Using proofreading tools can be an effective way to check and improve your work, but it is important to think about what they are good at and how they work, to ensure you are using them in a sensible and ethical manner. Make sure you are familiar with the University’s proofreading policy; one of the key principles to remember is that a tool can suggest changes or improvements, but it cannot make them for you – you must actively decide on and take ownership for any changes to your work.
Knowing how to proofread your own writing is an important skill, and will help you make these decisions more confidently. You can use these Tips for Proofreading to develop your skills in this area.
If you do decide to use proofreading tools such as Grammarly, here are a few tips to help you do this effectively.
Make sure you go through each of the grammar/spelling suggestions one by one, and consider if they make sense – avoid just clicking on ‘accept’ if you are unsure about the suggestion, and never accept several suggestions at once. The University’s proofreading policy states that you cannot use AI tools or programmes to make automatic corrections to your work, so you should check and make each correction yourself.
Check that any rephrasing suggestions are using the correct tone/level of formality – sometimes the suggestions are not at an appropriate level for university work. Consider the audience you’re writing for, and also make sure the paraphrase clearly conveys your intended meaning. If you are unsure what good academic style looks like, you can consult this Guide on Academic Style and use the Academic Phrasebank.
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Two suggestions for the same word – ‘inadequate’ is a good choice, ‘lousy’ is too informal! |
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When using Grammarly as a tool to help with paraphrasing, don’t use it to rephrase a whole sentence or section from a published source – it does not change the original significantly enough, leading to a high similarity. In addition, rephrasing and just inserting sections of the source text would be poor academic practice, as this will not represent your own thinking and engagement with the text. You can instead ask Grammarly for alternative suggestions for individual words or terms, and then decide if these are useful for your own paraphrasing.
Original
Childhood, as a distinct phase of life, is a relatively modern concept. Over centuries, societal perceptions of children and their well-being have transformed remarkably. Historically, children were often viewed as property or miniature adults, valued primarily for their economic contributions.
Grammarly paraphrase – This is very similar to the original in structure and word choice!
Childhood, as a separate stage of life, is a concept that has emerged relatively recently. Throughout history, societal attitudes toward children and their welfare have changed significantly. In the past, children were frequently seen as possessions or smallerConsider what you want to get out of using tools like Grammarly. Have a specific purpose in mind – not just ‘I want this to sound better’, but maybe, ‘I would like some suggestions for how I could rephrase this sentence’.
When asking for suggestions or improvements, give Grammarly very specific prompts to achieve your purpose – don’t use their automatic prompts to ‘improve this’ or ‘sound more confident’, as these terms are quite vague. Instead, select a small amount of text and ask it to ‘make this more concise’ or ‘check the punctuation’, for more relevant results.
You could use the University of Sheffield’s GenAI Prompt Bank for suggestions of useful prompts.
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Grammarly’s automatic suggestions tend to be quite vague – what does ‘impact’ look like here? How do we interpret ‘confident’? |
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Don’t use Grammarly’s referencing function, as there are limited referencing styles, and it tends to get the reference wrong. Instead, try a specific referencing software like Endnote, and use your school’s official AI acknowledgement form to say how and where you have used AI tools. You can check out our referencing guide for more information.
Keep in mind that Grammarly is not good at sticking to word counts; when you ask it to shorten or expand a section, it usually miscounts the words. Make sure you check word counts yourself, and don’t rely on it to meet a specific target. Using AI tools to expand on your work or notes, unless this is explicitly allowed by your assignment brief, also contravenes the University’s policy on AI use.
Grammarly’s paid-for version offers an increased number of suggestions and responses to prompts compared with the free version. However, the free version functions well enough for general proofreading; some of the features of Grammarly Pro, such as rewriting sentences automatically and text generation, will contravene the proofreading policy.
Another feature of Grammarly Pro is the AI and Plagiarism detection tool. When we tested this, however, it proved unreliable in consistently identifying either plagiarised or copied text. We therefore do not recommend this feature; as a student at Reading, many of you will have access to Turnitin, which is a better tool to help you detect similarities or unacknowledged sources.