Automatic Text Analysis
ProWritingAid analyses your text with various statistics and its own algorithm. These analysis are based on established guidelines for writing that can actually be assessed, e.g. to avoid using adverbs in excess, make use of more transitions, fewer pronouns and glue words and many more. These guidelines are essential if you value good writing. ProWritingAid allows them to be easily seen.
Realtime is an excellent tool to speed up the process of working through a document.
Once you’ve eliminated these errors Once you have eliminated these mistakes, you’ll be able to go to the individual report for deeper adjustments. They let you examine your word choices, sentence structures, repeated words and more. You can also run the Summary Report to identify the areas that need improvement the most quickly.
How to Utilize It
ProWritingAid has many different formats. Their Web Editor can be used to edit documents within your browser. You can also use their browser extensions to fix any grammar issues on websites like Twitter or WordPress. Word addins allow you to directly edit Word documents on Windows as well as Mac.
Today we’ll concentrate on their Desktop App. This app is perfect to work using Ulysses documents.
You’ll need to register on ProWritingAid.com in order to access the software. There are a variety of ways to use Ulysses documents, as well as ProWritingAid. Ulysses writers will be able to utilize the online editor, or the desktop version. You’ll need a premium licence to edit more 500 words simultaneously and use the desktop app.
The desktop application supports eight file types, including Markdown. You can export Ulysses text to Markdown File. Then, you can edit it with ProWritingAid and then add it to your Ulysses library for further processing. It’s quick and easy, but you don’t have the option to save the images or attachments (e.g. writing goals). After some playing with the app I found the following method to be to be suitable for my workflow
Open ProWritingAid, and create Markdown File. Markdown File.
Open your Ulysses sheet and select the text section. Next, use the Edit menu’s “Copy As Markdown” option.
Paste into ProWritingAid.
Now go one by one through the reports, and edit within ProWritingAid.
Copy and select the edited text once you are finished.
Paste the text passage in your Ulysses document and paste it back into it.
The Reports
In each ProWritingAid report, the issues found in your text appear underlined. The explanations and/or suggestions will appear when you move your cursor over an underlined passage. Simply click on the suggestion, e.g. an easier word or synonym or a synonym, and use it.
The reports include an explanation of the subject as well as an online link to more extensive information about the subject. To give you an idea, I will go into detail and provide several examples.
Writing Style Check This report will help to improve your writing skills. For instance it will help you find passive voice in your writing, which can make it difficult to understand. Writing that are active in voice are simpler to read. Writing Style Check highlights repeated sentence starts and offers suggestions for improvements to readability.
Overused Words: This report examines the meaning of words that are utilized frequently in daily life that they are almost meaningless. ProWritingAid might not be able detect the frequency with which you use excessively.
Verify your sentences
Texts that have sentences with different lengths make text more enjoyable to read. The report shows your sentence lengths as a bar graph so you can see at a glance if there’s room for improvement. The report can also help you identify long sentences that can cause text to be difficult to comprehend.
Pricing
ProWritingAid’s online tool is completely free. Although it is less user-friendly and does not provide access to all reports, it can be useful for creating an initial impression. Premium memberships allow you to use the desktop app, add-ons and are available beginning at $79 per year and $399 for lifetime license. It is possible to take your time to figure out if ProWritingAid is right for you since it comes with a 14 days of money-back assurance.
Final Thoughts
ProWritingAid does not replace editors, and isn’t designed to. It focuses on specific elements of text that are measurable and performs an excellent job. ProWritingAid is not a substitute for editing your text. It can, however, help speed up this process.