Using Grammarly Well | Scribe

    Using Grammarly Well

    • Dallas Hulsey |
    • 12 steps |
    • 2 minutes
    alert ordinal icon
    Alert! Grammarly is a powerful app and must be used thoughtfully. To engage what Grammarly calls [their "academic guardrails"](https://www.grammarly.com/students) you must set your Grammarly account to "Most of my writing is for school" in your [Grammarly Account Profile. ](https://account.grammarly.com/profile)With the "Most of My Writing is for School" setting Grammarly highlights uses of AI that should generally be safe and warns you if you request something from Grammarly's AI that looks like overuse or academic dishonesty. Read the steps below to get good use out of Grammarly without violating academic honesty.
    1
    When you are writing and have Grammarly installed in your browser or desktop, some Grammarly suggestions will appear as underlines in various colors. To see each suggestion, click on the underline. Review the suggestion and choose to accept or reject it.
    alert ordinal icon
    Alert! Grammarly is often correct, but not always. Be sure to review Grammarly's suggestions and only accept corrections you understand and wish to make. If you accept too many of Grammarly's rewording suggestions, your writing will sound like Grammarly, and your voice will be lost. Your goal is to preserve your unique human voice while utilizing Grammarly to help you think as you revise and edit your writing.
    2
    Some Grammarly suggestions concern wording; others concern punctuation as we see here with a [comma splice.](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-splice/)
    3
    Some suggestions alert you to an issue that needs review without offering an automatic fix. Here, Grammarly suggests rewriting a sentence in[ passive voice.](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/active-vs-passive-voice/)
    4
    You may also click the Grammarly icon. The icon on the right is Grammarly's grammar checker, and the icon shows the number of current suggestions. The green bulb icon is Grammarly AI, which is powered by several AI systems and must be used with caution. The power button on the left allows you to turn off Grammarly if you are freewriting, journaling, or working on an early draft.
    information ordinal icon
    Tip! Using Grammarly in the early stages of the writing process leads to premature editing, which is distracting during the early stages and wastes time. Turn off Grammarly when freewriting and early drafting to focus on ideas . Grammarly can be of some help during revision and editing.
    5
    The Grammarly AI does have some useful functions, but it must be used with caution. A few wrong clicks, and Grammarly will have AI completely rewrite your paragraph, which can change both the presentation and the content. If you submit AI-generated writing, you will be violating academic honesty.
    alert ordinal icon
    Alert! Because Grammarly is capable of rewriting large portions of your project, you may be best served using another app to receive critiques on your writing from AI. I recommend [Google's Notebook LM](https://scribehow.com/shared/Using_Googles_NotebookLM_to_Receive_and_Save_feedback_from_AI__vSUx8CryTWyXzmUH6FaG4Q) for a writing assistant because the Notebook keeps your writing and the AI critique separate, making it harder to overuse AI or trigger an AI detector.
    6
    Many buttons in the Grammarly AI should ***not* be used** for school assignments, including "Improve it," 'Make it persuasive," and "Rewrite in my voice." These buttons generate AI text from and offer to insert it into your paper.
    7
    DO NOT insert AI written text into your paper.
    8
    To see a full list of functions in the Grammarly AI, click "more ideas."
    9
    Buttons under the **"Ideas for School"** section are generally safe: "Find claims I should cite," Suggest Cuts," and "Suggest Counterarguments" will all provide ideas for you to consider without altering your writing. Even "Draft an outline" might be a helpful thinking tool for you if you copy and past your draft into Grammarly to see how an AI "reads" the main points and organization of your writing, which could help you revise and strengthen your organization.
    10
    If you click "suggest Cuts," for instance, Grammarly will suggest wordy or repetitious passages for deletion. This can be excellent feedback to consider if your writing is wordy.
    11
    When you receive advice from Grammarly, you must copy it to your clipboard and paste it into a new file. **It is crucial that you keep good records** when using any AI as you must be able to show records to your professor if they are requested.
    12
    If the Grammarly AI makes you nervous, you can click on your Grammarly browser extension and turn off the Generative AI options in your account. If you do choose to leave Grammarly AI enabled, use it with caution and ask your professor to discuss their policies *before* making use of the Grammarly AI.
    alert ordinal icon
    Alert! In addition to the Generative AI, continual use of the "Our Best Version" feature will trigger an AI detector because Grammarly is using AI to rewrite the passage for you. Use rewriting features sparingly.
    information ordinal icon
    Tip! I highly recommend reviewing your[ Grammarly account settings](https://account.grammarly.com/profile) and telling Grammarly that most of your writing is for school.