Writing program fixes errors, discourages ability to learn from mistakes
As students rush to write essays, some resort to a new app that has taken off in school environments. An online program called Grammarly focuses on making it “easier” for high school students, college students, and adults to write essays free of mistakes.
Freshman and junior English teacher Kyle Dodson shares the positives and negatives of using a program similar to Grammarly in class. He believes students should not depend on the technology accessible to them in a classroom setting unless they are learning from it.
“It’s something students will be using regardless,” Dodson said. “We as teachers don’t have the autonomous control of technology use especially outside of class. The phrase that I frequently use when it comes to technology in the classroom is ‘using it as a tool, not a crutch’. It is there to help you, but once you start relying upon it to solve your problems, it creates problems. Whether it’s through Grammarly or spell checking, it forces the students to rely on that rather than their own critical thinking. Something that I believe is being lost is the ability to critically think and how to solve problems.
“You would hope that over time students start to recognize their own mistakes and see where Grammarly is assisting them most and students can then grow from it,” Dodson continued. “Unfortunately if students aren’t paying attention to these errors and what these programs are doing for them, it does start to create a little bit of an issue where students are not growing themselves or taking the time to better themselves, but just expecting technology to do it for them.”
According to Grammarly’s purpose, it “automatically detects grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and style mistakes in your writing”. The app is supposed to help students achieve their goals in writing and provide “expert” help. Users can download the program for Microsoft Office, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox devices. The program is free, but premium costs $29.95 per month.
Grammarly may sound intriguing to students because it provides a quick fix for their mistakes. But according to Articulate Marketing, Grammarly corrections are uncertain and not always precise. After using the application for long periods of time, many users find it challenging to write without it.
Sophomore Sarah Smith found Grammarly installed on her computer. She shares her confusion with the sentence corrections and the inability to learn from the changes.
“Grammarly installed itself, and I liked it because it helped me with my spelling since I am not good at it,” Smith said. “Although, it started to switch around all my words and sentences that I did not want to fix. I’m not planning on keeping it because it keeps me from learning and does more than I want it to. I think I will be okay without it because I only use it for spelling which I can get better at eventually.”
On the Grammarly website, it states that the app is not 100% guaranteed to protect its users information. It is also known to crash and contain bugs that lead to stolen documents.
Amanda Grimmius, ‘19, uses Grammarly to check her online work. She likes the proofread service it provides but thinks students could become dependent on the corrections and overuse it.
“I installed it after I saw an advertisement for it,” Grimmius said. “I like it because it’s more than just auto-correct, it helps with sentence structure and grammar as well. The only negative is that it’s not supported in Google Docs, which is what I write a majority of papers on. I think I would be alright without it, but it certainly does help in some situations. I suppose it could hinder learning and be used as a ‘cheat’ in a way. However, I personally use it for little mistakes and just as a proofread service essentially. There is definitely a fine balance between the two.”
Using Siri and auto-correct while texting are also causing the same scenarios. With just one click, people can correct spelling mistakes without knowing it. Some people even use Siri on iPhones to text messages for efficiency.
Junior Mason Blowers shares what he thinks of Grammarly so far. He has not downloaded it, but has opinions on how it might effect users.
“I haven’t heard of Grammarly until I looked it up a while ago,” Blowers said. “It looks like it would help students and adults but it wouldn’t help prepare you for real life. I think people might not be able to form their own sentences when they get jobs in the future because they don’t notice what the app is fixing. I personally don’t think it is a good investment because it is not teaching, it’s just doing work for you.”
As students continue to write papers, teachers encourage them to correct their mistakes themselves and not rely on technology, but on their own minds.
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