When Editors Use Grammar Apps

I enjoy writing on Medium. It’s a good way to get your stories out there. There’s a whole community of people eager to read.

Sometimes, I like sending my work to different publications to reach a larger audience. The publications have editors who have the right to change your work and provide feedback.

The last article I submitted received one such feedback from one of the editors. Now I’m mature enough to take some criticism but the comments I received were simply disappointing.

For starters, the editor’s note itself was fraught with errors and it was clear that the person was not a native English speaker. But what was sad was that the editor’s idea of checking my work was running it through grammar app. The person then proceeded to tell me what the app had suggested. I’ll admit, I missed hyphenating a work. However, apart from that typo, there were no other issues. The suggestions the app made were not only inappropriate but incorrect as well. The editor also insisted that I run all my articles through this grammar app. Needless to say, I’m not submitting my work to them again.

I think it’s great that there are apps out there that can help people with their writing. But, they should be used with caution. There’s a reason it’s still called “artificial” intelligence. I think writing is an art and you can’t use an app to judge that.

I’m not writing this post to rant. I’m writing this post to express my concern about people relying on artificial intelligence to do their job. Editing requires skill and I’d love for a real editor to give me some feedback on how to improve my writing.