Copy-Editing: A Second Pair of Eyes - Kathleen Jones on Grammarly

Copy-editing is the thing I hate most about being an Independent Author. It’s a grinding, methodical task that takes a lot of time and concentration and it has to be absolutely perfect, because one of the main criticisms of Indie published books is the standard of proof-reading and copy-editing.  I’m still being sent books for review that are littered with typos, punctuation and formatting errors. I don’t want mine to be one of them, but my books simply don’t earn enough to pay a professional - for a full-length book it can be as much as £750.  I can’t afford that as well as the advice of a good structural editor - and the latter, for me, is of the utmost importance.

I’ve been doing the copy-editing myself, reading and re-reading, but something always slips through and I hate it!  Your eyes see what they think should be there rather than what is actually there.  And then you die of shame as soon as it’s up there on Kindle and someone points out what you’ve missed.

But I’ve just discovered a cyber-friend.  A few weeks ago I was approached by the software company who market Grammarly and asked if I’d like a month’s free trial of  their product.  They hoped I might like it enough to buy it - the offer wasn’t conditional on writing a review.  I ignored their email at first, because most editing software I’ve tried has been very disappointing.  In the past I’ve had trial packages of several programmes and they were either too simplistic to be useful or so complicated I couldn’t fathom out how to use them successfully.  But I’m just reaching the editing stage of my latest biography - 85,000 words of close text with quotations and references and complex syntax and punctuation which is a nightmare to edit - and I thought, what have I got to lose?

So I downloaded my trial copy - which arrived promptly without any jiggery pokery.  It cleanly inserted itself into my Word programme and declared itself ready for use. You don’t have to have it embedded - you can use the web version which allows you to upload or paste text documents into it online.  I’ve tried both and I think the embedded version is best, but you need a recent version of Word. I’m using the Microsoft Office edition of Word 2007 and it works perfectly.  Apparently older packages of Microsoft Office have glitches.

The programme is very easy to use. I opened the first part of my book in Word and clicked on the Grammarly icon - it asks you what type of document it is - academic, creative, blog, essay or whatever.  I clicked on creative because I don’t write biographies in a strictly academic style, and then I sat back to see what the programme would do.

Grammarly opens a split screen with highlighted words, sentences and other issues on the right hand side, and your document, with the relevant text highlighted on the left.  It checks punctuation and grammar and combs through your prose for words, particularly qualifiers, that you might want to change.  I hadn’t realised how often I’d used the word ‘very’ until Grammarly pointed it out. It challenges my adverbs and adjectives and picks up all my passive verb constructions.  Do I want them?  Sometimes I do, so I just click ‘ignore’. But there are moments when I become aware that I’ve used the passive voice too much. Alerted by Grammarly, I can change it. 

One drawback is that the programme is American, so some of the suggestions it makes for replacements are in the US idiom, but you don’t have to accept any of them.  And some of the grammatical suggestions, though mostly correct, are clearly batty! It’s a bit like driving with a satnav - you need to look at the map occasionally and use your common sense. If in doubt on punctuation I use ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’, and for grammar conundrums and modern English usage I log into ‘GrammarMonster.com’.

The really good thing about Grammarly is that it makes you think about your text in an objective way.  It goes through it phrase by phrase, comma by comma and queries everything it doesn’t like.  I have to look at every paragraph, every word, with an editor’s eye - something I’ve always found very hard. It makes me a much more effective proof-reader of my own work. Another benefit is that it picks up plagiarism - accidental ‘borrowings’ are immediately highlighted.

The programme isn’t perfect and it doesn't live up to all it claims to do. It has had critical reviews in the Economist (though it’s a review I have serious issues with) and from the Alliance of Independent Authors, both of whom came to the conclusion that it couldn’t replace a professional copy-editor.  I agree in principle - if you can afford a copy-editor that’s definitely the best option.  But if you can’t, then Grammarly is a good alternative.  Used with caution it’s a ‘second pair of eyes’ that will help your own to focus.

You can buy a month’s subscription if you are only editing one book, but if, like me, you’ve got several in the pipeline I think it’s worth buying it for a year.  My month is just about to expire, and I’m definitely signing up for an annual subscription.  It works for me.

If you want to try it for yourself, I have three free trials to give away.  Just add ‘Yes, please’ to your comments below and then email your contact details to me at kathleenferberjones@gmail.com  I’ll put all the names in a hat and get Neil to draw out the three lucky winners!

Kathleen Jones is the author of 7 biographies, a novel and two collections of poetry.  She blogs at 'A Writer's Life'  Visit her website here to check out her books.

In  August Kathleen will be tutoring an on-line Life Writing course for the Edinburgh E-book Festival - creative writing tuition FREE.  Anyone can participate - but the first 12 people to sign up will also get feedback.