Interview With Grammarly Head of Online Marketing Yuriy Timen

1.      How are people using Grammarly? Grammarly is the most advanced automated grammar checker out there. It is a web application that is currently used by four plus million people around the world. Students use it to write stronger essays, theses, and college applications. Teachers are using Grammarly as a 24x7 supplement for grading students’ work. Professionals use it to get instant feedback on the accuracy, impact and credibility of their English writing in a variety of disciplines – including legal, healthcare, marketing, technical and journalism. Grammarly has also been an equally powerful tool for job seekers who can use it to perfect cover letters and other related communication with potential employers. Non-native English speakers use Grammarly across a variety of these use cases as well as their everyday written communication like emailing.

2.      Is our use of grammar getting worse as a society? I think the use of correct grammar has been on the decline because of how connected the internet has made us. We communicate more information with more people in less time. As a result, our grammar is being sacrificed when texting, emailing, and sending a Facebook message. There are also more English speakers in the world than ever before with nearly two billion people. As more and more people are learning English, the difficulty is collectively mastering it. The key to solving this will be bringing proper grammar to people in an instant and informative way.

3.      Why was the site created? Grammarly was started in 2008 by our founders, Alex Shevchenko and Max Lytvyn, both English language learners with the mission to improve lives by improving communication. We want Grammarly to be an easy way for students, professionals, job seekers and English language learners to become better, more accurate English language writers and help them learn and understand the rules of grammar. Well-written English is critical to learning and achieving better grades, attaining a job or better position in one’s profession, and can help non-native English language learners reach their goals.

4.      You conducted a recent study about how one's writing skills impact his or her career opportunities. What did you find out? We recently reviewed 448 freelance professionals' profiles in eight categories on Elance, an online staffing platform, and summed up the results in an infographic. Our goal was to determine whether accurate, or inaccurate, writing in a freelancer's personal profile is related to that person's credibility, hireability, or pay. We found that the best-reviewed freelancers across all categories are those with the least writing errors per 100 words. Also, overall better writers tend to earn more money per job particularly in the fields of engineering & manufacturing, finance & management, legal, and sales & marketing. It is important to remember correct grammar pays off!

5.      Any expansion plans for 2015? We have some exciting plans for 2015 that include bringing Grammarly everywhere you write and perfecting our algorithms. Our goal is to use machine learning and deep Natural Language Processing expertise to create the most accurate automated proofreader that’s available 24x7.

6.      What could be done to improve the area of employing good grammar? A lot of people use tools like Grammarly to grammar check their work. Whenever you have individual questions, there are helpful blogs and resources like Grammar Girl. Besides that, good grammar is like playing a musical instrument. You have to keep practicing to remain proficient. English is my second language and, besides using these tools, I have found that reading and keeping a journal daily has drastically improved my grammar.

7.      If English is too hard to learn, should we just switch to Spanish? English, Spanish, French; languages all have their learning curves. Grammarly is focusing on the most widely used and impactful language: English. I’m very proud to be a part of Grammarly’s efforts to provide an easy way for students, professionals, job seekers and English language learners to become more effective written communicators.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014