Someone asked Elon Musk on Clubhouse about what words of encouragement would give to an entrepreneur. Elon’s answer was pretty rude but effective – Don’t become an entrepreneur if you need encouragement.
It’s the same with content creators.
Those images of happy bloggers on a sunny beach in Thailand might be true, but these don’t reflect reality. Writing takes time and nerves. Some clients are demanding. Inspiration and energy greatly vary, and they can frustrate you.
If you need encouragement to write, you’d better think twice about being a writer. So instead of nice words, we compiled a list of eight excellent assistants tools to polish your writing. These are useful even if you are a native English speaker.
I have tested and used all the assistants tools suggested; some of them I have used for three or more years. I don’t remember exactly when I started using these assistants tools because I hadn’t planned to write such an article.
It’s helpful to know that I am not a native English speaker, so I fully understand the writers’ struggles who aren’t English natives. This paragraph isn’t to brag about myself but to emphasize that these assistant tools are genuinely priceless.
8 Assistants Tools to Polish Your Writing Skills
Grammarly
Grammarly is a fantastic writing assistant that helped me avoid thousands of grammar mistakes. It’s an effective grammar and spelling checker that comes in both free and premium versions. Grammarly is showcased in almost all listicles featuring assistant tools for writers for some good reasons.
First, there are multiple ways to use it. Do you want to use Grammarly to check your Gmail emails? It can do that. Do you want to use it for Google Docs or Microsoft Word? It works for that too. Do you want to use a browser or a desktop app? Grammarly is the solution. Practically, Grammarly is a solution no matter where and how you work.
Second, the quality of the proofreading and the suggestions provided substantially improve your texts. Grammarly highlights the words and expressions that need improvements. It also gives hints about better word alternatives, passive voice misuse, and tone issues.
Third, Grammarly gives a grade to your texts based on the number of errors, readability, and vocabulary. You are required to set the tone of the text proofread by Grammarly based on your audience. For example, select the formality level (informal, neutral, formal), intent (inform, describe, convince, tell a story), or the audience (general, knowledgeable, expert).
Fourth, the premium version of Grammarly compares your texts against millions of other articles from the Internet and lets you know of any plagiarised phrases.
Fifth, the premium version of Grammarly compares your texts against millions of other articles from the Internet and lets you know of any plagiarised phrases.
Writer
Writer is an AI-powered writing assistant that is great for teams and individuals who want to create strong, unique, error-free content. Its customizable style guides are a valuable tool for teams and brands that want to maintain a unified voice.
Writer has won the trust and confidence of several globally leading brands, including Accenture, Deloitte, Intuit, Twitter, Pinterest, Vistaprint, SquareSpace, and more.
One of the most enticing aspects of Writer is its free online plagiarism checker. It compares your text against not only billions of web pages, but also books, research papers, academic papers, and news sources.
Plagiarism is obviously damaging to education, careers, and reputations, but even unintentional plagiarism can have consequences — like penalties in search engine results pages (SERPs) if Google’s algorithm detects duplicate content.
Serving students, teachers, professionals, companies, and writers alike, Writer’s plagiarism checker helps protect from damage to reputations and search rankings alike.
Moreover, Writer’s grammar checker inspects every piece of writing for errors in grammar, spelling, tone, style, and more. Writer is compatible with Google Chrome, Google Docs, and Microsoft Word.
Linguix
Linguix – If you don’t like Grammarly, you should give Linguix a try. Both tools are quite similar and provide top-class suggestions. The same as Grammarly, Linguix takes different shapes to help you write correct texts.
Download the Microsoft Office add-on if you use Word for writing. Use the Chrome extension to correct your typos directly in your browser to help you write correct comments and messages. This extension is golden for writing emails or LinkedIn messages because an error-free text shows your attention to detail.
Linguix has desktop applications for both Windows and Mac.
The pricing plans are similar to Grammarly’s ones, and you definitely get value for the money invested. Thankfully, the basic plan is free of charge.
Hemingway Editor
Hemingway is a tool to fine-tune your writing and save time. You can use the browser app, but the desktop version has more useful features. Use the Hemingway editor for free directly in your browser, or pay $19.99 to download the desktop app – it has versions for Mac and Windows.
The Hemingway browser app has two modes – write and edit. It creates a distraction-free environment in the Write mode where you may focus entirely on writing. The Edit mode is a basic way to evaluate the quality of the text. It gives a readability grade and displays, amongst other information, the following:
- The number of words written.
- Reading time.
- Number of sentences that are very hard to read.
- Number of sentences that are hard to read.
- The number of adverbs and passive voice usage.
Besides writing and editing text, the desktop version comes with a few noteworthy features. It works seamlessly even though you aren’t connected to the Internet, and it integrates with Medium and WordPress.
Practically, you write in the desktop app, and the content can be imported to Medium or WordPress in one click.
750 Words
750 Words – One of the biggest frustrations of any writer is a lack of efficiency. It happens when you work for many hours, and what you get at the end is only four boring phrases. Four hours for five hundred words is a fiasco. Altogether, this happens to many content creators.
750 Words is a tool that won’t magically write 750 words for you. Its special power is to create the best writing environment for you to write 750 words a day. Of course, there is nothing wrong with writing more, but it entices you to pass the 750-word milestone every day.
750 Words can’t compare with Google Docs or Microsoft Word – it’s not a word processor. So you can’t use it to write and store your documents. Instead, this tool does everything possible to transform writing into a habit.
You are part of a friendly and active community by paying a small monthly fee. The monthly challenge motivates you to write at least 750 words a day for a month. Your efforts will decide whether your profile picture goes to the Wall of Shame or the Wall of Amazingness.
Wrapping up, 750 Words is the best motivator and one of the best assistants tools for writers. 750 words is an achievable milestone, and you might transform this activity into a habit, which is great.
Notion
Notion – You are totally right to consider Notion as a productivity tool instead of a writing assistant tool. Overall, Notion can be the best friend of a busy writer. It’s also an awesome tool for collaborative work.
However, regardless of how you use it, Notion turns into an irreplaceable tool after using it for a couple of days.
The clutter-free interface is intuitive, so even non-geeky users won’t have problems getting started with Notion. The huge advantage of Notion is that it allows putting together notes, links, articles to read, and helpful resources.
The extensive array of templates is another massive advantage of Notion. You have templates for blog posts, personal journals, habit trackers, and job applications – just to name a few.
Cliché Finder
Cliché Finder – Don’t judge this tool by its interface; it looks pretty plain and clearly needs an overhaul. Ignore this aspect to benefit from an effective way to spice up your writing.
Copy and paste your text in the Cliché Finder form. It doesn’t allow HTML tags and limits the number of characters submitted per document to 10,000.
Press the Find Clichés button, and this tool will display all the clichés from your submitted text. Replace or remove all the clichés to make your text stand out from the competitors.
In addition, Cliché Finder provides literally hundreds of alternatives for some words within your text. These suggestions are perfect for making your texts more enjoyable and interesting.
Cliché Finder is free of charge, so don’t skip using it. You may lose 15-30 minutes by improving your text with Cliché Finder, but your readers will appreciate the writing’s cleanliness and the enhanced vocabulary. Cliché Finder is one most easy-to-use assistants tools out there.
Rescue Time
Rescue Time – You have probably heard about and dealt with writer’s block. Sometimes, you feel totally uninspired. It is common to any writer.
However, the greatest enemy of a writer is the lack of effectiveness in dealing with distractions. Rescue Time isn’t a writing assistant per se, but it helps content creators find out their weaknesses and strengths. It shows how productive you are and where you spend your time.
For example, before using Rescue Time, I wasted a lot of time on Twitter. After installing Rescue Time, Things changed because I noticed how unproductive I was because I spent too much time on Twitter and Facebook.
Rescue Time will help you in assessing your work time and productivity.
Over to You
Even though some of the above assistants tools aren’t strictly writing assistants, you will become a better writer by using them. Therefore, I strongly recommend checking out all of them.
Your personality and preferences will decide which assistants tools will work for you. Of course, each of these writing assistants tools has solid alternatives you may use. Are you an active user of any of my suggestions?
Please share your experiences with them or let us know which assistants tools you use.
