English is my second language. I want my essay polished but still sounding like me, not like a robot.

Fix, smooth or translate: which to pick

Fix spelling & grammar corrects spelling, punctuation and grammar and nothing else. Your word choice, sentence structure and style stay as they are, and the red pen is switched off. Start here.

Humanize rewrites more freely: it reworks sentences with stock phrases, flat rhythm or repeated openers instead of only deleting the flagged words. That is often more change than you want if the goal is to sound like yourself, so use it on paragraphs that are correct but stiff, one at a time, and keep what still sounds like you.

Translate turns a draft into the language you pick in the Language setting, aiming for text that reads as if it was written in that language rather than word for word. It helps if you think more clearly in your first language, but read the result carefully and check it still says what you meant.

How to keep your voice when you polish

Keep your examples and stories. They're the part of the essay no one else could write.

Keep your words when they're correct. If you wrote “use”, you don't need “utilize”; a simple word that's right is better than a fancier one you'd never say. Keep your sentence length roughly as it is, too: a few short, plain sentences are fine.

Remember that your teacher knows your level. An essay that suddenly sounds far more advanced than your other work reads less like you, not more.

Learn from the corrections. Compare the two versions and note the mistakes you repeat, so the next essay needs fewer fixes.

Common fixes for English learners

Most corrections fall into a few groups. Verb forms: “we are not celebrate” should be “we don't celebrate”, and past events need the past tense, so “last year my friends make a party” becomes “last year my friends had a party”. Word forms: “I was very surprise” should be “I was very surprised”. Articles: “a” and “the” are missing or extra in many first drafts. Prepositions: in, on and at for time and place. Uncountable nouns: “advice” and “information” have no plural.

Long sentences joined only with commas, called comma splices, are another common one; a full stop or a joining word such as “because” or “but” fixes them.