Top 7 Essay Checkers for College Students

Whether you are a high school or college student, regular writing tasks and projects are unavoidable. Of course, most of you are not inspired by the idea of producing tons of academic texts. However, we have some good news for you – even if your writing skills are not perfect, you can still get high marks. If you think that you must become Shakespeare and your words should burn like fire – relax. Your professors are looking for accuracy and correctness in your papers rather than writing mastery. And, of course, they demand original papers free from plagiarism.

Spelling, grammar, and originality are the three key pillars of college writing. Even small mistakes and unintentional plagiarism can spoil not only your mark but your entire academic career. Luckily, there are online essay checkers that will help you avoid these troubles. Today, we will review seven popular writing applications and talk about their features, capacities, benefits, and minuses. Roll in!

PaperRater

PaperRater is a relatively new application, which means that it is still under development. However, it already has a nice pack of features for students. It checks:

• Plagiarism
• Spelling
• Grammar

What surprised us is that a plagiarism checker comes for free. Still, it has some limitations – one can perform no more than ten checks per month. You can check papers that are no longer than 1500 words, which suits the highest school and college projects. Also, the free plan includes a spelling and grammar checker with detailed suggestions and scoring.

The paid account costs $7.95 per month, which is pretty affordable. This plan allows 25 checks per month, limited to 6000 words.

BibMe

BibMe is a checker aimed at education and academic texts. That is why it is popular among students in particular. The tool checks:

• Punctuation
• Grammar
• Writing style
• Plagiarism
• Citations

A free version of BibMe is simple and doesn't include enough tools and features, to tell the truth. The free version is limited to 20 suggestions for grammar mistakes, which means that you will miss them out if you have more of them in your paper. The plagiarism checker is absent in a free version, as well. The price for a Premium account is $9.95 per month. Students can try a three-day trial version to see if they like the app.  

BibMe has a pretty advanced paid version of a plagiarism checker. It finds more than 200 cases where citations are necessary. The drawback – this app doesn’t provide downloadable plagiarism reports, which might be an issue for a student or teacher.

Citation Machine

Citation Machine is an advanced checking tool that will help you improve:

• Originality
• Writing style
• Sentence structure
• Punctuation
• Spelling
• Grammar
• Citations

Citation Machine and BibMe are “siblings” – they belong to the same company called Chegg Service. These two are pretty much the same and include similar tools. When you enter their website, we bet that you are going to have that déjà vu feeling – BibMe and Citation Machine differ in colors only. 

The paid versions have the same plans, as well. You can enjoy 20 free checks and then get yourself a premium account for $9.99 per month. After trying both, we can conclude that they are the same and have equal accuracy (not very high).

Grammarly

Grammar is a full-packed and advanced checker for writers and students. It includes:

• Spell checker
• Punctuation checker
• Strong grammar capacities
• Plagiarism checker

All of these features are available in a free version of the application. You can use it online or download the app to use it in Microsoft Word and Chrome. The best trait of Grammarly is accuracy – the program detects rather unobvious mistakes and gives relevant suggestions on how to improve your writing. Not only will it warn you about passive voice and overused words, but it also suggests correct word order and punctuation. 

Grammarly's free version is enough for high school students, but the Premium paid account is where the app really strikes. The paid version provides more grammar tools and a deeper plagiarism check. The only drawback is the price - $11.66 per month or $139.95 per year. The price might be a bit high for an average student, but it is worth your money considering Grammarly's capacities.

WhiteSmoke

WhiteSmoke is an accurate and convenient checking application that suits both Mac and Windows. The app checks:

• Spelling
• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Sentence structure

In addition to these tools, you can install WhiteSmoke as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. All of these features and capacities are included in a free version of the application. However, if you want more, you can buy a Premium account. The price for Premium service varies because there are different packages included. The lowest rate is $6.95 per month, while the highest price reaches $18. The basic pack of tools and features includes customer support and application for a PC (Windows or Mac).

QueText

QueText is known as one of the best plagiarism checkers online. It can boast of an advanced search and strong security measures that ensure your confidentiality and keep your texts safe. It is perfect for students who want to make sure that their essays are free from plagiarism. The app compares your text to thousands of books, journals, and web pages to detect matching content. In general, the tool includes:

• Plagiarism checker
• Citation generator

QueText allows students, writers, and educators to perform an advanced plagiarism check. Also, if you are sick and tired of bibliography and citation formatting, this app will arrange everything for you. It works smoothly – just insert the data about a source and press the "Generate" button.

The essential features of QueText are free, but there is a paid version that includes add-ons and premium services. It costs about $9 per month, considering the features you would like to use. They include PDF plagiarism reports, an unlimited number of words, file uploads, customer support, and more. 

Plagly

Plagly is a plagiarism checker. There are no grammar or spelling services here, but the checker is free. If you are not sure that an accurate online plagiarism checker can be free, we understand your worries. We didn't believe this, too. And we were right.

The problem with Plagly is that you won’t get anything for free here. The tool will check your paper for originality, but it won’t provide any results or reports until you pay. However, this is not all.

We were curious about Plagly and decided to pay $9.99 to get a paid plan. So we pasted the text into the window and… silence fall. We waited for 20 minutes, but the checker was still trying to complete the task. We tried reloading it a couple of times, but no results were received. 

Our verdict: Plagly is the worst checker that offers nothing.

How to choose the best essay checker?

As you have already understood from our review, online checking tools vary dramatically. To find the best one, you need to identify your needs first. Being a student, you need to identify which areas of your project need polishing. Are you sure that your citations are well-formatted? Is English your second language? Pick the tool that covers the areas you are worried about.

If you are a teacher, then consider the number of assignments you need to check. You should find the most optimal checker that works fast and provides accurate results.

If you would like to hear some recommendations, then we would say that Grammarly is our favorite app. We recommend its paid version to educators, while students can benefit from a free one. If you are a student with a limited budget, you can still enjoy various free features or wait until the final week comes. Not to spend too much of your cash, you may use a free version of Grammarly combined with PaperRater’s plagiarism checker. Just remember that free versions of apps might miss some of your mistakes. Make smart choices, and happy writing to you!