Professionals deal with unique challenges and require specific skills depending on their industry, niche, and position. But communication is one critical skill that every professional must excel in if they hope to advance their career.
Communicating ideas and information clearly, concisely, and confidently can make you a valued team member and a sought-after job candidate. And any organization you work for will benefit from your mistake-free proofreading and writing skills.
Today, there are many different types of tools to help you improve your communication skills and interact competently with leaders, coworkers, and clients. We want to look at two of the best products on the market today: Grammarly and Poised.
Below, we’ll explain each software and show you how they differ:
What Is Grammarly?
Grammarly is a writing assistant created in 2009 in San Francisco. Since its founding, the artificial intelligence (AI) system has undergone several upgrades and received consistent improvements. Renowned engineers and linguists got together to develop algorithms for detecting patterns of well-executed writing, and Grammarly was the result.
Essentially, Grammarly uses AI to review every word, phrase, and sentence for errors and searches for ideal replacements.
It operates on the cloud and is available as stand-alone web and desktop versions, but it also comes as a plug-in for the most popular programs and platforms (e.g., Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Gmail, LinkedIn, etc.).
Grammarly in a Nutshell
This sophisticated writing assistant grades your document on the issues and errors found, then guides you through one potential grammatical problem at a time. You can choose between editing your document around the short explanations of grammatical errors or diving deeper into the longer explanations to achieve optimal results.
The longer explanations provide examples of correct grammar within the sentence or paragraph context. Grammarly will even recommend specific wording modifications. However, it won’t make any changes without you approving them. Grammarly is impressively accurate, but it's not perfect. You can simply ignore any potential issues you don't agree with.
Grammarly will highlight nearly every misspelled word and suggest several alternate spellings. It will also check your document for plagiarism to rule out the possibility of publishing content containing similar text. It will even recommend citations you can incorporate to properly credit the text.
Moreover, Grammarly checks your content for possible synonyms to help you avoid repetition and wordy phrasing. It also makes your content more unique with its vocabulary enhancement features. In the web and desktop versions of Grammarly, you can either type your document into the editing box or paste your content from your preferred word processor into the box. Then, you can start the review.
When you enable a browser extension, it will automatically check the text you’re writing on whatever platform you’re using and provide writing suggestions.
Who Is Grammarly For?
Grammarly is for anyone who writes. And we're not just talking about freelance writers, journalists, authors, and other writers. If you rely on written communication to any degree in your job, you can benefit from using the Grammarly system.
In fact, if you simply want to deliver information and ideas more concisely, clearly, and stylishly in your personal life, it's a great tool for that too!
We live in an age where short-form content and emojis are the norms. But that doesn't mean good grammar is old-fashioned or outdated. Accurate grammar is the cornerstone of written communication meant to inform or persuade. Whether you’re writing a book, a blog, or a tweet, your message needs to be clear. Otherwise, your audience may not grasp what you were trying to say.
Also, remember that what you write, in many ways, represents you. Your words show readers a piece of who you are, and grammatically incorrect content can reflect poorly on your communication skills. The grammar checker can definitely help you here.
Considering that it assists you each step of the way and requires very little time to use, why not use it? If you write emails, reports, text messages, articles, social media posts, or any other type of content, Grammarly is worth it.
Grammarly’s Features: A Quick Rundown
Grammarly essentially scans content and uses artificial intelligence to find errors. It then suggests potential improvements to the issues. Here are the primary tools Grammarly offers:
Spell Check
Grammarly provides arguably the most robust spell-check tool on the market. It even allows you to curate a custom dictionary of words you want the assistant to remember; that way, frequently used words are not mistaken for spelling errors or typos. If you purchase Grammarly Business, you can develop a personalized style guide.
Grammar and Punctuation
Grammarly’s bread and butter lies in detecting grammatical mistakes and providing the functionality to fix them. It offers real-time suggestions and instructions for correcting misplaced apostrophes, errant commas, and various other punctuation mistakes.
Style Suggestions
Grammarly Premium users can set a specific tone for each piece of content before starting a review. Then, the AI-powered writing assistant will recommend word choice alternatives and rewrites to fit the writing style and appeal to the target audience.
Readability
When you enable Grammarly, it will identify an ideal age group for the content and scan long sentences, paragraphs, and passages. The writing assistant will then point out any readability issues concerning character count, word count, speaking time, and reading time. Then, it will suggest rewrites to make the content clearer and more concise for the reader.
Plagiarism Monitoring
Some writers plagiarize content without knowing it. The web contains endless content, and even the most creative writers are at risk of ripping off a sentence now and then. The Grammarly developers kept that in mind when they added a plagiarism detector.
This tool will compare your document to billions of other web pages and give it a plagiarism score along with links for you to reference. Note that this writing feedback tool is a premium feature that adds on an extra cost.
Downloadable Summaries
If you work with other writers or editors, take advantage of Grammarly’s downloadable reports. These reports contain information and metrics you and your team can use to improve and polish pieces of writing.
The Drawbacks of Using Grammarly
As with any writing tool software, Grammarly is not without flaws. Perhaps the biggest drawback is that you must purchase Grammarly Premium to get all the perks.
The free version will give you the essentials to establish a firm writing foundation, including a market-leading spelling, grammar, and punctuation checker. But you'll have to pay for all the other bells and whistles.
Also, as powerful as Grammarly is, it can lag when editing large portions of text. Some writers scan smaller portions in the web or desktop version instead of running an entire article at once.
Lastly, Grammarly is the most powerful writing assistant available, and it seems to improve each year. But it doesn't always perform perfectly, and it will occasionally make suggestions that don't mesh with your style or goals.
Does Grammarly Make You a Better Communicator?
Yes, Grammarly will make you a better communicator. Even if it takes you a bit of time to get acquainted with the writing assistant and the review process, investing the extra time and energy will result in better writing.
With each piece, you’ll notice the process getting faster and faster. And your writing will gradually become more finely tuned and require less intervention.
What Is Poised?
Like Grammarly, Poised is an AI-powered communication tool. But it’s used to improve verbal communication instead of speech. Poised offers real-time suggestions for enhancing your performance in virtual meetings and presentations. With its real-time reports that you can reference to gauge your improvement through every meeting, interview, or fun chat you have.
Improving Your Online Communication
Online communication is a fundamental practice in business and professional life. Face-to-face interactions are becoming less necessary as technology advances. And while there’s still a place for physical meetings and conversations, companies across industries recognize how much they can accomplish remotely.
If you want to establish yourself as a key player in your field and significantly boost your career prospects, prioritizing online communication skills is non-negotiable. Tools like Grammarly and Poised are valuable companions.
Unique Features That Come With Poised
Poised tracks your public speaking performance as you make presentations or speak up in virtual meetings. You can see how many filler words you’re using, whether you need to speak slower or quicker, and whether you need to reposition your camera.
The software will also highlight long-term trends so that you can become more confident and impactful with each meeting.
Poised vs. Grammarly: Can You Use Both?
Absolutely, Poised and Grammarly are both excellent tools for communicating more effectively with your colleagues, clients, or anyone else. The main difference is that Poised is for speaking while Grammarly is for writing. And we know how crucial both of those skills are for your career and team!
Take Your Team’s Communication to the Next Level
You don’t have to settle for less. Try Poised and Grammarly today to up your verbal and written communication game. If you’re a leader or manager, using these tools can help your team members realize their potential, which will benefit everyone involved. Your entire organization will be better equipped to crush your goals and reach new milestones!
Sources:
6 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills I Marbella International University Centre
Grammarly Founders Become Billionaires From Fixing Your Sloppy Writing | Forbes
