Parents' Guide to Hemingway Editor

The site is designed to help improve writing, but if you're not aware of grammar or editing processes, you may walk away slightly confused. Hemingway Editor is easy to use: You can cut and paste your writing into the editor or write on the space provided on the site. The Editing mode color-codes aspects of a submission that need editing. It's helpful for young writers (especially teens) because it provides document information, such as how many paragraphs are included, along with the sentence, word, character, and letter counts. It even states how long it takes to read the piece of writing.

Hemingway Editor also gives a sense of readability, rating a submission with a grade level with which it would coincide. The largest problem, which hampers the effectiveness of the site, is that the editor only tells writers what to change, not why to change it. It's important that young writers not only edit and revise their writing but also know why they're changing things. Students who aren't well-versed in grammar rules may find themselves more confused about the edits provided than enlightened by them. As a result, Hemingway Editor is a decent tool to check how strong a completed written piece may be, but its lack of explanation keeps it from being the best site for budding writers.