the cracks. After an initial read-through of a piece of content, we like to run the text through a text-to-speech reader for audible proofreading. This is an easy way to pick up whether sentences may need rephrasing or fixing. TTSReader is a free unlimited tool that uses mp3 voice-overs to read various documents including webpages, text files and even books. You can also use this tool offline for proofreading on-the-go.
PerfectIt
PerfectIt is a paid proofreading tool that eliminates typos and greatly reduces grammatical errors within a piece of text. This tool is renowned for its ability to maintain consistency across a document, whether that’s abbreviations or hyphenations. One of the biggest selling points of PerfectIt is the fact that it can incorporate your specific house style including phrases to avoid, uniform branding and tone of voice preferences.
Capitalize My Title
An often overlooked aspect of proofreading is the correct case usage when it comes to titles and subheadings. Using AI, this tool takes the guesswork out of sentence case and title case by automatically correcting your text. What makes this tool stand out is that the artificial intelligence has been programmed to understand the different capitalisation rules that come with various stylisation guidelines i.e. APA or AMA.
Bottom Line
Proofreading tools are fantastic for assisting with spotting errors we may have otherwise missed. We would always recommend reading through a written piece before using proofreading tools. These tools are great at streamlining the proofreading process, however, they may not pick up on everything.
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