6 In Demand Tools for Editing and Proofreading Your Writing for Self-Publishing by Paula Hicks

You’ve poured your heart and soul into the writing process. You’ve produced a book, a blog post, or an article that you’re proud of. There were long hours of research and agonizing over your word choice. You’ve revised the work over and over again. Now, it’s time to self-publish it.

But what if it contains mistakes? You know that people take delight in pointing out your mistakes. The content you wrote about with such acuity will be overshadowed by the errors in the writing. This would be most unfortunate. And it happens more often than you think.

It’s not a problem unique to people who aren’t native English speakers. We all make mistakes. And in the heat of the moment, when you’re inspired, and your fingers are flying, it’s easy to make the simplest of errors.

Here are some online tools you can use to help you edit and proofread your writing before you go ahead and self-publish:

1. Grammarly

Grammarly is a tool that checks your text for common mistakes. These include subject-verb concord errors, the use of articles (such as ‘the,’ ‘a,’ and ‘an’), and the placing of modifiers in the text. Grammarly also looks for common punctuation errors and spelling mistakes. This is available in the free version of Grammarly.

If you subscribe to the premium version of Grammarly, it analyzes your text for further grammatical issues. You can get help from Grammarly to make better word choices, simplify your text, and use appropriate colloquial phrasing. It also points out wordy sentences that you might want to eliminate.

You upload the file into the tool, and it does the rest for you. It then shows you where you need to make corrections. You can do them in the text or in the file, depending on your preference.

Why should I use Grammarly?

Using Grammarly improves the quality of your writing. It helps you to find errors you might not have known were errors. Using Grammarly challenges you to review your writing techniques and word choice.

When you use it, Grammarly asks you some details about the nature and intention of your text before analyzing it. This allows the tool to make a more detailed analysis of the text to help you perfect it.

2. Hemingway Editor App

Hemingway Editor is a useful tool for looking at the quality and phrasing of your writing. Very often, when we get carried away, we write long sentences that are complex and difficult to understand. This affects the readability score of the text. When a reader is struggling to follow what you’re saying, they’re likely to put your piece aside.

To use Hemingway Editor, copy your text and paste it onto the screen. First, Hemingway gives you a readability rating. The higher the grade, the more complex your writing.

Hemingway Editor gives you a breakdown of how many words, sentences, characters, and paragraphs you have used. Based on this information, Hemingway Editor decides how many adverbs you should use and how many times you can make use of the passive voice.

Hemingway Editor points out words or phrases that you could simplify. It calculates how many of your sentences are hard or very hard to read. Each category of analysis is highlighted in different colors, so you can find them with ease to make amendments. You can make the amendments in the app, or you can make them in the file. Then you must copy and paste onto the screen again.

Why should I use Hemingway Editor?

It’s good to get a rating on the complexity of your writing so that you can tone it down or beef it up if necessary. It helps you to choose stronger verbs that don’t need adverbs. And it also helps you to limit the amount of passive voice you use which complicates your text.

3. WebSpellChecker

Webspellchecker offers you a service that includes grammar and spelling checkers for a variety of languages. You can create a personal dictionary of words that you use. This tool also offers a thesaurus option for 6 languages to help you if you’re stuck for an alternative word. You can correct the words that are spelled wrong as you type because Webspellchecker highlights them instantly.

Why should I use Webspellchecker?

This is a tool that will help a lot if you’re writing in another language. The other tools work on American English and do not take into consideration spelling, grammar, and punctuation conventions in U.K. English. The differences may seem subtle, but they are important. The fact that you can spell check in a variety of other languages is also a bonus.

4. Proofread Bot

Proofread Bot is another automated grammar, spelling, and punctuation tool that you can run your writing through before submitting it. It goes through your written piece and highlights weak areas you need to tighten up on. The explanations for the suggested alterations are detailed. You get a free English lesson just from running your work through this checker. It helps you to avoid making the same mistakes again.

At the end of the process, the tool assesses the readability of your piece by rating it according to the U.S. reading grade levels. It also draws a comparison to the Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease score system. There is a more advanced version (the ‘pro package’) which offers you more feedback but requires payment.

Why should I use Proofread Bot?

Proofread Bot offers you many services at the click of a button. It develops your English skills while you use it. The readability checker is very detailed and is different from other tools. It’s imperative that you know the readability level of your written piece. You may need to edit it up to a higher grade or down to a lower one, depending on your target audience.

5. PerfectIt

Angela Jones, a professional proofreader at essaywritingland.com says that without this online tool, she’d be less effective. “With PerfectIt, I’m sure that I won’t miss out on even the tiniest error. It’s allowed me to build myself a reputation as a solid proofreader,” she says. This tool is recommended for anyone who does a lot of writing.

PerfectIt offers the user some attractive qualities. You can adapt the English level to U.S., U.K., Canadian, or Australian. Any type of document can be uploaded for checking. The tool checks the consistency of your writing and will point out where you’ve neglected to follow rules for the style of writing. This is in addition to the regular spelling, grammar, and punctuation checks.

Why should I use PerfectIt?

While there is no free version of the tool, Intelligent Editing does offer a free trial. The money you spend on it will be worth it if you produce large quantities of written pieces each month. You will pay for a year’s subscription for a single user. There are promotions and discounts offered as well.

6. Phrase Express

This is an online tool that is ideal for those who do a lot of technical writing or writing where specific phraseology is used. It allows the user to save specific phrases to use them again in future. This saves time for the writer. It works on multiple platforms and devices. One of its strongest features is that it can synchronize across different devices. This allows you to share information with colleagues and get information from them.

Why should I use Phrase Express?

To decide if this online tool suits your needs, you can test it first. There is a free test version that you can download. Should you choose to purchase it, you get a license key to use for your device. The fee is one-off, and you do not need to pay a subscription. The initial price should not put you off. This is a powerful tool that will save you lots of time and money in the long-run. It’s advised that you should invest in a tool such as this if you produce large volumes of writing.

Conclusion

There are two categories of help for writers to use before they self-publish: tools and services. The best advice is to use the online tools you have available as your first line of defense against errors. Thereafter, it is wise to make use of an editing and proofreading service. That human interaction with your text is invaluable. After all, you’re writing for other human beings to read.

Check that the service you engage is reputable. A good place to start is by looking at their reviews and ratings. They will give you an indication of how to move forward.  Price is always a factor. Using both tools and services is an infallible recipe for making sure you publish accurate, professional, word perfect content.

Author Bio:

Paula Hicks is an experienced journalist from Romania. Currently, she lives in the United States and works as a freelance editor for the number of educational resources. She recommends a few cheap essay writing services online that offer proofreading and editing services at competitive rates. Her big dream is to open a publishing house in Europe.

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