3 Good Chrome Extensions to Help Students Become Better Writers

This post was last updated in January 2022

Below are three helpful Chrome extensions  to help students improve their writing skills and develop better writing habits.  Using these tools will enable students to access instant feedback on their writing progress, see suggestions for improvements on their grammar and syntax, paraphrase and restructure whole sentences and many more. 

1- Draftback

Accessing revision history is a common feature in writing softwares. However, Draftback takes this feature to the next level. For those of you using Google Docs, Draftback allows you to play back the revision history of any Google document that you own or are allowed to edit. This is a particularly practical  feature that can help you reflect on your writing style and analyze your writing habits.

2- OutWirite for Chrome

This  is a good tool to help students work on the mechanics of their writing. It can help especially with paraphrasing and proofreading. Some of its free features include a spell checker, grammar and punctuation checker, Thesaurus suggestions, and writing statistics (e.g., readability, grade level and word count). Premium features include a paraphrasing tool to help with restructuring and re-phrasing whole sentences, style and structure suggestions, and a plagiarism checker. Also, Outwrite works on different platforms including Google Docs, Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn, Word, Edge, iOS and many more.

3- Wriq

Wriq is a writing achievement tool from Texthelp. Students can use it to track their writing progress, access instant feedback on their writing, and see areas where improvement is required. Wriq's reports are detailed and insightful providing students with more independence to develop and improve their writing style without teachers input. Teachers will also find this tool helpful. Using Wriq teachers can "save time, as spelling, punctuation, grammar and vocabulary checks are done automatically; give meaningful feedback and motivation directly to your students; use data to identify patterns in writing performance; track progress and support curriculum planning", and many more.