Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Essay Editing Software

If you are completely unfamiliar with essay editing software, a simple google search of essay editing will provide you with many links to online professionals as well as websites that offer such services for your academic essays.

Your university writing center or library may also pay for access to such software, so be sure to check with your school before proceeding with purchasing any such software for your own personal use. There are advantages and disadvantages to using such software. While the theory of being able to load a term paper into the software and receive instant editing feedback may sound amazing, the results may not always provide the results you were searching for.

Here we will discuss the various pros and cons to utilizing essay editing software.

Advantages

It may be free.

If your school is already paying for this service, you may as well be using it. Otherwise, it would be like buying a car, and driving around in silence because you never realized you had a radio. That would be silly. If you already pay for it, at least try it out and see if the editing software will help refine your work.

It might actually help.

In the case that your school offers this type of software, the help it can provide, while basic, may really help with your basic sentence structure and overall organization. It also may save you from being marked off for small errors in grammar or citations.

Grammar Checks

Most essay editing software will detect any minor grammar errors. This may be words that are misused, misspelled, or punctuation errors that need correcting.

Plagiarism Detection

By utilizing this feature, you will be able to make sure that you have, indeed, cited all of your sources properly. It would be a shame for your professor to catch you plagiarizing before you do.

Writing Suggestions

Most editing software even has a feature that helps you with your writing style. It can suggest more appropriate word choices and sentence structures, and will alert you with opportunities to improve your writing

Disadvantages

You may get bad advice.

A program is just that - a program. It is not a live person who can read your essay and understand the intended meaning behind the words you choose. This is important to note because sometimes the suggestions you will receive may not be correct. I like to equate this with the power of the thesaurus. While a thesaurus is a wonderful tool to be used in our writing, it does not work if we use a thesaurus and change every single word of a term paper to try and make ourselves sound smart. Actually, we end up sounding dumb because the suggested word may not make sense in the context we intended. Use suggestions with a critical and discerning eye.

It cannot provide live feedback.

While software may be a quick and independent means of editing our essays, it does not always prove beneficial to work in a secluded manner. An online check can provide some, and in some cases many, of the suggestions someone in person might. However, meeting with a live writing coach can fill in any gaps. Not only does a writing coach or writing center aid have the information we need to make sure we have cited things correctly and that we have an essay free of common errors, he or she can also provide much needed input on our content and style. They can help fine tune the implementation of your ideas, which is something that an online editing program cannot do - interpret intended meaning.

Conclusion

It is possible to utilize essay editing software wisely. Mainly, you need only remember that a program is not a person, and that it cannot provide you with all the feedback that you may need. It prove beneficial to first use the software to edit your first draft, and then to seek advice from a professor, graduate assistant, or writing coach/aid to fill in any gaps or questions you may have on your content.


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