In the fast-paced world of business, convenience is everything. Customers want to sign up for offers that will only take them seconds to complete, and business owners want to produce quick content offers for their public to consume. It’s all one big race. But is there any point in entering a race you know you are unlikely to win? When you, as a business owner, attempt to attract an audience, are you playing to win or just trying to get in the middle somewhere? If you are trying to ensure you are not last in the race, the content you put out there will be sub-standard, and you more than likely will not bring in valuable leads because your visitors are not taking you seriously. And as a result, you watch your profits go down the drain. If each lead you generate has a potential $300 value for you, for example, and you only manage to attract one visitor who isn’t even sure if they trust you — that’s a noticeable $300 gone. And what about the other visitors who land on your site but turn the other way? How much traffic are you generating? If you have a lot of traffic to your site but barely any leads, you could quickly lose $1000 daily. And it all starts with being over-dependent on AI scanners such as a free Grammarly Check.
When I type the word “proofreading” into Google, the first ad that pops up is always for the Grammarly application. Business owners and general content creators are attracted to Grammarly because they believe it allows them to create error-free content quickly. The faster you post content, the quicker you receive customers. This is true in theory, but only if your content is rich in value and easy to understand. AI applications entice content creators with the idea that if you trust every suggestion the system gives, you will be home-free and ready to post. Sounds convenient. No one wants to spend three hours writing a potentially great post and then spend two more hours editing it. That’s why Grammarly has gained so much traction over the past several years. People firmly believe that this convenient AI program is the answer to their editing struggles because errors are pointed out to them right before their eyes in a matter of seconds, and it will do it for free or at a low cost!
When documents are proofread, they are “scanned” for errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, tense agreement, typos, and formatting, as well as editing for style, structure, language, flow, repetition, clarity, conciseness, practical word choice, and style choice. Grammarly promises to provide almost all these actions and even a touch more.
Looks and sounds too good to be true. Well, you know what people say about opportunities like that. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is! As convenient as AI systems may seem, they can only do so much and are no match for the human eye. They don’t permanently save you time, either. When a document is run through Grammarly, the AI is programmed to pick up sentences or words that are grammatically wrong or incorrect. The AI has no concept of Style Choice, House Style formatting, or even a vast knowledge base of words/names that could be spelt differently, used as slang or for marketing purposes. To Grammarly, it’s classified as incorrect, and the AI will give suggestions that do not fit your document whatsoever! And since It has no concept of the Chicago Manual of Style (although claims have been made that it does), comma placements will often be labelled as wrong when in reality, they are correct! There are many ways of using commas, especially when trying to make a point. But Grammarly only “knows” the bare-bone basics and sometimes deletes or misplaces the Oxford Comma. The AI is also not up to date on the latest grammar rules. That’s right! There are outdated grammar rules out there! It would take a whole new article to list all of them, but the most common rule that Grammarly always suggests (or even outright replaces) is the: ‘s rule.
“The ball is James’s.” Not only is this rule no longer in use, but it looks ridiculous! I see it used everywhere. On book covers, blog posts, advertisements — the list goes on and on! The correct way would be to write, “The ball is James'” No extra S is required!
Style Choices. When you make a Style Choice, you spell a word or structure an entire sentence a certain way, although you know it is not the traditional method. For example, I live in Canada, so technically, the correct spelling for proofreading is proof-reading. However, I chose to use the American spelling because it makes the wording look cleaner and more recognizable. Grammarly picks up your location unless you change it, so the AI will often flag down what it deems to be the proper use of spelling for this word. If a human proofreader were to go through a client’s document, they would only mark this type of spelling as an error if the person was spelling it a different way later in the article. Consistency is essential, and if a writer uses one method of spelling throughout an entire document, then it is correct! It is a Style Choice.
These little occurrences may sound okay initially, but when you have a lengthy post that needs to go out, you will be busy scanning the document, ensuring that Grammarly didn’t flag or replace any correct wording. When this happens, you will spend more time correcting the errors yourself than the AI will. If you are in a hurry, you may accept all the changes Grammarly offers, but your document won’t make much sense!
👋 Bye Bye Conversions
👋 Bye Bye Sales
👋 Bye Bye Social Shares
Very interesting info!Perfect just what I was looking for!
I am thrilled that you found this post helpful! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions on this subject. I am always happy to speak with you.