I recently purchased the Hemingway
App for $9.99 after coming across some good things about it on Pinterest. You
can use the online version for free, but are able to purchase and download a
version ont0 you computer. Those who purchase are guaranteed the latest version
of the app and free upgrades in the future.
The app is rather self
explanatory. You cut and paste in a section of your writing and the app will
analyze it for you. It will automatically tell you the approximate grade level
that you are writing at and give you a word count. The app looks at five
different areas:
1) Sentences that are hard to read are highlighted
in yellow
2) Sentences that are very hard to read are
highlighted in red
3) Phrases with simpler alternatives are
highlighted in light purple
4) Adverbs are light blue
5) The passive voice is light green
The last two categories try to
eliminate the use of adverbs and the passive voice, but give you a number based
on the size of the passage, like you have 5 out of 6 “recommended” adverbs.
Depending on your writing style and content these last two points can be more
or less helpful.
I found that many of my sentences
were “very hard to read” and so I tried breaking them up and rearranging my
thoughts. This worked to some extent, though in many cases I could only take
them from red to yellow, “the hard to read” category. I was usually under on my
passive voice and cut out enough adverbs to satisfy the app and myself.
I wish the app had more grammar
functions, though it does allow you to replace some words with similar
versions, it took the overall reading level of my excerpt from grade 9 to 6. I
was not happy and not entirely sure what I did to make the change so I couldn’t
undo it.
My only real problem with the app
is with the size of the excerpt you can cut and paste. If the word count is too
high it will slow down the app so much that it almost glitches. I ended up
contacting the creatures to ask about fixing it and they said that all I could
do was feed in smaller pieces to edit.
Breaking your writing up is no big hassle in a cut and paste
environment, I would have just liked to plug in a whole chapter instead of
having to cut it up into so many paragraphs. I found that highlighting the
section that I was copying into the app was the best way of keeping track of
where I was. I would just copy the editing version from the app and paste it
back into my document, deleting the old highlighted section.
I have used different editing software
in the past. While word doc provides some very good review and reference
features for writers we need a bit more help. Grammarly is an add-on for word
doc that I found very helpful, the only problem is that it can be rather
expensive with a monthly or yearly subscription, the later being the cheaper
route. Unfortunately, I was only able to afford one month at the time and used
it to diligently edit several in progress rough drafts and fine-tune one manuscript.
I recommend trying the free
version online and if you feel the need to purchase it is a more than
reasonable price.
To my fellow writers, God bless
and Write On!!!
