The First AI Tool I Actually Trusted

📌TL;DR

• Polishes fast: Fixes grammar, clarity, and tone without killing your voice.

• Creator-friendly: Helped me clean up course scripts and client emails — no upgrade needed.

• Not perfect: Some weird suggestions, but still a solid freebie.

Estimated reading time: 4 - 5 minutes.

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MAIN STORY QUEST

The Underrated AI Tool I Use Every Week

Let’s be honest.

When people talk AI these days, it’s all ChatGPT this, Midjourney that.

Grammarly?

It barely gets a mention — which is kind of wild, because this tool was quietly helping folks sound smarter long before generative AI became everyone’s favorite sidekick.

I’ve been using Grammarly since the pre-ChatGPT era, mostly to tighten up my instructional design content and make stakeholder emails sound less like academic soup.

Back then, it wasn’t about prompting robots.

It was about surviving Monday mornings without writing “please see attached” five times in a row.

What Grammarly Free Actually Does (And Does Well)

The free version covers the essentials:

• Spelling, grammar, punctuation — Nothing fancy, just good ol’ quality control.

• Clarity rewrites — Helps trim down my “one sentence = one paragraph” problem.

• Tone detection — Useful when I want my emails to sound assertive, not aggressive.

That might not sound revolutionary… but when you’re cranking out course modules or email updates at scale, the difference between “meh” and “polished” can come down to a subtle nudge from Grammarly.

A Real Use Case: From Rambly to Readable

I once took a bloated learning objective from a course script and ran it through Grammarly. It went from:

To something like:

Was it magic? No.

Was it a massive improvement? Absolutely.

It’s Not Perfect — But That’s Kind of the Point

Grammarly’s suggestions aren’t always spot-on.

It occasionally tries to swap out words like it’s playing Thesaurus Roulette.

And yes, sometimes it wants to delete my semicolons… which, rude.

But here’s the thing: Grammarly doesn’t override your voice.

You can accept or reject every edit.

It’s like having an overly helpful assistant who means well but still respects boundaries.

What You Don’t Get

The free plan skips out on:

• Plagiarism detection

• Tone adjustments (you’ll get detection, not transformation)

• Generative features like GrammarlyGo — where you can ask it to rewrite, simplify, or brainstorm text

I haven’t used GrammarlyGo myself, but from what I’ve seen, it’s more of a cherry on top than a core feature.

And unless you're writing a 10,000-word research paper, the basics are often enough.

If you're a student hoping it’ll write your essay — pump the brakes.

There's been drama.

One student even got flagged for plagiarism just by running Grammarly edits.

Use responsibly.

What I Do Love

✅ It runs quietly in the background (browser, docs, email — it’s there)
✅ It saves me time without asking for attention
✅ It helps me keep my tone while just making it smoother
✅ It’s free — and actually useful

There’s no awkward interface, no salesy pop-ups screaming “UPGRADE NOW,” and no steep learning curve.

It just… works.

The Final Byte

Grammarly isn’t trying to be your muse or co-writer. It’s your cleanup crew. The unsung hero who makes your writing tighter, smoother, and less “uhh, what was I trying to say here?”

If you're a creator, course builder, or anyone stuck typing more than you'd like to admit — the free version alone is worth adding to your toolkit. Let it catch the little things so your brain can focus on the big stuff.

Just remember: your voice is the main act.

Grammarly? It’s just handling the mic check.

See you in the next one,

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