Systematic Grammar Correction in Academic Writing

Systematic Grammar Correction in Academic Writing
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Writing grammatically correct and stylistically sound academic texts can be a constant challenge for non-native English speakers. Fortunately, with the help of GenAI, it is now possible to review and correct scientific writing quickly and effectively. GenAI can not only detect and correct linguistic errors in seconds but also offer clear explanations for each correction. This makes it a valuable tool for improving academic writing while deepening the user’s grasp of grammatical and syntactic principles. This blog post presents a simple yet effective prompt for applying systematic grammar correction to academic texts using GenAI.

To test the effectiveness of this prompt, we applied it to an academic abstract that had been intentionally filled with numerous grammatical and linguistic errors. The prompt instructed the model to correct issues related to grammar, syntax, verb tense, article usage, and overall linguistic accuracy while preserving the original vocabulary and structure. It also included a request to ensure UK English spelling throughout the text and to provide a numbered list of corrections with brief explanations.

Prompt

Academic Abstract Correction Task

Please correct all linguistic and grammatical errors in the following academic abstract written in English. Do not change the vocabulary, sentence structure, or meaning — only fix issues related to grammar, syntax, verb tense, subject-verb agreement, article use, and overall linguistic correctness.

In addition, check the entire abstract for spelling conventions and ensure it fully follows UK English usage. If any American English spelling is used, correct it to the proper UK English form (e.g., "organization" → "organisation", "analyze" → "analyse", "behavior" → "behaviour").

First, provide the corrected version of the abstract.
Then, list the corrections in numbered format. For each item, include:

  • the original incorrect phrase,
  • the corrected version,
  • and a brief explanation of the grammatical or linguistic error.

Abstract:
"The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) were a widely use self-report measure of subjective well-being, but studies of it measurement invariance across a large number of nations stays limited. Here, we utilise the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset–with datas collected between 2020 and 2022 –to assessing measurement invariance of the SWLS across 65 nations, 40 language, gender identities, and age groups (N = 56,968). All participant completed the SWLS under largely uniform condition. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysing indicate that configural and metric invariance was upholded across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggestion that the unidimensional SWLS model having universal applicability. Full scalar invariance achieved across gender identities and age groups. Based on alignment optimisation method, partial scalar invariance were achieve across all but three national group and across all languages representated in the BINS. There be large differences in latent SWLS means across nations and languages, but negligible-to-small differing across gender identities and age groups. Across nations, greater life satisfaction been significantly associate with more financial security and to be in a committed relationship or married. The result of this study suggesting that the SWLS largely assess a common unidimensional construct of life satisfaction irrespective of respondent characteristic (i.e., national group, gender identities, and age group) or survey presenting (i.e., survey language). This having important implication for the assessment of life satisfaction across nations and providing informations that will be usefulness for practitioners aim to promoting subjective well-being internationally."

Output

Corrected Abstract and Error List

Here's the corrected version of the abstract:

"The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a widely used self-report measure of subjective well-being, but studies of its measurement invariance across a large number of nations remain limited. Here, we utilise the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset—with data collected between 2020 and 2022—to assess measurement invariance of the SWLS across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups (N = 56,968). All participants completed the SWLS under largely uniform conditions. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses indicate that configural and metric invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional SWLS model has universal applicability. Full scalar invariance was achieved across gender identities and age groups. Based on alignment optimisation methods, partial scalar invariance was achieved across all but three national groups and across all languages represented in the BINS. There were large differences in latent SWLS means across nations and languages, but negligible-to-small differences across gender identities and age groups. Across nations, greater life satisfaction was significantly associated with more financial security and being in a committed relationship or married. The results of this study suggest that the SWLS largely assesses a common unidimensional construct of life satisfaction irrespective of respondent characteristics (i.e., national group, gender identities, and age group) or survey presentation (i.e., survey language). This has important implications for the assessment of life satisfaction across nations and provides information that will be useful for practitioners aiming to promote subjective well-being internationally."

List of corrections:

  • "were a widely use" → "is a widely used"
    Corrected verb tense from past to present and added "-d" to "use" for proper participle form.
  • "of it measurement" → "of its measurement"
    Changed "it" to the possessive "its".
  • "stays limited" → "remain limited"
    Corrected verb from "stays" to "remain" for better academic tone and subject-verb agreement.
  • "with datas" → "with data"
    Corrected "datas" to "data" as "data" is already plural.
  • "to assessing" → "to assess"
    Corrected infinitive form by removing "-ing".
  • "40 language" → "40 languages"
    Added plural "s" for subject-verb agreement.
  • "All participant" → "All participants"
    Added plural "s" for subject-verb agreement.
  • "uniform condition" → "uniform conditions"
    Added plural "s" for consistency.
  • "factor analysing" → "factor analyses"
    Corrected to proper plural noun form.
  • "was upholded" → "was upheld"
    Corrected irregular past participle from "upholded" to "upheld".
  • "suggestion" → "suggesting"
    Changed noun to present participle for sentence flow.
  • "model having" → "model has"
    Changed present participle to present tense.
  • "invariance achieved" → "invariance was achieved"
    Added missing auxiliary verb "was".
  • "optimisation method" → "optimisation methods"
    Added plural "s" for consistency.
  • "invariance were achieve" → "invariance was achieved"
    Corrected verb tense and agreement from "were achieve" to "was achieved".
  • "national group" → "national groups"
    Added plural "s" for consistency.
  • "languages representated" → "languages represented"
    Corrected misspelling "representated" to "represented".
  • "There be" → "There were"
    Corrected verb from base form "be" to past tense "were".
  • "differing" → "differences"
    Changed verb to noun for better clarity.
  • "been significantly associate" → "was significantly associated"
    Corrected verb tense and form.
  • "to be in" → "being in"
    Changed infinitive to gerund for parallel structure.
  • "The result" → "The results"
    Changed to plural for consistency with multiple findings.
  • "suggesting" → "suggest"
    Changed present participle to present tense.
  • "assess" → "assesses"
    Corrected third-person singular present tense.
  • "respondent characteristic" → "respondent characteristics"
    Added plural "s" for consistency.
  • "survey presenting" → "survey presentation"
    Changed verb to noun for better parallelism.
  • "This having" → "This has"
    Changed present participle to present tense.
  • "providing informations" → "provides information"
    Corrected verb form and removed plural "s" from "information" (uncountable noun).
  • "will be usefulness" → "will be useful"
    Changed noun "usefulness" to adjective "useful".
  • "practitioners aim" → "practitioners aiming"
    Changed base form verb to present participle for consistency.
  • "promoting" → "promote"
    Changed present participle to infinitive for better clarity in purpose clause.

We tested the prompt using Claude 3.7 Sonnet, which handled the task with impressive precision. It successfully identified a wide range of grammatical and linguistic issues embedded in the abstract and provided clear, structured corrections in line with the instructions. The output corrected the errors and included concise explanations, making it especially useful for revision.

The authors used Claude 3.7 Sonnet [Anthropic (2025) Claude 3.7 Sonnet (accessed on 23 March 2025), Large language model (LLM), available at: https://www.anthropic.com] to generate the output.