Formal Writing Checker
Paste an essay or a paper to find the conversational words that slip into academic writing — a lot of, kids, get, find out, come up with — each with formal alternatives. Exclamation marks and questions are counted separately. Free, no sign-up, and your text stays in your browser.
Runs entirely in your browser — your text is never uploaded.
Paste or type some text to find conversational words and phrases, with formal alternatives.
How to Use the Formal Writing Checker
- Paste your text. Results appear as you type.
- Read the highlights. Amber marks informal words and spoken forms, blue marks phrasal verbs, and rose marks exclamation marks and questions. Hover for the formal alternatives.
- Work through the table. Every word or phrase is listed with how often it appears and what to try instead; a few carry a note on when they are fine.
- Choose the alternative that fits. Get can mean obtain, receive, become or understand — pick the one your sentence means, or rephrase it.
What Makes Writing Informal
Formality in academic writing is less about long words than about precision. Conversational English leans on general verbs (get, go), phrasal verbs (find out, look into), vague nouns (stuff, things), loose quantities (a lot of, tons of) and spoken forms (gonna, kind of, plus). Each has a more exact formal equivalent, and choosing it usually makes a sentence say more, not just sound different.
| Informal | Formal alternatives |
|---|---|
| a lot of, lots of, tons of | many, much, a great deal of, considerable |
| kids, guys, folks | children, people |
| find out, figure out | determine, discover, establish |
| look into, check out | investigate, examine |
| come up with | develop, devise, propose |
| get rid of | eliminate, remove |
| go up, go down | increase, decrease |
| big, huge | large, substantial, considerable |
| nowadays | currently, today, at present |
| stuff, things | name them: factors, materials, aspects |
Judgement Calls the Checker Makes for You
Several informal words have formal twins that look identical, so the checker reads a little context before it flags them:
- Kind of and sort of are flagged as hedges (kind of difficult) but not as types (a kind of protein).
- Pretty is flagged as an adverb (pretty clear) but not as an adjective after a or the.
- Plus is flagged when it joins ideas (Plus, the cost rose) but not in plus or minus.
- Like is flagged only as a filler between commas; countries like France is a matter of style, not slang.
- Words inside quotation marks are skipped, because a participant's or a source's words are evidence, not your register.
It also stays out of other checkers' way. Contractions belong to the Contraction Expander, filler words such as very and really to the Filler Word Finder, I and you to the First-Person Checker, and stock phrases to the Cliché Finder. In the Try an example paragraph, it finds 10 informal words and 4 phrasal verbs in 80 words, plus one question and one exclamation mark. A formal version keeps every fact:
Before
We wanted to find out whether sleep played a part, so we looked into the data from 120 participants. Plus, the results were pretty clear: the students who slept less got lower grades.
After
To determine whether sleep played a part, we examined data from 120 participants. The results were consistent: students who slept less received lower grades.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What words should you avoid in formal writing?
- Avoid conversational vocabulary that has a more precise formal equivalent: vague quantities (a lot of, tons of), informal nouns (kids, stuff), general verbs such as get, phrasal verbs such as find out and come up with, and spoken forms such as gonna or kind of. Slang and exclamation marks are usually out of place too.
- Are phrasal verbs informal?
- Many are. Phrasal verbs such as find out, look into and come up with are typical of speech, and most have a one-word formal equivalent: determine, investigate, develop. Some, such as carry out and point out, are standard in academic writing and are not flagged. The choice depends on your field and your instructor.
- Can I use questions in academic writing?
- Research questions are fine and often required. Rhetorical questions — asked for effect, with the answer implied — usually work better as statements of what you will show. The checker counts every question so you can decide which kind each one is.
- Is “a lot” informal?
- Yes, in academic writing a lot and a lot of are informal. Use many with countable nouns (many participants), much or a great deal of with uncountable ones (much debate), or give the actual number.
- Why is “get” flagged?
- Get is one of the most general verbs in English, so it rarely says exactly what happened. Depending on the sentence it can mean obtain (obtained a permit), receive (received feedback), become (became anxious) or understand. Choosing the precise verb makes the sentence clearer as well as more formal.
- Does it check contractions and slang?
- It checks slang and spoken forms such as gonna, wanna and yeah. Contractions are left to the Contraction Expander, so the same word is never flagged by two tools for two different reasons.
- Is my text uploaded?
- No. The checker runs in your browser, and nothing you paste is sent anywhere.