Recommendations for non-native English speaking bloggers?

Question

What if someone who is not a native English speaker wants to write for a blog in English, but is not sure about the correctness of his writings? How could one ensure that the article won't annoy readers with its wrong language? What would you recommend in this case? What should one pay attention to in the first place? What resources are there online for ensuring that an article is written well enough to be published?

Answer 1

One easy and free tool you might use is Grammarly (www.grammarly.com). It will correct any obvious grammatical errors with your writing for free and, if you pay for a subscription, will also offer more high level grammar editing (like wordiness and run on sentences). You can install it on your internet browser and it will correct your writing as you type.

Another great online resource is www.noredink.com. It's free version offers diagnostic assessments, grammar lessons, practice and quizzes to check for growth. It's made to be a teaching tool for educators, but you could also use it to teach yourself mastery over various aspects of English grammar.

If you're interested in a guided tutorial of either of these platforms, let me know!

Answer 2

Honestly, the hardest thing about any kind of writing is to get the critical self-doubts out of your head when you're writing a draft. So, first, practice not worrying about it.

Now, from the question itself, I'd guess you're better at formal English than most college students who are native speakers of American — English is my second language as I grew up in the United States — and blogs are by their nature meant to be relatively informal.

To a first approximation, I say don't worry about it. Write a draft as it comes to you, look over it for any outstanding egregious errors, publish and go write some more.