Lately, I have been developing automatic essay evaluations for IELTS and now for college-level academic writing. I sent an email to my department to share my progress, and a colleague wrote back to share his concerns about my new automatically self-scoring film analysis essay writing assignment. I had shared a sample essay of a film
Read on »Features
Check out the New Features on the Virtual Writing Tutor
Hooray! The BRAND NEW version of the (now) award-winning Virtual Writing Tutor is finally here. It has taken almost a year to add new features and update the code, but it is finally ready. It is a whole lot faster, and there are some very cool new features, too. So, what’s new? Self-scoring IELTS Academic
Read on »Feedback and Links Page
Check your feedback and links on the feedback page. Start by clicking on the feedback link on the navigation menu at the top right, under the share icons. Feedback Tab This tab shows the latest text you submitted to the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker. Each text is dated. The Virtual Writing Tutor keeps your
Read on »Translate Grammar Checker Feedback to one of 70 Languages
When you create a member’s account on the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker website, you can get feedback translated to your native language with the click of a button. We use Google’s translation API to translate feedback to any one of the 70 languages currently available. Membership is 100% free, and we don’t send spam.
Read on »Your Friendly Robotic Grammar Checker
We are in the process of updating the Virtual Writing Tutor.com, so now is our opportunity to make the VWT faster, more powerful, and a little friendlier. In order to make the VWT a little friendlier, I have been working with a designer to create a friendly little robot to accompany the feedback you receive
Read on »Essay Checker
Imagine a website that could help students write better essays with automated feedback. Now imagine the same website but with additional commenting tools to help people record audio comments and rate each other’s essays using IELTS and TOEFL rubrics and comments. There you have it: an essay checker for the Virtual Writing Tutor. That’s what
Read on »Silent Letters: Pronunciation Made Easy
English is semi-phonetic, which means that the way a word is spelled can give clues to its pronunciation but can also be quite misleading. Often, the pronunciation of a word can be very different to what you might predict based on its spelling. One way English is semi-phonetic is the use of silent letters. Silent
Read on »Walk-me-through the Main Features
You may have noticed the latest addition to the Virtual Writing Tutor grammar checker main page. It’s a short little walkthrough of the principal features of the grammar checker for newcomers. You only get to see it twice before it disappears forever. Why did we add it? The Problem One usability issue I see again
Read on »Easy Essay Outliner
Just fill out a form to create your outline. What could be easier? Are Essay Outlines Difficult for You? Not any more. We have broken down essay outlining into a series of easy steps. All you have to do is answer a few questions, make a few choices, and the Virtual Writing Tutor builds your
Read on »How to Create a Pen Pal Exchange on the Virtual Writing Tutor
Click here to start a Pen Pal Exchange Click here to read about the features on the Pen Pal Exchange Step 1: Click on “Templates.” Click “New” to create a template from scratch. Give your template a descriptive name. Pen pals will see the name on their dashboards. If you want to try a ready-made
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