There is no quicker way to come off uneducated and ignorant than to have grammar errors in your writing. Even if your ideas are brilliant, you may still lose credibility with readers if you don’t faithfully stick to correct grammar. What makes the prospect of checking grammar so difficult is that we can’t fix what we don’t know is wrong – how are we supposed to avoid grammar errors when we are the ones making them in the first place?

This is where using a grammar checker comes in handy. Simply copy and paste your text into the checker and the program will spit back all the errors and mistakes you’ve made. It will highlight the particular passages where there are problems and offer solutions to correct those mistakes. Thus, if you don’t know grammar that well, you have no excuse for having poorly written pieces when you have easy access to these checkers.

Some grammar mistakes are simple – for instance, confusing the words there, their, and they’re. Some may be more complex, such as pronoun-verb agreements. Still others can be even more complex, such as misplaced modifiers or problems with parallel construction. No matter the complexity of the mistake, a good grammar check will highlight the problems and teach you grammar rules at the same time.

A grammar checker will also help your writing in another way – giving ‘style’ suggestions. For instance, while using the passive voice is technically grammatically correct, it is generally frowned upon as ‘poor’ writing. Many grammar checkers will highlight instances of passive voice for you, making it easy to go in and rewrite the sentence to make it more active.