What is Reddit's opinion of Slick Write?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Just as an FYI, if anyone needs a free, online grammar checker that checks at the highest level, https://www.slickwrite.com/#!home is great.

It does more than Grammarly's paid version and is on par with Word's grammar check with a PC and it's better than Word's grammar check on a Mac.

Slickwrite specifically tests for sentence type & length, even graphs the variety in your submissions.

For those interested in sentence length/type and their impact on your writing, here is an essay by Jauss on the subject in more detail

Run the piece through Slick Write and you can see what he's talking about.

As an example, of the first 1000 words there are 41 sentences, 17 of which are compound-complex. While paragraphs average 2 1/2 sentences, those sentences average 26 words.

Based on word frequency & rarity overall, the average grade comprehension level is 15, or college junior. Works written for wide-stream audience do best in 7th-8th grade capacity (which is most of us, tbh).

Probably more telling from a purely statistical analysis is the sentence deviation to length ratio, which is a rough score of variety in sentence & word type and length. The closer this number is to 1, the more ideal your composition. This piece scores a .54, which is like saying a D paper passes.

Honestly at this point a 3rd party app that scans written works and searches against similarities through databases (we'll assume the more sensible cheaters are clever enough to substitute the odd word or so, or scramble a complex sentence into two simples even while keeping the bulk of a purloined submission), and just spits out "plague-quotients".

/u/craigerator has an app that is already a program that parses text for analysis, that might be retrofitted to an anti-plagiarism bot.

Think newsletters or publications would be interested, or is Hedges going to be held aghast as "the only guy who plagiarizes in the industry, ergo we must villify him for his amoral transgression"?

URL: https://www.slickwrite.com

Purpose: A web site that helps people improve their writing skills.

Technologies Used: HTML/CSS/JS/PHP

Feedback Requested: Design, usability, functionality, and anything else you'd like to comment on.

Comments: I'm mostly clueless about design, so any suggestions you can give will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I use mostly open source software. May not be everyone's cup of tea, so my only "serious" recommendation is good ol' Google Docs with the "Writer's highlights" add-on. It has good formatting tools and a word count, and that's all I really use.

Now for other recommendations:

• Evernote (paid) and Joplin (open source) are note taking apps. I use the latter to write fragments or lore pieces and it instantly syncs across all devices. Joplin is a bit harder to configure, but totally worth it. If you feel like paying the Evernote subscription, it's a great tool.

• SlickWrite and Hemingwayapp are useful websites. You paste your text and it gives you suggestions that go far beyond mere grammar checks: Use of clichés, adverbs, uncommon words, overly complicated sentences, sentence flow, etc. Both are free to use. Hemingway has a paid app.

• I used a similar tool to Wikidpad called "Zim" with largely the same functionality. My work style didn't really required it that much, but is also worth checking.

• I used this tool called "Manuskript" for a time. It's an open source alternative to Scrivener. I can't really recommend it because it's still in development and tends to crash. Luckily, it autosaves every few seconds so nothing is lost whenever it crashes.

I think that's all I can think of. I've been testing lots of programs and websites over the years, but these are the ones I have used for a reasonable amount of time and the ones I can recommend as a result.

If you're just looking for a breakdown of the words and phrases you're using, you can check out Slick Write. It's a free web-based application that will analyze your writing, and tell how you how many times you're using given words, or entire phrases, among other things.

/u/craigterator built Slickwrite for this, has features that aren't in other writing editors, also detects and measures flow in writing which you won't find anywhere, based on this lovely article by Jauss.

It covers writing statistics like phrase counts and word variety, and includes a bundle of customizable critique options as well. Oh, and it just got a nice UI polish and is free, so there's that.

I what else is there than the novel? You never hear someone say I've been working on a short story for 5-6 months, or a poem or haiku. The novel is the house, the short story is the birdhouse.

II best of luck

III Getting, next week. Always been, just now getting the state's cut to say so.

IV https://www.slickwrite.com the worlds best free writing service.

>So what does SmartEdit for Word do? It’s simple – the program runs 20 checks on your work and automatically detects areas that may need improvement. Stuff like repetitious phrases and words, overuse of adverbs, frequently mis-used or misspelled words, and sentence structure.

Everything Smartedit does, Slickwrite does for free.

Hi. I've been running Slick Write, a site that helps people quickly proofread their writing, for a little over two years now. It has a small, loyal following, and received favorable (unsolicited) reviews from some reputable blogs. We're certain that the market exists, but this site never took off. What is wrong with it?

Agreed.

And maybe one of those no-cost online grammar/spelling/usage checkers might help. The one I use is https://www.slickwrite.com/ - which lets me copy and paste text I'm working on into its 'edit' page - and gives me information I can either use or ignore.

On the other hand, maybe that wouldn't be useful.

Either way - best wishes.

Thanks so much! and yay! Writing dialogue is one of my favorite things so this pleases me, haha. Have you tried Slick Write? They have a ton of analytics and the best one, for me, is the Structure tab. It will show you a visual analysis of your paragraph structure, like this (from the first page or two of _the Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie.) It has other analytics, too, but I find them less useful.

Flow is the musicality of writing. The best trick is varying sentence length & type. People spout Hemingway as though he only wrote simple, short sentences but that is an insult to his poetry. He had as much variety as any classic author, but he counted on short, plain words to carry meaning, and composed them like notes or beats in song.

redditor /u/craigerator built a tool years back called Slickwrite that measures sentence length & variety, that would be a good start.

My first post ever, after years of lurking, was for a free site I made to help people write better. I really believed it would help people, but it received lots of downvotes and negative comments. Only one guy liked it. Nearly six years later, still operates, though it has a new name, a new design, and a lot more users. Reviews are generally positive these days. Here is a link for anyone who is curious what happens if you don't give up.

If it's a non-standard word, you will feel the building shake if you exceed 3 times. Exceptions for poetry, natch.

Proper nouns & names are an exception, as are the invisible words of the language. Do not succumb to Burly Detective Syndrome (just google it).

If you don't know what words are common/uncommon, Slickwrite can tell them apart in any submissions under Statistics/Words

Throw your MS through here. See the sentence type & length breakdown under flow, and in Stats pay attention to Passive voice, Prepositional Phrase and Automated Readability Index, and if the Sentence deviation to length is high enough.

Take a look at phrase & word counts and see if you're reaching too often for the same tools.

Under settings you can customize a grammatical & phrase sweep of your work.

It's free and unlimited, best of luck with your writing. Keep reading & writing.

Those are sentence counts, but not necessarily phrase counts (two sentences could be unique except for a cliche statement, or dialogue different except for a repeated phrase).

Slickwrite counts repeating word patterns up to 12 words, fwiw.

edit: Blatt's original article

Thanks for the leads! Also check out Slickwrite.com. Click 'enter text,' paste your copy, click proofread. Then choose from the tabs at the top for feedback- Critique, Flow, Stats, etc.

It might take a minute to get the hang of the features but it's been helpful to see word frequency, sentence flow, and the like.