We all make grammar mistakes—from simple stray commas to more glaring gaffes like “all intensive purposes” when you really mean “all intents and purposes.”

To avoid similar “eggcorns” and improve writing skills generally, University of Utah graduate and professional students may now use the premium version of Grammarly free of charge thanks to a licensing agreement by the Graduate School. Visit the Graduate School’s getting started and FAQ webpages to learn more about the software.

Graduate School Dean David Kieda said that under the direction of the Graduate School’s Thesis Office, several years ago a group of faculty members and graduate administrators conducted a study of graduate-level writing. Their conclusion? The writing could be better, and the university could do more to help.

“The general consensus was that graduate writing is on a decline, and we had to do something active to embed graduate writing teaching into all graduate curriculum,” Kieda said, noting that offering Grammarly Premium is part of that effort.

Grammarly Premium’s algorithms flag potential issues and suggest contextualized corrections for grammar, spelling, wordiness, style, punctuation and plagiarism.

“If you type something in [Microsoft] Word, it may suggest an alternative that’s not even close to what the word should be. Grammarly … will actually suggest two or three things, indicating ‘I think you mean this,’” Kieda said. “It actually understands context and … looks for larger structural issues than just little typos.”

At the end of January 2019, all active graduate and professional students (e.g., medical and law students) received account activation messages in their UMail accounts. Eligible users included grad students who defended but are still finalizing dissertations and theses—who had active status within the past three semesters but have not yet graduated.

If you believe you are eligible for Grammarly Premium but do not see an activation email in your UMail account, please speak to your department advisor or email info@gradschool.utah.edu for assistance.