Revamp Your Technical Writing with These Innovative AI Tools

AI tools have recently become more prevalent in various fields, leading to fears that they would cause job displacement. Nevertheless, many view these tools as improving their productivity and creativity within a limited timeframe. One profession that has seen significant changes due to the adoption of AI is technical writing. Many technical writers have written articles linking AI to technical writing to keep up with this trend. However, these articles function as appendices instead of helpful AI guides for technical writers. This article challenges conventional wisdom regarding writing about this topic by providing detailed explanations for utilizing over 15 AI tools to enhance your technical writing abilities.

Grammar Checkers and Paraphrasers

Irrespective of your writing qualifications, you are bound to make grammatical errors. In some situations, you may need to paraphrase sentences to choose one your audience could easily read, and you are out of steam. Whatever the case might be, these tools are handy and worth your trial.

• Grammarly: Grammarly is the most used grammar checker software in the world. It utilizes Natural Language Processing (NLP)—an AI mechanism that helps the software understand your writing—to assess your writing tone, check for errors and suggest synonyms for frequently used words in your paper. It comes as a text editor and a browser extension. As a browser extension on journal websites like ScienceDirect, Grammarly can generate a reference to any selected article on the fly. Also, as a text editor, it could detect plagiarism in your paper. Grammarly-free users enjoy most of its features, but only the premium subscribers are allowed the exquisite features such as the plagiarism detector and advanced grammatical error corrections. If you are looking for a one-in-all AI tool, Grammarly is your best bet.
• Hemingway App: Similar to Grammarly, the Hemingway App provides many grammar checker features, but it exists as a text editor alone. It offers little to no help with error corrections for its free users, but premium subscribers enjoy all its features. As a free user, you only get tips on correcting your mistakes which the app has highlighted, but as a premium user, the app does that on your behalf. If you need an additional layer of error check and you have extra money to spare, try out the Hemingway App.
• Quillbot: Quillbot was initially released as a paraphraser until recent updates allowed it to check grammar, summarise, detect plagiarism, cite, and even translate papers from its written language to English. It offers one of the best paraphrasing abilities, but its other features are not always accurate. If necessary, revert to other grammar checkers like Grammarly for errors, but always trust it for paraphrasing. Quillbot is capped at 125 words max for free users, while paid users can paraphrase without restrictions.
• AI-Paraphrasing-Tool: AI-Paraphasing-Tool does precisely as its name implies without no addition. It is a recently released paraphrasing tool that has received many positive remarks among its first set of users. Unlike Quillbot, which has a max length of 125 words for free users, AI-Paraphrasing-Tool currently has no word limit and is free. This tool is in its test stage and may encounter setbacks as its daily use rises. To help the developer, reach out here to make complaints and offer suggestions.
• Prowritingaid: Prowritingaid is Grammarly/Hemingway + Quilbot on the fly. It combines the named software features in a single text editor but offers most of its features to paid users. You may use it if you have a strong background in writing in English and you need to combine the specialities of Grammarly/Hemingway and Quillbot.
• Ginger Software: Ginger Software is a free grammar checker and paraphraser, and it opens many of its features to its free users, like Grammarly. Also, it provides a Chrome extension for its users and a text editor application for Windows, iOS, and Android users. It is a suitable alternative to Grammarly and Quillbot.
• Google Docs: As a technical writer, I assume you have used or heard about Google docs from your colleagues. Google Docs is a popular text editor used by writers of varying fields. In addition to its numerous feature, it also possesses an in-built grammar checker. However, it is inadvisable to depend on it entirely. You can back it up with the Grammarly or Ginger software extension as a two-factor grammar authenticator.

Content Generators

What could AI do better than correcting grammatical errors and restructuring sentences? More! Aside from correcting grammatical errors and restructuring sentences, some AI software applications specialize in generating content based on users' requests. Two popular AI software applications in this field are Articoolo and Wordsmith.

• CopyAI: CopyAI is a remarkable AI tool for generating copies for various platforms. These included website content, email copies, newsletters, product descriptions, social media posts, digital ad copy, and many personal tools. As a technical writer, you can utilise this tool whenever you encounter a block or generate a pitch for blogs to accept and publish your article. It has a free and paid version, and as usual, the paid version gives you access to more and better tools. You could explore this tool and give a review in the comment section.
• Articoolo: Articoolo is a content generator regarded as one of the best due to its multiple features ranging from article creation, rewriting, summary, title generation, images, quotes, and even writing helper, all provided for free. Also, it is simple to use and requires no experience in AI tools. Just enter the prompts and watch it perform its magic. Although Articoolo is still in its beta stage, many users have written excellent reviews about it, convincing enough to make you give it a trial. Currently, all you need to do is sign up and tap into its endless possibilities of content generation; however, some of its features may become restricted to free users. Nevertheless, if your trial proves this article right, who says you can't pay for it in the future?
• Wordsmith: As quoted from its website, "Wordsmith is a natural language generative platform that turns your data into insightful narratives." Its content generation spans several industries, allowing it to create content on user-requested topics about a selected field. As a technical writer, you can utilize this tool to generate starter content for your article. This starter content will give you insights into areas you need to cover and explain better in your article. It is not available for public use, and you can only access a demo on request. Look up its website and fill out the form for a demo.

Language and Tone Analyser

As a technical writer, the tone of your articles should be informative and confident. But how sure are you about your article's tone? Many seasoned writers can deduce the style of a paper by reading through it, but it takes a lot of training. As a technical writer focused on passing knowledge on the latest technology or new tricks in the tech space, you may not have the time to devote to learning these skills. With these AI tools as your companion, you can know the tone of your paper in real time and structure it to match your audience's expectations.

• IBM Watson NL Understanding: Using deep learning, the IBM Watson NL Understanding extracts paragraphs and breaks them into sentences and texts. Then it classifies and analyses each text and conviction based on linguistic—grammatical subjects, verbs, and objects—to conclude on the article's tone. It offers in-depth insight into your paper and could be advanced for beginners. It's still in development, but a demo is available to test its features. If you are comfortable with it, you can sign up for its waitlist or try the next tone and language analyzer software application.
• Textio: Textio is an AI tool for HR and talent acquisition companies. It reviews your sentences to eliminate bias and make them applicable to a broader audience. Although the available versions are made for performance and talent acquisition managers, you can utilize this tool to check for and remove discriminations in your article, as you may not want to offend your readers.
• Grammarly: Grammarly is indeed in the grammar checker category, notwithstanding it passes for a tone detector AI software. Grammarly also provides its users with a real-time tone detector feature. You can use this feature to check and align your article's language to the topic you are discussing and the audience's anticipations.

Plagiarism Detector

Using other people's work increases your article's credibility. However, it becomes a criminal offence not to cite the original owner. Technical writers write articles with a word count extending to 5000 and more, and it is possible to lose the count of the external papers you have included in your article.
These AI tools can help you detect plagiarism in your article, and you can do justice to it by citing the paper's author.

• Copyscape: Copyscape is an online AI software with multiple features for detecting plagiarism. It allows you to enter your texts in a textbox to check the originality of your content. Just as you can narrow your paper before posting it online, editors, using your article link, can prevent the essence of your content. You can also monitor your blog posts for plagiarism using Copyscape's Copysentry. Copysentry monitors the web and alerts you by sending you emails whenever someone uses texts from your blog. Finally, it provides you with banners to protect your blogs, informing potential plagiarists that your posts are saved. Only the flag is free among the listed features, as you must pay to access the other parts.
• Grammarly: As indicated in the grammar checker and paraphraser section, Grammarly has a plagiarism detector feature in its text editor. The app underlines a plagiarised sentence and links to the original content. You can use the link to check online citation generators and reference the paper accordingly. This feature is only available in the paid version.
• Quillbot: Quillbot recently got a plagiarism detector feature, which is pretty good. Like Grammarly, you must switch to the paid version to access it.

Content Optimization

Of what benefit is a well-written, informative article when it is only accessible to a small audience? Content Optimization ensures your article reaches the largest possible audience. It is an essential part of Search Engine Optimization. It involves analyzing a website's content, identifying keywords and phrases relevant to its target audience, and strategically integrating them into its content. Some AI software applications like Acrolinx and Atomicreach are better suited to identifying and providing relevant keywords for your articles.

• Acrolinx: Acrolinx uses AI to provide insightful metrics that align with your article's aim. It restructures and adjusts your content to increase its reach and visibility. You can request a demo on its website to test it.
• Article Idea Generator: A recently released AI tool that generates article topics based on your inputs. In addition, it has an SEO feature to help you convert your article topics and headlines to eye-catchy and well-optimized headlines. It is free to use and requires no sign-up.

AI Detectors

Due to the endless possibilities provided by modern AI tools such as content generation, some technical writers have become lazy to the point of copying and pasting AI-generated content rather than using it as a guide for their articles. This has increased the incidence of AI plagiarism among technical writers. Since the content is AI-generated, it becomes impossible for a plagiarism detector to detect. However, following the rise of OpenAI GPT-3, a student developed an AI software application to see GPT-3 generated content. Following that application, several other companies have developed AI plagiarism detectors.

• GPTZero: Developed by a student of Princeton University, GPTZero aims to reduce the risk of AI plagiarism in schools and public posts. It uses the complexity of texts (perplexity) and the degree of text variations (burstiness) to detect if an article is human-written or AI-generated. GPTZero can notice how AI is used in an article, even if mixed with human-written texts in a paper. For this reason, it is the most preferred tool by high schools and colleges to prevent AI plagiarism in their institutions. As a technical writer, you can use it to check your article for AI content you inadvertently used in your article and correct it.
• Zerogpt: Similar to GPTZero, this tool can detect the variations of AI texts in an article. It returns results in a meter showing that AI generates an article's part of the whole. It also highlights AI-generated texts in the article. It is free and available to everyone.
• Grover: With the release of AI content generators, inconsistencies and inaccuracies in online content have spiked. Grover allows you to post any article in its textbox or the article's website, among other details, and it tells you if it is AI-generated and accurate. It is a valuable tool in the war against fake content, growing daily.

Multipurpose AI

While some AI tools are designed specifically for a limited range of abilities, others can serve many functions without restrictions. The AI in this category can perform the task of each tool in this article with high accuracy, giving you optimum satisfaction.

• ChatGPT: OpenAI ChatGPT is the top on this list and the best so far. It has received countless positive reviews from experts across many fields. Its abilities span multiple criteria, and its latest release, GPT-4, has a higher accuracy level than. As a technical writer, ChatGPT can suggest topics to write about, draft an outline for your article, and incorporate SEO optimization for your paper, among many others. In one of my articles, I outlined 7 ways to maximise your technical writing proficiency using ChatGPT. ChatGPT has a free tier, its early-release version model, GPT-3. The paid version uses GPT-4 model, an improved and more accurate version. If you enjoy GPT-3, need more accuracy and do not mind the $20 monthly fee, you could switch to the GPT-4 model to tap into its endless possibilities.
• Bard: As a competition to OpenAI, Google announced its AI, Bard. Early access to Bard returned some negative reviews about its high inaccuracy level. However, the Google team took the comments and further improved the AI. It is currently in its experimental stage, but you can join its waitlist to gain early access to the AI once it is released.

Conclusion

The integration of AI tools in technical writing has revolutionized the process of content creation and delivery. The emergence of these cutting-edge AI tools has enabled technical writers to operate with greater efficiency, precision, and creativity. This piece has examined over 15 AI tools that can enhance the quality of your technical writing and elevate your expertise. By employing these tools effectively, technical writers can unleash new opportunities and transcend the limits of what is achievable in their craft. Therefore, these AI tools are worth exploring if you are a technical writer seeking to enhance your skills and remain ahead of the game.