I have been seeing advertisements for "Grammarly", an editing tool. At first glance it seemed like it could be useful. I recall that Wordperfect used to have a grammar checker but somehow I got away from that, though I do not know why.
As I have gathered information on the use of Grammarly, they list a plagiarism detector which is not important to me, but its existence makes me question the security of my own work. I am not using Google's net based storage, and have no plans to use OneDrive for the same reason. Instead, I have three one terabyte portable drives which I unplug when not in use. I had thought that they were solid state drives but found out that they are "spinny" drives.
I'll not use Grammarly at least until I know more about how much it accesses the internet and more about the security of my own stories.
I would really like to use this software but am being very cautious about it.
Gwen
Comments
Trying software
Gwen,
You could always download it then dicsonnect entirely from the internet and see what happens. If it does not work (esp the plagarism detector) then you have your answer.
OR
You could post a question to them directly
However, looking at their site, I'd probably avoid it. The Terms of Service talks about Licenses and Fees yet AFAIK, there is nowhere on the site that mentions costs of licenses (eg No On-line Store).
Sneaky...
Also as I use a Mac, the product is useless to me anyway.
Yes, who would do the plagarism?
Precisely. They mention a plagiarism detector, but my worry is that they may do most of it.
Gwne
Grammarly
I use Grammarly a lot as a pre-processor when I am editing my stuff. And I use it on my Mac as a download but also thru browsers. It's a good product.
I don't worry about someone plagiarizing my stuff using it; there are way too many other ways on the internet for someone to find and use anyone's stuff. I have published books on KDP that have been ripped off by Russian language websites right from Kindle downloads. You can't prevent it, all you can do is slap people who do it with a takedown notice. And if they are out of the country they just ignore you.
"It's the internet, Jake."
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. :-)
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2012/01/20/welcome-to-pirate-my-b...
The story behind this record is longer, but that is the essence. Paulo Coelho is smart enough to know the system well. :-)
In my country, there is a well-known site for pirated texts. All publishing houses are in a war with it, publicly blast it, complain from it, threaten to sue it etc. At the same time, almost all of them secretly upload there their books several months after publishing. Many individual writers do the same. The jump in the sales is often bigger than even the initial one. They can't afford to come on good terms with it, as this will mean a war between them and the big rights holders. However, they also see where the sales and the money are. :-)
He's talking about piracy
which is different to plagiarism, in piracy the original author is still attributed, in plagiarism the thief claims authorship.
Angharad
My version of Word
has a grammar feature which is useful sometimes and not at others. It doesn't always understand tenses or colloquialisms. However, I always leave the spellcheck on because it does help pick up typos - well some of them.
As for plagiarism, when you post as much as I do, it's almost inevitable people will copy bits without attribution.
Angharad
Yep Grammarly
I use Grammarly commercially. I've caught several writers who I paid for unique content plagiarizing. Since most of my commercial writing is for a website, and Google penalizes your site for plagiarizing, I've had to terminate our relationships with those writers. I Grammarly is a good tool for a variety of checking, but will not give you a "perfect" document. I've had videos, powerpoint presentations, many articles, pictures, graphs, etc. scrapped from my site and used by others. Some are innocent dopes. Most are professionals from other countries where I can't do anything about it. As Erin said, "It's the internet."
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)