Automatic Text Analysis
ProWritingAid analyses your text with a variety of metrics and its own algorithms. The analyses are based on established guidelines for good writing, which can be evaluated. Adverbs should be used sparingly, be more careful when transitions are used and use fewer pronouns, glue words, and so on. If you care for good writing, you’ll probably try to stick to these rules in some way, or at least in your head. ProWritingAid makes these rules systematically visible.
If you’re looking to go through a document quickly The Realtime feature can assist you in removing all spelling, grammar or style issues:
Once these mistakes are fixed Once these errors are fixed, you can move on to separate reports for more detailed editing. They allow you to look at the word choices, sentence structure and repeated words. You can also run a Summary Report to find out the areas you should focus on to achieve the greatest improvement in the most time:
How to Utilize It
ProWritingAid comes in many formats. You can make use of their Web Editor to edit documents within your browser. Additionally the browser extensions permit quick grammar fixes for sites such as Twitter as well as Facebook. Word addins for Windows, Mac and Windows let you edit Word documents directly.
Today, however we’ll be focusing on their Desktop App , which is great to work with your Ulysses documents.
You’ll need to register on ProWritingAid.com in order to use the tool. There are a variety of options available for working with Ulysses documents. Ulysses writers can utilize the free online Web Editor, or download the desktop software. You’ll require a premium license to edit more 500 words at one time and use the desktop app.
The desktop application can read 8 kinds of files (Markdown is one of them). So you can export a Ulysses text as Markdown File, conduct the editing process using ProWritingAid and then import it back into your Ulysses library to further process. It’s quick and simple, but you cannot keep images or sheet attachments such as writing goals. After testing the app, I found the following process to be suitable for my workflow.
Open ProWritingAid.
Navigate to your Ulysses page, select a text passage and then select the Edit menu command “Copy as markdown“.
Paste into ProWritingAid.
Then go through the report and then edit it in ProWritingAid.
Once you are done, you can select the edited text, and then copy it.
Copy the text of the previous version to your Ulysses page by selecting the “Paste from Markdown“ option from the Edit menu.
The Reports
ProWritingAid reports underline any issues that you might have. The explanations and/or suggestions appear when you move your cursor across an underlined passage. Click on a suggestion that is applicable, e.g. Click on a suggestion, e.g.
The reports come with brief explanations as well as a link to more detailed information about the report’s subject on the ProWritingAid website. To give you an idea of what to expect, I’ll discuss the report in detail and give some examples.
Writing Style Audit This report will help improve your writing. For instance, the report will identify passive voice in your writing that could make your writing difficult to understand. Sentences in active voice are easier to read. Writing Style Check examines sentence start points that are repeated and makes recommendations for enhancements to reading comprehension.
Overused Words The report will highlight words so frequently used that they’ve lost their significance and no longer have any relevance in everyday life. It is impossible to always avoid them, but ProWritingAid will tell you if you have used them to excess.
Sentence Length Check
Texts with sentences that vary in length are more engaging to read. This report visualizes your sentence lengths as a bar graph, to let you know in a glance whether there’s room to improve. Additionally it will highlight especially long sentences, since they can render a text difficult to comprehend.
Pricing
ProWritingAid’s online tools are free. It’s less enjoyable to use and you don’t have access to all available reports, but it may serve for a first impression. You can use the desktop app and other add-ons with a premium membership. It costs $79 per year or $399 for a lifetime licence. ProWritingAid comes with the 14-day guarantee of money back which allows you to take your time and decide whether it’s the right choice for you.
Final Thoughts
ProWritingAid doesn’t replace human editors, and isn’t designed to. It focuses on specific elements of text and performs an outstanding job. You will still have edit your text by yourself, but ProWritingAid can improve this process and make it faster.