Assistance for misspelling is helpful, but Grammarly takes it past some limits. Grammarly is a digital tool, with its main use being a writing assistant, grammar check and includes Artificial Intelligence (AI). Instead of just fixing errors, Grammarly changes a student’s original words, losing their authentic writing.
The school-provided Chromebooks students receive in the beginning of their freshman year, automatically installed the Grammarly extension around March and April of 2024 according to Grammarly’s blog.
Students have gotten used to Grammarly always correcting their spelling, but it is only effective for basic errors for spelling mistakes, punctuation, a mistake made while typing and more.
Since Grammarly uses generative artificial intelligence (AI), the tool has its limitations and sometimes makes mistakes when correcting words. Senior Dylan Olmsted has had experiences with Grammarly marking his sentences for errors.
“I have written correct words in the correct form of grammar. Grammarly thinks that they are wrong… so Grammarly appears to be very fallacious with its words,” Olmsted said.
Grammarly has been investing in their AI capabilities for 15+ years according to Grammarly’s blog, but it still is faulty with a composition’s context, which plays a big role in any writing; at times it doesn’t recognize a theme, which affects the connection among the reader and writer.
There are some grammatical corrections Grammarly tries, for instance, when Olmsted types a word like mountain, rather than Mount Rushmore, which would be capitalized, Grammarly interprets it as inaccurate.
“Grammarly thinks that mountain as alone should be capital or it is incorrect, which in the context should not be incorrect, and even teacher or source peer-reviewed articles that have no grammatical errors. Grammarly still thinks that there’s a bunch of errors,” Olmsted said.
One feature about Grammarly is that it previews errors by underlining incorrect words in red, using it as a way to push students into creating an account with it. There are constant notifications for Grammarly and even when logging into the Chromebook, a Grammarly tab pops up. Junior Melanie Valadez is one of the many students who experience this.
“The worst part about is that it’s consistently just a tab that opens by itself, So yes, I do feel like I am, like, forced to use it whenever I’m trying to do an essay or any type of sentences. It’s just always there. So yeah, I really don’t like it actually,” Valadez said.
When working on an assignment, Grammarly pops up, acting as a constant reminder of the AI tool.
“The button that clearly tells, hey, do you want this turned off, like permanently. If you click it, it just shows up on your next Google Doc. So it’s basically one of the most useless buttons I’ve ever seen,” Olmsted said.
The persistent advertisement of Grammarly possibly works; if so, it is important not to let it take full control, as it could eliminate the intended purpose of the text. It is necessary to verify if the words written are accurate, but also the original intent.
There are some students who rely on Grammarly, either for spell check or to apply a more professional writing into their own. Valadez has occasionally used Grammarly only when it is necessary to clean up a final draft, but at times it modifies the sentences.
“It is accurate. In some ways it is, but I feel like it’s just it kind of, like, takes away what you really want to put into your essay. It takes away the meaning of what you’re putting into it, and it kind of just changes it into its own sentences,” Valadez said.
Choosing to use Grammarly comes with negatives, but it isn’t completely unreliable. It can be dependable as an assistant, as it can correct spelling, punctuation and add clarity to a sentence. Some teachers allow their students to use Grammarly only as a spelling corrector.
“Whenever we have important essays, yes, they recommend using it, you know, just to get, like, our final drafts, but other than that, you know, they like just the originality of our own essays,” Valadez said.
Grammarly is easy to use and users can choose their own preferences to receive word suggestions tailored to their writing style. It provides feedback while typing and also has a paid premium version with a wider variety of features.
Whether or not Grammarly is actually useful and effective, the promotion of it is over the top, as it constantly pops up, even when you don’t need it or when teachers don’t permit the help from an AI tool.
The inability to remove the Grammarly extension from the school Chromebook pushes the use of Grammarly onto students, the solution to this is for the WCUSD district to allow students to have the option to disable the Grammarly extension on their Chromebooks.
