Technology Tales

Some online writing tools

15^th October 2021

Every week, I get an email newsletter from Woody's Office Watch. This was something to which I started subscribing in the 1990's, but I took a break from it for a good while for reasons that I cannot recall and returned to it only lately. This week's issue featured a list of online paraphrasing tools that are part of what is offered by QuillBot, Paraphraser, Dupli Checker and Pre Post SEO. Each got their own reviews in the newsletter, so I will just outline other features in this posting.

In QuillBot's case, the toolkit includes a grammar checker, summary generator, and citation generator. In addition to the online offering, there are extensions for Microsoft Word, Google Chrome, and Google Docs. A paid subscription option is available In addition to the free version.

Despite the name, Paraphraser is about more than what the title purports to do. There is article rewriting, plagiarism checking, grammar checking and text summarisation. Because there is no premium version, the offering is funded by advertising, and it will not work with an ad blocker enabled. The mention of plagiarism suggests a perhaps murkier side to writing that cuts both ways: one is to avoid copying other work, while another is the avoidance of groundless accusations of copying.

It was apparent that the main role of Dupli Checker is to avoid accusations of plagiarism by checking what you write, yet there is a grammar checker as well as a paraphrasing tool on there too. When I tried it, the English that it produced looked a little convoluted and there is a lack of fluency in what is written on its website as well. Together with a free offering that is supported by ads that were not blocked by my ad blocker, there are premium subscriptions too.

In web publishing, they say that content is king, so the appearance of an option using the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation in its name may not be as strange as it might at first glance. There are numerous tools here with both free and paid tiers of service. While paraphrasing and plagiarism checking get top billing in the main menu on the home page, further inspection reveals that there is a lot more to check on this site.

In writing, inspiration is a fleeting and ephemeral quantity, so anything that helps with this has to be of interest. While any rewriting of initial content may appear less smooth than the starting point, any help with the creation process cannot go amiss. For that reason alone, I might be tempted to try these tools occasionally, and they might assist with proofreading as well because that can be a hit-and-miss affair for some.