Like this, but it's an AI doing the fact-checking.
Lum3n.com from PexelsGoogle Docs latest update should have everyone excited. Should, but won't because everyone thinks that their grammar is impeccable and doesn't need to be checked.
But Wait, Doesn't Docs Already Check Grammar?
Spelling and grammar check have been a part of Google Docs for seven years now. But while spelling is a fairly straightforward task (check word, see if it's misspelled, offer the correct spelling), checking grammar is a more nuanced task. Think about all the grammar flags in your documents that you ignore or dismiss.
With the latest upgrade, Google is now using machine translation techniques to catch tricky errors and make logical contextual suggestions.
No One Knows How to Use Prepositions Properly
Starting with G Suite customers, you'll start to see inline grammar suggestions denoted by a squiggly blue line as you type. Just like with inline spelling suggestions, a right-click will bring up the suggested change and you'll be able to accept, reject, or ignore it.
Google says their newly upgraded grammar checker will not only catch simple mistakes (like "affect" vs. "effect") but more complex, nuanced issues like verb tense disagreement or improper preposition use.
Grammar is subjective and not every rule works all the time. There are regional styles to take into account, language variations, regional rules and more. That's why Google has worked with linguists to develop the rules for the machine translation. More than just a rote "check the Chicago Manual" type lookup, Google's new grammar checker will strive to apply the rules as they fit with your actual content.
Too Late for Grammarly?
The obvious impetus for this latest change is recent Grammarly changes. Once Grammarly made their Chrome extension work with Google Docs back in October, their subscribers enjoyed a much deeper, more agile grammar checker than the tools built into Docs.
With this update, it seems that Google will offer at least the same level of grammar checking that Grammarly does. The bonus is that it will work natively, without a plug-in or extension, meaning that no matter how you're accessing Docs, you'll still see the benefit of grammar checking. However, there's no mention in the blog post about being able to adjust the level of grammar check, like you can with Grammarly. A blog post and a term paper are going to use slightly different sets of grammar rules, after all.
I'll be checking Grammarly and Google Docs grammar checkers side-by-side in the coming days to see how they fare against each other.
