Impacts of Grammarly on University Students` Writing Skills - Article Example

Introduction.

Advancements in technology more so machine learning and Artificial intelligence have revolutionized the ease and manner of carrying out different tasks. The timely epochal shift to the `Digital age` in the late 20th Century has intensified more in the 21st Century with the inception of Computer-based solutions to solve daily problems. (Kulkarni and Samini,2019). Shevchenko, Lytvyn, and Lider initially piloted Grammarly in the year 2009. However, it was not until 2017 that the company stamped its position as a world-renowned grammar utility application. Writing is a fundamental part of a student`s life. (Duffy and Jill,2019). More often than not, students will be required to perform tasks, assignments, reports, and exams, all of which demand high-level writing skills. Considering the disparities in the extent of writing skills betwixt students, there was a growing demand for software that could aid students in correcting or improving their writing skills. Owing to this, Microsoft Word made advanced developments in their `spelling and grammar` check tool. This was a boost but not entirely the absolute solution to the demand for an accurate and efficient grammar correcting tool. Grammarly was in response to this demand. What makes Grammarly outstanding from other related programs in the industry is its distinct utilization of Artificial intelligence and Natural language processing to summate into an outstanding digital writing tool. Grammarly utilizes complex algorithms of machine and deep learning deducing data from a wide database, which includes the Oxford English Dictionary and Meriam-Webster. It is undoubtedly clear and beyond any reasonable doubt that Grammarly has improved the writing skills of university students. Grammarly has achieved this by providing remarkable services in spellchecking, grammar check, style, punctuation, plagiarism, and pragmatic analysis.

i). Spellchecking.

Grammarly provides spelling check services to students. In any piece of writing, there are bound to be spelling errors and mistakes. In most instances, individuals might find it hard to put down writing a word whose phonetics they are well aware of and speak it every day. There is a great difference between language speaking skills and language writing skills. In the long run, University students find it hard to express their thoughts and ideas and written form due to misspelled words. The situation is worse for Students to whom English is their second language and not their native language. (Duffy and Jill,2019). As such, a report or research written with a myriad of spelling errors will come out as poor even though the student's thoughts and ideas are valid, only being that they couldn't accurately express it in writing. Grammarly, to this effect, provides a solution. Drawing from a rich database which includes the dictionaries, Meriam-Webster and Oxford, Grammarly puts at the disposal a variety of spelling corrections for both American and British English. Spelling corrections can be done in two ways. One, users can install the Grammarly Microsoft Add on which is later on embedded in Microsoft Word. This feature allows for real-time correction of misspelled words just as the user types it. The second option is web-based. In this case, the user submits the already typed document to the web-based Grammarly tool. (Coberly and Cohen,2018). The tool proposes and corrects the misspelled words in the document. Grammarly has, in the long run, reduced spelling errors amongst written work by students hence improving their writing skills.

ii) Punctuation.

Grammarly corrects incorrect punctuation. Missing or too many commas are among one of the most rampant punctuation mistakes amongst student-authored writings. Another example is in the contraction of `it is` to it`s and its. These small but peculiar punctuation errors may render an entire invalid since it puts doubt into the credibility of the written work. More often than not, readers will negatively view a document if there`s an inconsistent and incorrect use of punctuation marks. Therefore, there's a greater need for correct and consistent punctuation as this portrays mastery in writing skills. Grammarly corrects punctuation marks in either the web-based tool or the Microsoft-Word Plugin tool. It also secondarily sends weekly emails to the student, indicating the incorrectly punctuated words or phrases in their written works for the past week. This aids the student in correcting these errors on his part hence avoiding future recurrences of the same. Correctly punctuated written materials allow the readers to focus on the thoughts, theories, and ideas therein and not necessarily focus on the possible linguistic and semantic errors in the document. This, in the long run, improves the writing skills of University students who use Grammarly. (Duffy and Jill,2019).

iii)Styles.

Grammarly guides the student on the best choice and use of writing styles. There exist four broad writing styles; expository, descriptive, narrative, and persuasive. Each of these four styles serves a distinct function, and hence their nature and use of linguistic objects will be different. On most occasions, students find it hard to defend their ideas when writing a persuasive article or also unable to do an in-depth description when writing descriptive essays or reports. This happens not because students do not possess the necessary points, theories, or knowledge, but because they are unable to use the necessary literal elements to convey their intended sentiments appropriately. Grammarly provides for this. By using the settings, the student can set the writing style he intends to use. Grammarly will, in effect, offer proposals to the use of words, phrases, connectors and punctuation marks that best fit the selected writing style. (Dyomkin and Vsevolod,2019). Students also learn from the suggestions and are more likely to write independently but skillfully in the future. Through Grammarly's use, students are, therefore, able to fully master the use of all the four styles in their writing comprehensively. Ultimately, these students are able to improve their general writing skills.

iii)Plagiarism.

Grammarly conducts a plagiarism check of written articles against a rich web-based database. One of the requirements for any academic writing is to ensure minimal similarity and insist on originality. As such, most assignments or tasks will have a maximum percentage of similarity allowed. It is unarguable that in any writing, one will refer to secondary resources, including past journals and peer-reviewed articles. This is not illegal and is recommended. However, it`s expected that the student can logically synthesize and paraphrase these ideas into his own words. Grammarly does not offer a solution but instead offers a tool to measure the writing's plagiarism percentage. These enable students to correct and continuously assess their paraphrasing, logical reasoning, and analytical skills. (Coberly and Cohen,2018).

iv). Contextual Analysis.

Grammarly carries out contextual analysis and proposes appropriate words to be used in the said context. Different writings are bound to utilize different jargons. The terms used in a medical paper are outrightly different from those used in a History paper. This is partly because the intended audiences are different in terms of knowledge and expertise. Grammarly allows the user to set the settings describing the nature and specialty of the intended audiences. This means that it will propose words that fit the context of the paper and propose eliminating those that seem too complex or unfamiliar to the intended audience. In other words, Grammarly encourages proper pragmatic use amongst its student users. (Duffy and Jill,2019).

Obsolete Skills.

As noted in the aforementioned discussions, Grammarly aids students in correcting grammatic, semantic, and pragmatic errors in their writings. This is also done in the hope that the student will also learn from their common mistakes and instead progressively achieve independence. However, this may not entirely be the case. As with any technology in the digital age, there is a threat to a specific natural human skill. As much as Grammarly aims to improve its users' writing skills, it might be doing the exact opposite for some section of its users.

In some cases, individuals will not heed towards ensuring their writing is linguistically correct simply on the virtue that there is Grammarly to correct their errors. This may lead to a prospective situation where natural writing skills are not considered because of the availability of Grammar correcting programs such as Grammarly. Grammarly also posses a threat to the existence of human proofreaders. Their services will soon be outdated as people will shift to online proofreading tools. (Krasnikov and Denys,2018)

Conclusion.

Grammarly remarkably one of the biggest players in the proofreading software industry. Its dominance in the market has, by far, outstripped that of its competing tools. Grammarly offers an all in one solution to grammatical errors and mistakes. Specifically, Grammarly provides spellchecking, style, punctuation, and contextual analysis services. It also has an email service that serves to mail students on a weekly basis on the most common grammatical mistakes in their articles in the past week—all these compounds towards improving the general skills of the students who use Grammarly as a tool.

However, it is not all honey since the same Grammarly posses a threat. Continuous dependence on Grammarly may limit the growth of writing skills amongst its users. It also presents a threat to human proofreaders who depend on proofreading as a means of livelihood. Their services are bound to be obsolete with the migration towards online proofreading tools.