Have no fear! There are several free tools that you can use to make sure that small mistakes don’t drag down your writing when you’re crunched for time.

For this post, I considered some common consequences of quick writing – spelling and grammar mistakes, passive voice, and poor readability – and looked at the pros and cons of Microsoft Word, Grammarly, and Hemingway Editor.

A few caveats: I haven’t tried the paid versions of Grammarly or Hemingway Editor since this is about free tools, so all comments refer to the free versions. Word isn’t technically free, but since most companies already have a license for Word, there’s no additional cost to use it.

Microsoft Word

You’re probably already familiar with Word. It checks spelling as you type, or you can run the spelling and grammar checker as a separate tool. It autocorrects common typos, such as teh or adn, and you can add your own typos to the autocorrect list.

What many don’t know is that Word also has a feature that uses standard readability calculations to check how readable your text is. By looking at the length and number of words and sentences, Word can give you an idea of how easy your text is to read.

To turn on readability statistics, go to File > Options > Proofing. In the When correcting spelling and grammar in Word section, select the Show readability statistics check box.

To check your text, on the Review tab, click Spelling & Grammar. After the spelling and grammar checker runs, Word shows the readability summary.

In the Averages section, look at the Words per Sentence metric. Shorter sentences are easier to read and understand, so try to keep the number lower. An average of about 15 words or less is a reasonable length.

In the Readability section, look at the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade level. These show how complex your words and sentences are. A higher reading ease number and lower grade level indicate that more people will be able to understand your message. I usually aim for a reading ease above 50 and a grade level of 9 or lower.

Older versions of Word showed the number of sentences that used passive voice; newer versions don’t. If your version of Word shows it, aim for zero. Passive voice can obscure the meaning of a sentence, so it’s better if you can use active voice.

Tip: If you are having a hard time getting the Flesch Reading Ease number up or the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level down, select and run the spelling and grammar tool on a few paragraphs at a time to figure out which paragraphs need special attention.

Grammarly

To use Grammarly, create a free account at www.grammarly.com. After you create your account, you can use the online editor or download the desktop application. You can integrate Grammarly into Microsoft Office and your Outlook email client. If you use Chrome, you can also add the Grammarly extension.

Although the premium version offers more features, Grammarly’s free version is still surprisingly robust. It looks for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors and offers suggested changes. It also looks at sentence structure and common style errors.

Hemingway Editor

You can use the Hemingway Editor online for free at www.hemingwayapp.com or download a paid desktop version.

To use the online version, paste or type your text into their editor. It marks up the text as you go, flagging spelling errors, sentences that use passive voice or adverbs, and long sentences.

Which is the best?

None of these tools are foolproof. Word’s readability statistics are useful as an overview, but they don’t help your fix errors. Hemingway Editor flags sentences that use passive voice and complex phrases, but it can be finicky to use. Grammarly’s integrated features are handy, but I still ignore some of its “errors.”

This list of tools isn’t exhaustive – they are just three of the more common ones that I’ve tried. So, if none of these work for you, poke around and try something else. Use whatever you feel comfortable using!

If you can’t find something that works for you, or you have documents that need more in-depth review, the keen-eyed human writers at Spark are always here to help!

We all use them. Most of us use them correctly. Some have embarrassing mishaps. LOL-speak is easy to type and efficient at getting the meaning across, provided you are fluent. Abbreviated text grew out of necessity because of the teeny-screens on early gen cell phones. But, with smartphones and predictive text, aside from Twitter’s character limit, what’s the need*? Even though we might save money on our data plans and time spent typing, what is the true cost?

LOL-speak is meant to speed up the act of writing and relies on the reader’s ability to decipher the message. It generally works pretty well to pepper your writing with shorthand, but it is easy to lose reading comprehension when sentences consist of more abbreviations than not. Readers must struggle through the message and its meaning is lost. Realistically, LOL-speak will never die, but my beef is not really with the abbreviations. My concern is with its impact to society as a whole. What happens when our communications are reduced a string of barely comprehensible letters and numbers, sorely lacking in punctuation? Ask any writer what makes a good writer. They’ll tell you that it’s reading – reading everything, reading often. It is how we learn basic sentence structure, proper punctuation, and how to convey meaning. Reading imparts grammar wisdom more than any classroom lesson can. It’s actually quite beautiful how much we learn from reading without even realizing it.

Society moves at a lightning pace and people who take the time to read and absorb the likes of Shakespeare, Wilde, Orwell, Austen, Atwood, and Ondaatje are becoming increasingly rare. For most young people, reading is a chore forced upon them, and they are too busy hating their homework to appreciate what they are reading; that’s nothing new. But if you are constantly faced with incorrect punctuation in social media, online, and restaurant signage and menus (Entre’s), it is easy to become confused on what’s right. The result is no matter how many times you Google how to use an apostrophe, it doesn’t stick if you don’t see correct examples every day.

Let’s take that example – the apostrophe. A very small portion of the English-speaking population know how to properly use this punctuation mark. I’m willing to bet that those under the age of 30 who do know how to use it correctly are either ESL (who learned grammar to learn the language) or they are true word nerds. The more people see an improperly-place apostrophe, the more confused they are about how to use it properly, and they end up mimicking what they see. And often what they see is wrong. Misuse is now so common, I recently saw it in our local paper – and worse, on communications coming home from my child’s school. (Quick grammar lesson: An apostrophe does not make a plural. More than one cat = cats, not cat’s. An apostrophe is there to show possession. The cat has kittens = The cat’s kittens. Of course, that’s thrown for a loop when considering “its” and “it’s.” But, that’s actually pretty simple, too, because “it’s” is a contraction for “it is.” It is raining = It’s raining. “Its” is used for possessive. Leaves are falling from the tree = The tree is losing its leaves. If you can replace “its” with “his” or “her”, you’re using it correctly. Confused? Check out the Oatmeal for a flow chart. )

Sadly, I’ve almost learned to accept apostrophe abuse. Almost. What really horrifies me now is the complete lack of punctuation. Punctuation isn’t optional. It’s required for reading comprehension. The misplaced apostrophe, while cringe-worthy, is easy enough to parse. But, missing commas can completely change the meaning of sentences.

Take, for example, the simple phrases “Let’s eat grandma!” and “Let’s eat, grandma!” Those are two totally different sentences – one with a rather extreme and cannibalistic outcome.

By now, you probably think that I have turned into that fuddy-duddy who yells at kids to get off my lawn. I did say it is a divisive issue. Does it only bug me because I make my living providing clear, crisp, and concise content for my clients?** Maybe. But, hopefully, now that I’ve brought it to your attention, you’ll start to see more and more examples of missing or incorrect punctuation. Not just in social media, but legitimate news sites, magazines, or Buzzfeed articles. You might even notice that you aren’t using periods in your text and IM conversations. Sending the message has replaced end punctuation in many sentences. Ben Clair explains what happened to the period in this article in the New Republic.)

Ask yourself, if this is what we are doing to the English language now, what will we be doing in 30 years? Does it matter? Do we accept the changes as evolution and teach our kids how to use emojis to convey meaning? Or do we do our best to make our kids into readers and teach them to recognize a really great sentence? Will the English language be something else in the future?

Luckily, there are still a few pro-punctuation proponents out there who can make sure your comma placement and apostrophe use is spot on. Send an email to Spark Content to see if the grammar in your customer-facing content changes your meaning. We love this stuff!

* Threaded SMS makes the SMS 160 character limit a non-issue.

** Ahh, alliteration! See? Grammar can be fun.