Grammar Checker Guide
Catch and fix common grammar mistakes in your writing.
Usage
- Paste your text for grammar review
- Get corrections categorized by error type (agreement, tense, punctuation, usage)
- Understand why each correction is needed with a brief rule explanation
- Learn patterns in your common mistakes to prevent them
- Get suggestions for clarity and conciseness improvements
Examples
- Subject-verb agreement: "The team of developers are working" → "The team of developers is working" ("team" is the subject, not "developers"). Rule: ignore prepositional phrases between subject and verb. Trick: mentally remove "of developers" to hear the error
- Comma splice fix: "I finished the report, I sent it to the client" → Fix options: (1) period: "I finished the report. I sent it to the client." (2) semicolon: "I finished the report; I sent it to the client." (3) conjunction: "I finished the report, and I sent it to the client." A comma alone cannot join two independent clauses
- Who vs whom: "The developer who/whom we hired" → "whom" (object of "we hired"). Test: rephrase as "we hired him" (not "he") = whom. "The developer who built this" → "who" (subject of "built"). Test: "he built this" = who
- Affect vs effect: Affect is usually a verb ("The change affects users"). Effect is usually a noun ("The effect was significant"). Exception: "effect" as a verb means "to bring about" ("effect change"), and "affect" as a noun is a psychology term (flat affect)
Guidelines
- Read your writing aloud — your ear catches errors your eyes skip over
- Focus on your top 3 recurring mistakes rather than trying to learn all grammar rules at once
- In professional writing, err on the side of formality: avoid contractions, use complete sentences
- Oxford comma (serial comma before "and"): always use it in professional and technical writing to avoid ambiguity
- Grammarly and similar tools catch 60-70% of errors but miss context-dependent issues — human review still matters
- Style guides (AP, Chicago, APA) disagree on some rules — pick one and be consistent within a document