Writefull for Word - User Guide

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Welcome to the Writefull for Word User Guide! We're here to answer your questions. If you can't find what you're looking for, or if you have a question or complaint, please send our support team a message at support@writefull.com!

Welcome First steps Using Writefull Proofread vs Full Edit Checking your Document or Paragraph Revising with Track Changes Using the Sentence Palette Using the Language Search Find example sentences Find synonyms in context Find words in context Compare words in context Compare phrases Title Generator Paraphraser Upgrading to Premium Can’t See Writefull within Word after Installation?Contacting us

Welcome

Thank you for installing Writefull for Word.

Writefull for Word provides real-time language feedback on the text you write in your Word document, with different levels of editing depending on your needs. In 'Proofread' mode, Writefull checks for correctness of grammar, word use, style, and more. In 'Full Edit' mode, Writefull additionally checks your phrasing and word order, for enhanced readability of your text. Beyond language suggestions for your text, Writefull has four clever widgets to help you write: ⇒ Sentence Palette: a browsable list of very common academic phrases across the various sections of research papers, to paste directly into your own text. ⇒ Language Search: a database with authentic language of scientific texts, to see how words and phrases should be used in context. ⇒ Title Generator: a widget that automatically generates titles for your texts, based on your abstracts. ⇒ Paraphraser: a widget that produces rephrasings of your sentences, at three paraphrasing levels (depending on your editing needs).

Writefull has been developed especially for researchers, and its feedback is tailored to academic writing. For more information, see https://writefull.com/.

First steps

Once you have installed the Writefull for Word add-in, the Writefull icon will appear on the right-hand side of the toolbar. Simply click the icon to open the Writefull menu, and click Sign in.

If you do not have an account, click ‘I don’t have an account yet’. This will take you to our sign-up page.

In this screen, enter a valid email address (your institutional email address if Writefull is provided to you by your institution) and a password, and click the Agree and Sign up button.

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An activation email will be sent to the email address you provide. You must activate your account before logging in.

For any subsequent login, just enter your details and click Sign in. If you forgot your password and need to reset it, click I forgot my password under the Sign in button.

Using Writefull

Once logged in, you can access all the features that Writefull for Word offers: Check Document, Check Paragraph, Sentence Palette, Language Search, Title Generator, and Paraphraser. You will be able to select the level of language editing required for your text: Proofreador Full Edit. This will affect the types of suggestions offered for your document or paragraph. Writefull for Word in its Windows version also has a Revise with Track Changes functionality.

Proofread vs Full Edit

Switch between Proofread and Full Edit mode to change the level of language editing required for your text.

In Proofread mode, Writefull offers suggestions at a local level. For example, it may suggest inserting an article or using a different word. It also shows the probabilities of each suggestions being correct. Below is an example of a suggestion card showing a target word in a sentence executing and its probability (4%).

Above this, you see the most likely option (executed) and its probability (96%). These probabilities reflect the confidence level of Writefull's language models that these options are correct. Click it to replace your target word, or ignore to keep your text as is.

In Full Edit mode, the mode activated by default, Writefull offers rewrites of your entire sentence to improve readability. On top of local suggestions like grammar or spelling, it will suggest changes in word order and phrasing. Below is an example of a suggestion card showing the original phrasing of a sentence (in black) and the rephrasing suggested by Writefull (in yellow).

You can accept or dismiss each suggestion as relevant, and those you accept will be instantly incorporated into your text. The remaining, accepted, and dismissed suggestions for your paragraph/document are shown at the top. You can undo any change or decision you have made by retrieving your accepted or dismissed suggestion.

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In some rare cases, Writefull may make mistakes in Proofread mode. For example, it may try to fix one sentence in two ways, and thereby create a new error. In the phrase the paper suggest, for instance, Writefull might suggest to change paper into papers, and suggest into suggests. While accepting one of these two suggestions corrects the phrase, accepting both (the papers suggests) is incorrect. So always check Writefull’s suggestions well.

Checking your Document or Paragraph

You can choose to see Writefull’s language suggestions for your entire text by clicking Check Document, or for the paragraph that you are in by clicking Check Paragraph. The language suggestions for your entire document/paragraph will then appear in the right-hand side panel, and you can go through them by scrolling down.

Revising with Track Changes

The Writefull for Word add-in for Windows also offers the feature Revise with Track Changes. This shows you Writefull’s language suggestions within the text itself. You can accept or reject these Track Changes as you would normally do within Word - by right-clicking them or by using the Review menu option within Word (at the top of the screen). To see the confidence with which Writefull gives its suggestions, choose the option Check Document or Check Paragraph instead.

Using the Sentence Palette

The Sentence Palette is a collection of example phrases that are very commonly used in academic writing. Simply click Sentence Palette in the menu and browse example phrases to convey a particular meaning within a specific section of a scientific paper (e.g. to introduce the aim of your study in your introduction), as shown below.

Hover over the sentence(s) that you like and click to incorporate them directly into your text. Before doing this, always make sure that your cursor is at the relevant place in your Word document, so that the sentence is incorporated at the right place.

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One of the sections in the Sentence Palette lists 'connectors'. Connectors are example words and phrases that you can use to frame the narrative of your paper, for example, when introducing a new line of argument, expressing a cause-and-effect relationship, or concluding a section.

Using the Language Search

By searching a very large database of scientific papers, the Language Search shows you how certain words and phrases are typically used in academic writing, and in what contexts. You can click on Language Search and type your chunk of text at the top (in Search academic texts...). Press Enter to see the search results.

You can do a range of different searches, as listed under Examples, and as follows:

Find example sentences

This search shows you how a particular chunk of text is used in scientific texts, and how often. Simply enter your text and find example sentences containing it, retrieved from Writefull’s database of scientific papers. You can browse through the sentences, and click each one to get expanded context. The chunk itself is in bold and highlighted in yellow. The example text below, affected by the changes, has been found 351 times in the database.

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To see expanded context for each example sentence, simply click it.

Find synonyms in context

This search shows you words that can be used instead of others in a given context, without changing the meaning of the sentence. This is very useful when you want to add variety to your vocabulary, to avoid using the same words too many times in your text.

Simply enter your chunk of text, with asterisks around the word(s) that you want to replace with a synonym. In the example below, Writefull shows you that synonyms of the verb affect in the phrase to affect changes are control, modify, determine, guide, alter, etc.

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Note that the list of synonyms appears in order of preference (from top to bottom) by Writefull, as also shown by the percentages on the right. The higher the percentage, the more confident Writefull is that the suggestion is the right synonym for your text. You should review these suggestions carefully - you may like the second or third suggestion better than the first in the context of your document!

Find words in context

This search shows you words that are commonly used instead of others in a given context, and how often. Unlike synonyms in context, those may not be synonyms - which means that using them as replacements may change the meaning of your sentence. This is a useful search to do when you have a chunk of text in mind, but don’t know what words would fit naturally within it.

To do this search, simply enter your text including an underscore in place of the word for which you want to get suggestions. In the example below, Writefull tells me that affected is most commonly used before the phrase by the changes, followed by caused, driven, inspired, influenced, etc

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Some of these words have different meanings, so you should make sure that you choose a suggestion that conveys the right meaning for your sentence. It won’t always be the first!

Compare words in context

This search shows you how two different words are used in a given sentence, and how often. This is useful when you are not sure which of two words you have in mind fits better in a particular context. Some word pairs can be very confusing because they have the same meaning but different grammatical patterns (e.g. quantity/amount), or look and sound very similar (e.g. affect/effect).

To do this search, simply enter your text including the two alternative words separated by a slash. In the example below, Writefull tells me that affected is much more commonly used than effected when followed by by the changes in the database. The 100% confidence percentage for affected shows very clearly which one of the two I should use in my sentence.

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To see expanded context for each example sentence, simply click it.

Compare phrases

This search shows you how two different phrases are used in a given sentence, and how often. Similar to words in context, it is useful when you are not sure which of two phrases fits better in a given context (for example, if they look and sound similar).

To do this search, simply enter the two alternative phrases separated by vs. In the example below, Writefull tells me that in conclusion is much more commonly used than to conclude in the database of scientific papers, so it is probably the better option at the beginning of a sentence.

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To see expanded context for each example sentence, simply click it.

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Beware plagiarism when using the Language Search. You should avoid copying whole sentences from our database of academic texts into your own.

Title Generator

The Title Generator enables you to auto-create titles based on your abstract. Simply paste your abstract into the text box and click (RE)GENERATE TITLE. Repeat as often as you wish, and directly copy and paste your favourite title into your text.

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Make sure that your abstract is between 150 to 2000 characters long, and in English.

Paraphraser

The Paraphraser enables you to rephrase your sentences at three levels: low, medium, or high. The higher the level, the more rephrasing involved. Simply select a sentence in your text, click Paraphraser in the menu, and choose the level of rephrasing desired.

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Make sure you select only one sentence, which is between 40 and 200 characters long and in English.

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Objects such as footnotes, references, and special characters are converted to plain text in the paraphrasing process - so try to avoid those to keep your formatting intact.

Upgrading to Premium

For unlimited usage of Writefull, including unlimited access to language suggestions and language search results, you need to upgrade your account to Premium. You can do so either by clicking Upgrade next to your Premium Suggestions (in MacOS), or the Upgrade to Premium button in the menu (in Windows).

When clicking these, you will be redirected to Writefull’s website where you can select a pricing plan that suits your needs.

Then you will be directed to the Stripe payment portal, where you can purchase your chosen plan (using your Writefull account details).

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Users with access to Writefull via their institution do NOT need to upgrade to Premium. This is because institutional licences already include the full Premium experience.

Can’t See Writefull within Word after Installation?

If you have installed Writefull for Word, but you cannot see it within Word, please follow these steps.

Click ‘Insert’ > ‘Add-ins’ > ‘My Add-ins’

Click Writefull > ‘Add’, and Writefull will be added to Word. If you do not see Writefull here, or anywhere within Word, please send us a message at support@writefull.com

Contacting us

We are always happy to hear your feedback. If you come across a bug, are missing a feature or just want to chat, drop us a line at support@writefull.com.