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Writefull for Chrome — Writing with confidence
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Hi guys, I am the co-founder of Writefull. We are releasing Writefull for Chrome on Product Hunt today. This version has all the functionalities as in the desktop version, and also comes with a new UI. I'd like to know what you guys think. Hit me if you have any questions.
Looks awesome & useful! My only concern would be a side-effect of leading people to plagiarize, not sure how big of a concern that is though.
@nelson_keating Thanks, we see your point. But many people are already using Google to check their writing, Writefull just makes this technique more accessible. The checking of short chunks also shouldn't lead to plagiarism, because frequent chunks appear throughout all texts (these are patterns of language usage). The example sentences that Writefull gives do show longer pieces of texts. We expect that users know where to draw the line between using these texts as examples and directly copying them into their own work. We have also heard from users that they use Writefull to avoid plagiarism with the word/synonym in context features (for example, when wanting to use a sentence from a paper like 'this is compelling evidence for blah blah' they could query 'this is *compelling* evidence for blah blah' to rephrase it.
Congrats on the launch!
First time coming across Writeful. Can you elaborate a little more on the profit model? Also, love that you have apps for all major OSs. What drove that decision? And how do you avoid getting distracted developing across four (with Chrome) products?
Hey @eytanbuchman, thanks for your interest in Writefull. Regarding our profit model, we’re seeking to have an app that fits the needs of our users. While the current features will always be free, we might tempt you with some new pro features soon.
Writefull was initially available for macOS only. We received a great deal of messages asking for a port for Windows and Linux. Writefull for Chrome is a logical next step to further reduce the friction of having to download and install an app. All four versions share the same codebase, so it’s easy for us to propagate any updates / fixes.
I hope this addresses your questions :)
Pretty interesting! Generally, I google sentences for reference...
What if we integrate this specially for platforms like Medium, etc.? Just a thought!
Upvoted! ☝
Looks interesting. I'll try it out. I use Grammarly and Hemgingway. How does this compare to those?
Hey @coachdja, I think Grammarly checks your text for grammatical errors based on a set of grammar rules, and Hemingway checks your text against certain norms to improve readability. Instead of using a fixed number of rules or norms, Writefull uses databases of language to extract patterns that show how certain words or phrases are generally used (or not used). This means it can show when wording is 'off'. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
Grammarly, by the way, doesn't work as a Chrome extension. It's a complete hog and slows down anything I have open in my browser.
For, 'To get words in context', which datapoints are you using? Google Books and Google Scholars? Or something else too?
I'm asking because I'm ascertaining if this is good for writing research papers or writing general articles too.
Hey @saifalfalah, actually Writefull was conceived for helping in writing research papers, and we then extended it to support narrative and informal writing by adding News and Web. You can use Words in Context on Books, Scholar, News and Web, and you'll get different results. Give it a go, and tell me what you think.
hmmm... I'm getting errors after installation on OSX. I can send you a screenshot if you let me know where to send it to?
Really useful app, thanks for that! Would be awesome if you could implement the german book corpus by google in the next update as I really would like to use the difine, synonym and contex feature.
@jonas_petermann, thanks! We have planned to add German for Google Books, but I don't think this will be in the next version. Appreciate your feedback though!
@_jpcastrog_ Okey superb, looking forward to it. Plus I really love that writefull automatically insert your last clipboard when you launch it with the shortcut 👌🏼
Awesome guys! Will definitely use this! I would love to see a safari extension. Great job.
I loved this Idea. I used to use the google to do it but, this app is amazing! Thank you
Braavo