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Essay Checker: Free Online Paper Corrector

Your Best Chance for an A+ Essay. Try Our Free Essay Checker Below.

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Why Should You Use a Free Essay Checker?

The simple answer? Good grammar is necessary, but it’s not easy. You've already done countless hours of research to write the essay. You don’t want to spend countless hours correcting it, too.

You'll get a better grade

Good grammar or its absence can determine if you get a good grade or a failing one. Impress your lecturer not just with how grammatically sound your writing is, but how clear it is and how it flows.

You'll save time

Essay writing can be a long and tedious process. ProWritingAid's essay checker saves you the hassle by acting as the first line of defense against pesky grammar issues.

You'll become a better writer

Essay writing is a particular skill and one that becomes better with practice. Every time you run your essay through ProWritingAid’s essay corrector, you get to see what your common mistakes are and how to fix them.

Good Writing = Good Grades

It’s already hard to know what to write in an essay. Don’t let grammar mistakes hinder your writing and prevent you from getting a good grade. ProWritingAid’s essay checker will help you write your best essay yet. Since the checker is powered by AI, using it means that grammar errors don’t stand a chance. Give your professors something to look forward to reading with clear, concise, and professional writing.

How Does ProWritingAid’s Essay Checker Work?

Your goal in essay writing is to convey your message as best as possible. ProWritingAid's essay checker is the first step towards doing this.

Get Rid of Spelling Errors

ProWritingAid’s essay checker will show you what it thinks are spelling errors and present you with possible corrections. If a word is flagged and it’s actually spelt correctly you can always choose to ignore the suggestion.

Fix Grammar Errors

Professors aren’t fans of poor grammar because it interrupts your message and makes your essay hard to understand. ProWritingAid will run a grammar check on your paper to ensure that your message is precise and is being communicated the way you intended.

Get Rid of Punctuation Mistakes

A missing period or comma here and there may not seem that serious, but you’ll lose marks for punctuation errors. Run ProWritingAid’s paper checker to use the correct punctuation marks every time and elevate your writing.

Improve Readability

Make sure that in the grand scheme your language is not too complicated. The essay checker's built in readability report will show if your essay is easy or hard to read. It specifically zones in on paragraphs that might be difficult to read so you can review them.

What Else Can the Essay Checker Do?

The editing tool analyzes your text and highlights a variety of key writing issues, such as overused words, incohesive sentence structures, punctuation issues, repeated phrases, and inconsistencies.

You don’t need to drown your essay in words just to meet the word count. ProWritingAid’s essay checker will help to make your words more effective. You'll get to construct your arguments and make sure that every word you use builds towards a meaningful conclusion.

Transition words help to organize your ideas by showing the relationship between them. The essay checker has a built in Transition report that highlights and shows the percentage of transitions used in your essay. Use the results to add transitions where necessary.

An engaging essay has sentences of varying lengths. Don’t bore your professor with long, rambling sentences. The essay checker will show you where you need to break long sentences into shorter sentences, or add more sentence length variation.

Generally, in scholarly writing, with its emphasis on precision and clarity, the active voice is preferred. However, the passive voice is acceptable in some instances. When you run your essay through ProWritingAid’s essay checker, you get feedback on whether you 'r e using the passive or active voice to convey your idea.

There are academic specific power verbs like appraise , investigate , debunk , support , etc., that can add more impact to your argument by giving a more positive and confident tone. The essay checker will check your writing for power verbs and notify you if you have less than three throughout your essay.

It's easy to get attached to certain phrases and use them as crutches in your essays but this gives the impression of boring and repetitive writing. The essay checker will highlight your repeats and suggest contextually relevant alternatives.

Gain access to in-house blog reports on citations, how to write a thesis statement, how to write a conclusion, and more. Venture into a world of resources specific to your academic needs.

What Kinds of Papers Does ProWritingAid Correct?

No matter what you’re writing, ProWritingAid will adapt and show you where your edits are needed most.

• Argumentative
• Descriptive
• Textual Analysis
• Lab reports
• Case studies
• Literature reviews
• Presentations
• Dissertations
• Research papers

Professors and students love using ProWritingAid

If you're an English teacher, you need to take a look at this tool - it reinforces what you're teaching, highlights strengths and weaknesses, and makes it easier to personalize instruction.

Jennifer Gonzales

Only reason I managed to get an A in all my freshmen composition classes.

Chris Layton

Great tool for academic work. Easy to use and the reports and summary evaluation of your documents in several categories is very useful. So much more than spelling and grammar!

Debra Callender

Questions & Answers

1. how do i use the essay checker online tool.

You can either copy and paste your essay in the essay checker field or upload your essay from your computer. Your suggestions will show once you enter text. You’ll see a number of possible grammar and spelling issues. Sign up for free to get unlimited suggestions to improve your writing style, grammar, and sentence structure. Avoid unintentional plagiarism with a premium account.

2. Does the essay checker work with British English and American English?

The essay checker works with both British English and American English. Just choose the one you would like to use and your corrections will reflect this.

3. Is using an essay checker cheating?

No. The essay checker won’t ever write the essay for you. It will point out possible edits and advise you on changes you need to make. You have full autonomy and get to decide which changes to accept.

4. Will the essay checker auto-correct my work?

The essay writing power remains in your hands. You choose which suggestions you want to accept and you can ignore those that you don’t think apply.

5. Is there a student discount?

Students who have an eligible student email address can get 20% off ProWritingAid Premium. Email [email protected] from your student email address to access your discount.

6. Does ProWritingAid have a plagiarism checker?

Yes! ProWritingAid’s plagiarism checker will check your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers, so you can be sure of its originality. Find out more about pricing for plagiarism checks here .

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Grammar checking

Try the free Microsoft Editor grammar checker to improve your writing, catch mistakes, and use best practices to write like a pro.  

Try the free Microsoft Editor grammar checker to improve your writing, catch mistakes, and use best practices to write like a pro.

What is a grammar checker and how do you use it?

Grammar checking is making sure you use the correct words and punctuation in your writing and that it’s clear, concise, and inclusive.

Proofread papers and reports

Check your schoolwork and catch any mistakes before turning it in so you can improve your grade.

Polish professional documents

Make sure that presentations, emails, social media posts, and print materials are error-free.

Create a compelling resume

Impress employers with a strong resume without any mistakes to distract from your qualifications.

Save time and energy

Finish and send documents sooner with peace of mind that your writing doesn’t have any typos.

Learn how to use a free online grammar checker

See how to check your grammar for clarity, conciseness, vocabulary, punctuation, formality, inclusiveness, and similarity to online sources.

Get help with grammar basics

An online grammar checker highlights issues like sentence fragments, missing words and punctuation, capitalization, and commonly confused words.

See how to write with clarity

A grammar checker identifies phrases where you can use simpler wording, switch to active voice instead of passive voice, and avoid jargon.

Keep it concise

Hold your reader’s attention by deleting unnecessary words.

Choose the right words for the situation

An online grammar checker will point out clichés, vague or unnecessary words, weak verbs, informal language, and slang you might want to avoid.

Write for every audience

Use a grammar checker to make sure your writing is free of bias and makes everyone feel represented.

Make sure your writing is original

Check your document for similarity to online sources and properly cite other people’s work.

Make your resume stand out

Check the grammar in your resume with Microsoft Editor and avoid vague words and writing in the first person.

Read more about grammar checking

Properly use grammar to be more professional in documents, email, and online.

Use Microsoft Editor in your documents, email, and online

Rules with Commas, Periods, and More

Use data to write better emails

Five ways to be more professional over email

Ready to try editor.

Improve your writing across school papers, presentations, email, and the web with Microsoft Editor.  

Improve your writing across school papers, presentations, email, and the web with Microsoft Editor.   

Learn more about Microsoft Editor

Grammar Check

Spell check

Frequently asked questions, what is grammar checking.

A grammar check is a making sure your writing is grammatically correct: using active voice, being concise and specific, using punctuation correctly, making sure you use the right verb tense, and following other language rules.

What does a grammar checker do?

A grammar checker scans your writing for common errors and highlights them so you can fix them.

What are the advantages of online grammar checking?

Online grammar checking helps you make your writing the best no matter what website you’re using: LinkedIn, Gmail, Facebook, or Word or Outlook online. A  grammar checker browser extension  like Microsoft Editor makes it easy.

Why use grammar checking software?

Grammar checking software has many benefits. It helps you improve your language skills, makes your writing easier to understand, saves time proofreading, and catches typos and other common mistakes.

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#1 Free British Grammar Checker

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Instantly correct your entire document in minutes

The #1 grammar checker.

The best grammar checker to make you write like a pro!

Check your grammar for free (and without obligations)

The Scribbr grammar checker is 100% free and you don’t need to sign up.

Insert your text, improve your writing, export your text – it can’t get any easier!

One tool to correct all your mistakes

The grammar checker corrects  spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. All fixed with 1 click.

Also corrects Spanish, French and German

Besides US and UK English, the grammar checker corrects Spanish, French and German.

More languages will be added in the future!

Correct all your writing errors

There are times when you just want to write without worrying about every grammar or spelling convention. The online grammar checker immediately finds all of your errors. This allows you to concentrate on the bigger picture. You’ll be 100% confident that your writing won’t keep you down.

Correct your grammar

Improve your writing and grammar with just one click.

The Scribbr Grammar Checker fixes grammatical errors like:

• Sentence fragments & run-on sentences
• Subject-verb agreement errors
• Issues with parallelism

Check your spelling

Spelling may seem straightforward, but basic spell-checkers often don’t recognise many specialist terms you might use in your writing, incorrectly marking them as mistakes.

Scribbr has a large dictionary of recognised words, so you can feel confident that every word is 100% correct.

Correct your punctuation mistakes

Our Grammar Checker takes away all your punctuation mistakes. Avoid common mistakes with:

• Dashes and hyphens
• Apostrophes

Correct commonly confused words

Should you use “affect” or “effect” ? Is it “then” or “than” ? Did you mean “there,” “their,” or “they’re” ?

Never worry about embarrassing word choice errors again. Our grammar checker will spot and correct any errors with commonly confused words .

Correct your entire document in 5 minutes

Would you like to upload your entire document and check all your documents for 100+ language issues? Then Scribbr’s AI-powered proofreading is perfect for you.

With AI-powered proofreading, you can correct your text in no time:

• Upload document
• Wait briefly while all errors are corrected directly in your document
• Correct errors with one click

Proofread my document

Why users love our Grammar Checker

Instantly correct all your language mistakes in minutes, ask our team.

Want to contact us directly? No problem. We are always here for you.

• Chat with us
• Email [email protected]
• Call +44 (0)20 3917 4242
• WhatsApp +31 20 261 6040

Frequently asked questions

The Scribbr Grammar Checker is a tailor-made AI-powered tool that can correct basic language, grammar, style, and spelling errors. We run it so that our editors are free to focus on what they do best: making sure that your paper is free of more nuanced mistakes and providing you with helpful feedback and writing tips.

The Scribbr Grammar Checker is a pro at correcting basic mistakes – and a human editor will still be carefully reviewing your full text – so you can rest assured that your paper is in very good hands!

When you receive back a document that has been reviewed by the Scribbr Grammar Checker, you’ll see two sets of tracked changes in it: one set from the grammar checker and one set from your editor. That way, you can easily tell who made what changes in your paper.

Not sure how tracked changes work in Word or how to review your edited file? Read our handy guide to learn more.

We tested ten of the most popular free grammar checkers to see how many errors they could fix in our sample text and deducted points for any new errors introduced. We also evaluated the tools’ usability.

When compared all the other grammar checkers we tested for this comparison and Scribbr performed exceptionally well. It was successful in detecting and correcting 19 of the 20 errors. See the full review here .

If our grammar checker flags an error that is not actually an error, you have several options:

1. Ignore the error: Most grammar checkers allow users to skip or ignore suggestions they do not agree with or find irrelevant. If you are confident that the flagged “error” is not an issue, you can bypass the suggestion and move on to the next one.

2. Review the context: Take a moment to thoroughly review the context surrounding the flagged error. Sometimes, the initial correct usage might still create confusion or ambiguity within the specific context, and reconsidering the phrasing could improve overall clarity.

Yes, this grammar checker covers the following mistakes:

1. Grammar: Correction of grammatical errors such as subject-verb agreement, tense usage, and sentence structure

2. Spelling: identification and correction of spelling errors, including typos and commonly confused words.

3. Punctuation: Detection and rectification of punctuation errors, including incorrect use of commas, periods, colons, and other punctuation.

4. Word choice errors: Catch words that sound similar but aren’t, like their vs. they’re and your vs. you’re.

Yes. There’s no sign up or payment required to use the grammar checker.

Yes. The grammar checker fixes any text, no matter what the medium is.

Free plagiarism checker by EasyBib

Check for plagiarism, grammar errors, and more.

• Expert Check

Check for accidental plagiarism

Avoid unintentional plagiarism. Check your work against billions of sources to ensure complete originality.

Find and fix grammar errors

Turn in your best work. Our smart proofreader catches even the smallest writing mistakes so you don't have to.

Get expert writing help

Improve the quality of your paper. Receive feedback on your main idea, writing mechanics, structure, conclusion, and more.

What students are saying about us

"Caught comma errors that I actually struggle with even after proofreading myself."

- Natasha J.

"I find the suggestions to be extremely helpful especially as they can instantly take you to that section in your paper for you to fix any and all issues related to the grammar or spelling error(s)."

- Catherine R.

Check for unintentional plagiarism

Easily check your paper for missing citations and accidental plagiarism with the EasyBib plagiarism checker. The EasyBib plagiarism checker:

• Scans your paper against billions of sources.
• Identifies text that may be flagged for plagiarism.
• Provides you with a plagiarism score.

You can submit your paper at any hour of the day and quickly receive a plagiarism report.

What is the EasyBib plagiarism checker? 

Most basic plagiarism checkers review your work and calculate a percentage, meaning how much of your writing is indicative of original work. But, the EasyBib plagiarism checker goes way beyond a simple percentage. Any text that could be categorized as potential plagiarism is highlighted, allowing you time to review each warning and determine how to adjust it or how to cite it correctly.

You’ll even see the sources against which your writing is compared and the actual word for word breakdown. If you determine that a warning is unnecessary, you can waive the plagiarism check suggestion.

Plagiarism is unethical because it doesn’t credit those who created the original work; it violates intellectual property and serves to benefit the perpetrator. It is a severe enough academic offense, that many faculty members use their own plagiarism checking tool for their students’ work. With the EasyBib Plagiarism checker, you can stay one step ahead of your professors and catch citation mistakes and accidental plagiarism before you submit your work for grading.

Why use a plagiarism checker? 

Imagine – it’s finals week and the final research paper of the semester is due in two days. You, being quite familiar with this high-stakes situation, hit the books, and pull together a ten-page, last-minute masterpiece using articles and materials from dozens of different sources.

However, in those late, coffee-fueled hours, are you fully confident that you correctly cited all the different sources you used? Are you sure you didn’t accidentally forget any? Are you confident that your teacher’s plagiarism tool will give your paper a 0% plagiarism score?

That’s where the EasyBib plagiarism checker comes in to save the day. One quick check can help you address all the above questions and put your mind at ease.

What exactly is plagiarism? 

Plagiarism has a number of possible definitions; it involves more than just copying someone else’s work. Improper citing, patchworking, and paraphrasing could all lead to plagiarism in one of your college assignments. Below are some common examples of accidental plagiarism that commonly occur.

Quoting or paraphrasing without citations

Not including in-text citations is another common type of accidental plagiarism. Quoting is taking verbatim text from a source. Paraphrasing is when you’re using another source to take the same idea but put it in your own words. In both cases, it’s important to always cite where those ideas are coming from. The EasyBib plagiarism checker can help alert you to when you need to accurately cite the sources you used.

Patchwork plagiarism

When writing a paper, you’re often sifting through multiple sources and tabs from different search engines. It’s easy to accidentally string together pieces of sentences and phrases into your own paragraphs. You may change a few words here and there, but it’s similar to the original text. Even though it’s accidental, it is still considered plagiarism. It’s important to clearly state when you’re using someone else’s words and work.

Improper citations

Depending on the class, professor, subject, or teacher, there are multiple correct citation styles and preferences. Some examples of common style guides that are followed for citations include MLA, APA, and Chicago style. When citing resources, it’s important to cite them accurately. Incorrect citations could make it impossible for a reader to track down a source and it’s considered plagiarism. There are EasyBib citation tools to help you do this.

Don’t fall victim to plagiarism pitfalls. Most of the time, you don’t even mean to commit plagiarism; rather, you’ve read so many sources from different search engines that it gets difficult to determine an original thought or well-stated fact versus someone else’s work. Or worse, you assume a statement is common knowledge, when in fact, it should be attributed to another author.

When in doubt, cite your source!

Time for a quick plagiarism quiz! 

Which of the following requires a citation?

• A chart or graph from another source
• A paraphrase of an original source
• Several sources’ ideas summarized into your own paragraph
• A direct quote
• All of the above

If you guessed option E than you’d be correct. Correct punctuation and citation of another individual’s ideas, quotes, and graphics are a pillar of good academic writing.

What if you copy your own previous writing?

Resubmitting your own original work for another class’s assignment is a form of self-plagiarism, so don’t cut corners in your writing. Draft an original piece for each class or ask your professor if you can incorporate your previous research.

What features are available with the EasyBib plagiarism checker? 

Along with providing warnings and sources for possible plagiarism, the EasyBib  plagiarism checker works alongside the other EasyBib tools, including a grammar checker  and a spell checker . You’ll receive personalized feedback on your thesis and writing structure too!

The  plagiarism checker compares your writing sample with billions of available sources online so that it detects plagiarism at every level. You’ll be notified of which phrases are too similar to current research and literature, prompting a possible rewrite or additional citation. You’ll also get feedback on your paper’s inconsistencies, such as changes in text, formatting, or style. These small details could suggest possible plagiarism within your assignment.

And speaking of citations, there are also  EasyBib citation tools  available. They help you quickly build your bibliography and avoid accidental plagiarism. Make sure you know which citation format your professor prefers!

Great! How do I start? 

Simply copy and paste or upload your essay into the checker at the top of this page. You’ll receive the first five grammar suggestions for free! To try the plagiarism checker for free, start your EasyBib Plus three-day free trial.* If you love the product and decide to opt for premium services, you’ll have access to unlimited writing suggestions and personalized feedback.

The EasyBib plagiarism checker is conveniently available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. You can cancel anytime.  Check your paper for free today!.

*See Terms and Conditions

Visit www.easybib.com for more information on helpful EasyBib writing and citing tools.

For informational guides and on writing and citing, visit the EasyBib guides homepage .

Essay Checker

Essay checker – free online tool.

Try Grammarly 20% Off

Get an exclusive 20% discount now.

Welcome to our FREE Essay Checker – Online Tool . No matter if you are a blogger, journalist, college student, or you just love to write, our tool will serve you! Use this FREE Essay Checker to take your writing to the next level.

What Our Tool Does

Our Essay Checker is a one-stop shop to improve your essay. This is the ULTIMATE proofreading tool that provides the following services.

• Identify spelling errors
• Identify grammar mistakes
• Identify punctuation errors
• Verify sentence structure
• Check the consistency of your writing style

From the thesis statement to your conclusion, our Essay Checker will make sure silly grammatical errors are a thing of the past . If you write essays, use this tool to get rid of simple writing mistakes…your teacher will thank you!

Tip : Time Saver – Press “Ctrl + D” to bookmark this Essay Checker

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How to use it.

Our Essay Checker is simple & effective. Follow these steps to proofread your essay in seconds.

• Write your essay
• Copy & paste your essay into our Essay Checker Online Tool
• Click “ Check Your Text ” to find your errors
• Click the RED “ Click Here ” button to receive a more in-depth breakdown

Other Services

GrammarCheck.Me has multiple FREE tools to help you eliminate grammar errors. Our sentence rewriter tool is amongst the most popular! Use these other tools to take your writing skills to the next level.

1) Spell Checker

Nothing is more embarrassing than making a simple spelling mistake. You can spend days writing a perfect essay, but one typo can derail all your credibility. We recommend that you use our FREE spell checker . Just copy & paste your writing into our Spell Checker, and avoid the embarrassment of making very simple spelling errors!

2) Sentence Checker

A complete sentence consists of words put together to form a complete thought. Writing a sentence seems simple, but writers often make the same grammar mistakes. Our Sentence Checker Tool analyzes your sentence structure. It will identify any typographical and formatting mistakes.

3) Grammar Checker

Need a grammar check for your essay, blog post, or research paper? GrammarCheck.Me has your back! Our Grammar Checker is the ultimate proofreading tool. Use this grammar checking too if you are serious about improving your writing.

FAQs – Essay Checker

Q: where can i get my essay checker for free.

GrammarCheck.Me has a FREE essay checker that you can use for proofreading. Our essay checker makes sure your essay is error-free. Copy & paste your essay into our tool before publishing your work. If you are looking for even more advanced features, check out QuillBot or Grammarly . Both grammar tools are great options!

Q: Is editing an essay cheating?

Editing your essay is NOT cheating . In fact, editing is an important process in the publication process. If you skip out on editing, you are more likely to make silly, spelling errors, grammar errors, and punctuation errors.

Q: Can you edit your college essay?

You should edit your college essay. Here are three reasons why:

• An excellent college essay can improve your chances of getting accepted into the school of your choice.
• Silly grammar & spelling mistakes show a lack of effort and attention to detail.
• Editing your college essay gives you a chance to make sure that your personal statement is the best it can be.

However, if you already submitted your essay it may not be possible to make any changes. Use our Essay Checker Online Tool before submitting your final application.

Q: How many paragraphs is an essay?

The standard essay format is five paragraphs. However, this will vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing. Additionally, each paragraph will vary in length. Some paragraphs will be 100-200 words, while others will be 500 words.

Q: How long is an essay?

Essay length will depend on the type of essay you’re writing . For example, a high school essay will be shorter than a Graduate Student Admission essay. On average, most essays will be about 700 words .

Q: How long should a college essay be?

Most colleges prefer essays that are between 400 and 600 words long . However, some colleges may have different requirements, so it’s always best to check with the admissions office first.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing your college essay:

• Start early and brainstorm
• Be concise and to the point
• Proofread carefully before submitting – a well-written essay can be overshadowed by careless errors
• Have someone else read your essay for feedback before you submit it – a fresh set of eyes can often catch errors

Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

This content is licensed by Khan Academy and is available for free at www.khanacademy.org.

Teaching and Learning

Can using a grammar checker set off ai-detection software, a college student says she was falsely accused of cheating, and her story has gone viral. where is the line between acceptable help and cheating with ai, by jeffrey r. young     apr 4, 2024.

When Marley Stevens posted a quick video on TikTok about what she says was a false accusation of cheating flagged by an AI detector, the story quickly went viral.

Stills from marley stevens tiktok account.

This article is part of the guide: For Education, ChatGPT Holds Promise — and Creates Problems.

Marley Stevens posted a video on TikTok last semester that she described as a public service announcement to any college student. Her message: Don’t use grammar-checking software if your professor might run your paper through an AI-detection system.

Stevens is a junior at the University of North Georgia, and she has been unusually public about what she calls a “debacle,” in which she was accused of using AI to write a paper that she says she composed herself except for using standard grammar- and spell-checking features from Grammarly, which she has installed as an extension on her web browser.

That initial warning video she posted has been viewed more than 5.5 million times, and she has since made more than 25 follow-up videos answering comments from followers and documenting her battle with the college over the issue — including sharing pictures of emails sent to her from academic deans and images of her student work to try to prove her case — to raise awareness of what she sees as faulty AI-detection tools that are increasingly sanctioned by colleges and used by professors.

Stevens says that a professor in a criminal justice course she took last year gave her a zero on a paper because he said that the AI-detection system in Turnitin flagged it as robot-written. Stevens insists the work is entirely her own and that she did not use ChatGPT or any other chatbot to compose any part of her paper.

@m.stevens03 #granmerly #ai #artificialintelligence #fyp #psa ♬ original sound - Marley Stevens

As a result of the zero on the paper, she says, her final grade in the class fell to a grade low enough that it kept her from qualifying for a HOPE Scholarship , which requires students to maintain a 3.0 GPA. And she says the university placed her on academic probation for violating its policies on academic misconduct, and she was required to pay $105 to attend a seminar about cheating.

The university declined repeated requests from EdSurge to talk about its policies for using AI detection. Officials instead sent a statement saying that federal student privacy laws prevent them from commenting on any individual cheating incident, and that: “Our faculty communicate specific guidelines regarding the use of AI for various classes, and those guidelines are included in the class syllabi. The inappropriate use of AI is also addressed in our Student Code of Conduct .”

The section of that student code of conduct defines plagiarism as: “Use of another person or agency’s (to include Artificial Intelligence) ideas or expressions without acknowledging the source. Themes, essays, term papers, tests and other similar requirements must be the work of the Student submitting them. When direct quotations or paraphrase are used, they must be indicated, and when the ideas of another are incorporated in the paper they must be appropriately acknowledged. All work of a Student needs to be original or cited according to the instructor's requirements or is otherwise considered plagiarism. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use, by paraphrase or direct quotation, of the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgement. It also includes the unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.”

The incident raises complex questions about where to draw lines regarding new AI tools. When are they merely helping in acceptable ways, and when does their use mean academic misconduct? After all, many people use grammar and spelling autocorrect features in systems like Google Docs and other programs that suggest a word or phrase as users type. Is that cheating?

And as such grammar features become more robust as generative AI tools become more mainstream, can AI-detection tools possibly tell the difference between acceptable AI use and cheating?

“I’ve had other teachers at this same university recommend that I use [Grammarly] for papers,” Stevens said in another video . “So are they trying to tell us that we can’t use autocorrect or spell checkers or anything? What do they want us to do, type it into, like, a Notes app and turn it in that way?”

In an interview with EdSurge, the student put it this way:

“My whole thing is that AI detectors are garbage and there’s not much that we as students can do about it,” she says. “And that’s not fair because we do all this work and pay all this money to go to college, and then an AI detector can pretty much screw up your whole college career.”

Twists and Turns

Along the way, this University of North Georgia student’s story has taken some surprising turns.

For one, the university issued an email to all students about AI not long after Stevens posted her first viral video.

That email reminded students to follow the university’s code of academic conduct, and it also had an unusual warning: “Please be aware that some online tools used to assist students with grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc., utilize generative artificial intelligence (AI); which can be flagged by Turnitin. One of the most commonly used generative AI websites being flagged by Turnitin.com is Grammarly. Please use caution when considering these websites.”

The professor later told the student that he also checked her paper with another tool, Copyleaks, and it also flagged her paper as bot-written. And she says that when she ran her paper through Copyleaks recently, it deemed the work human-written. She sent this reporter a screenshot from that process, in which the tool concludes, in green text, “This is human text.”

“If I’m running it through now and getting a different result, that just goes to show that these things aren’t always accurate,” she says of AI detectors.

Officials from Copyleaks did not respond to requests for comment. Stevens declined to share the full text of her paper, explaining that she did not want it to wind up out on the internet where other students could copy it and possibly land her in more trouble with her university. “I’m already on academic probation,” she says.

Stevens says she has heard from students across the country who say they have also been falsely accused of cheating due to AI-detection software.

“A student said she wanted to be a doctor but she got accused, and then none of the schools would take her because of her misconduct charge,” says Stevens.

Stevens says she has been surprised by the amount of support she has received from people who watch her videos. Her followers on social media encouraged her to set up a GoFundMe campaign , which she did to cover the loss of her scholarship and to pay for a lawyer to potentially take legal action against the university. So far she has raised more than $6,100 from more than 90 people.

She was also surprised to be contacted by officials from Grammarly, who gave $4,000 to her GoFundMe and hired her as a student ambassador. As a result, Stevens now plans to make three promotional videos for Grammarly, for which she will be paid a small fee for each.

“At this point we’re trying to work together to get colleges to rethink their AI policies,” says Stevens.

For Grammarly, it seems clear that the goal is to change the narrative from that first video by Stevens, in which she said, “If you have a paper, essay, discussion post, anything that is getting submitted to TurnItIn, uninstall Grammarly right now.”

Grammarly’s head of education, Jenny Maxwell, says that she hopes to spread the message about how inaccurate AI detectors are.

“A lot of institutions at the faculty level are unaware of how often these AI-detection services are wrong,” she says. “We want to make sure that institutions are aware of just how dangerous having these AI detectors as the single source of truth can be.”

Such flaws have been well documented , and several researchers have said professors shouldn’t use the tools. Even Turnitin has publicly stated that its AI-detection tool is not always reliable .

Annie Chechitelli, Turnitin’s chief product officer, says that its AI detection tools have about a 1 percent false positive rate according to the company’s tests, and that it is working to get that as low as possible.

“We probably let about 15 percent [of bot-written text] go by unflagged,” she says. “We would rather turn down our accuracy than increase our false-positive rate.”

Chechitelli stresses that educators should use Turnitin’s detection system as a starting point for a conversation with a student, not as a final ruling on the academic integrity of the student’s work. And she says that has been the company’s advice for its plagiarism-detection system as well.

“We very much had to train the teachers that this is not proof that the student cheated,” she says. “We’ve always said the teacher needs to make a decision.”

AI puts educators in a more challenging position for that conversation, though, Chechitelli acknowledges. In cases where Turnitin’s tool detects plagiarism, the system points to source material that the student may have copied. In the case of AI detection, there’s no clear source material to look to, since tools like ChatGPT spit out different answers every time a user enters a prompt, making it much harder to prove that a bot is the source.

The Turnitin official says that in the company’s internal tests, traditional grammar-checking tools do not set off its alarms.

Maxwell, of Grammarly, points out that even if an AI-detection system is right 98 percent of the time, that means it falsely flags, say, 2 percent of papers. And since a single university may have 50,000 student papers turned in each year, that means if all the professors used an AI detection system, 1,000 papers would be falsely called cases of cheating.

Does Maxwell worry that colleges might discourage the use of her product? After all, the University of North Georgia recently removed Grammarly from a list of recommended resources after the TikTok videos by Stevens went viral, though they later added it back.

“We met with the University of North Georgia and they said this has nothing to do with Grammarly,” says Maxwell. “We are delighted by how many more professors and students are leaning the opposite way — saying, ‘This is the new world of work and we need to figure out the appropriate use of these tools.’ You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

For Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California San Diego and a national expert on cheating, the most important issue in this student’s case is not about the technology. She says the bigger question is about whether colleges have effective systems for handling academic misconduct charges.

“I would be highly doubtful that a student would be accused of cheating just from a grammar and spelling checker,” she says, “but if that’s true, the AI chatbots are not the problem, the policy and process is the problem.”

“If a faculty member can use a tool, accuse a student and give them a zero and it’s done, that’s a problem,” she says. “That’s not a tool problem.”

She says that conceptually, AI tools aren’t any different than other ways students have cheated for years, such as hiring other students to write their papers for them .

“It’s strange to me when colleges are generating a whole separate policy for AI use,” she says. “All we did in our policy is adding the word ‘machine,’” she adds, noting that now the academic integrity policy explicitly forbids using a machine to do work that is meant to be done by the student.

She suggests that students should make sure to keep records of how they use any tools that assist them, even if a professor does allow the use of AI on the assignment. “They should make sure they’re keeping their chat history” in ChatGPT, she says, “so a conversation can be had about their process” if any questions are raised later.

A Fast-Changing Landscape

While grammar and spelling checkers have been around for years, many of them are now adding new AI features that complicate things for professors trying to understand whether students did the thinking behind the work they turn in.

For instance, Grammarly now has new options, most of them in a paid version that Stevens didn’t subscribe to, that use generative AI to do things like “help brainstorm topics for an assignment” or to “build a research plan,” as a recent press release from the company put it.

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