Grammarly's Track Your Work: The freelance writer's new best friend

Freelancers and content creators face a growing challenge – proving their work is theirs.

With AI writing tools becoming mainstream, distinguishing between human and AI-generated content has become crucial for maintaining credibility and trust.

Grammarly has stepped up to address this problem with its free Authorship feature, specifically the "Track Your Work" tool. It automatically records your writing process, creating verifiable proof that you authored your content from scratch.

Whether you're pitching to clients or publishing articles, the tool provides the documentation you need to demonstrate authenticity.

This blog takes you through everything you need to know about Grammarly Authorship, from understanding how it works to implementing it in your daily writing routine.

What is Grammarly Authorship?

Grammarly Authorship is designed to help writers prove that their work is original. The centrepiece of this system is the Track Your Work feature, which monitors your writing process in real-time and generates detailed reports about your content's sources.

The system works by automatically categorising text as you type, identifying whether words were:

• typed manually by you

• copied from external sources

• generated using AI tools

• pasted from other documents

This continuous monitoring creates an audit trail of your writing process, providing concrete evidence of your authorship.

The tool integrates seamlessly with Google Docs and Microsoft Word (web versions), making it accessible for most writers without the need to install extra software.

What makes Grammarly Authorship particularly valuable is how accessible it is. Unlike many professional writing verification tools that come with expensive subscriptions, this feature is available to all Grammarly users, including those on the free plan.

The key features of Grammarly Authorship

Track Your Work functionality

The core Track Your Work feature operates as a digital witness to your writing process. Once enabled, it begins recording every keystroke, tracking the origin of each piece of text that appears in your document.

This creates a detailed log that can distinguish between content you've written yourself and material you've imported from other sources.

The system is sophisticated enough to detect various types of content manipulation, including:

• direct copying and pasting from websites or documents

• text generated by AI writing assistants

• content imported from other files

• original content that was manually typed

Verifying originality

Beyond simple tracking, the tool can run comprehensive checks for originality. When you generate a report, you'll receive detailed insights about how your document is composed, including percentages of original content versus imported material.

If you have a Grammarly Pro account, the system has enhanced tools for detecting plagiarism, cross-referencing your content against extensive databases to identify where your content matches material already published elsewhere.

Authenticity reports you can share

One of Grammarly Authorship's most practical features is the ability to generate and share authenticity reports.

These reports provide third parties with verifiable proof of your writing process, complete with timestamps and where your sources originate from.

The sharing system works through secure links that you can send to editors, clients or publishers. Recipients can read these reports without needing their own Grammarly account, so the verification process is really straightforward for everyone involved.

How do you use Grammarly's Track Your Work feature?

Step 1: Set up your environment

Before you can use Track Your Work, make sure you have everything set up correctly:

1. Create a free Grammarly account (if you don't already have one).

2. Install the Grammarly browser extension.

3. Open either Google Docs or Microsoft Word in your web browser.

4. Start a completely new document (this is crucial – the feature only works with fresh documents).

The requirement to work in a new document is important because the system needs to monitor your writing process from the beginning.

You can't enable tracking on existing documents since there's no way to verify how you created that content originally.

Step 2: Enable Track Your Work

Once you have a new document open, look for the fingerprint icon at the bottom-left of your screen. Click the icon to open the Track Your Work panel.

You'll see a simple on/off toggle switch. Click this switch to enable the tracking feature. Once enabled, the system will begin monitoring all text you input into your document.

The interface is designed to be unobtrusive, so you can focus on your writing while the system works quietly in the background. You'll notice little impact on your document's performance, even with tracking enabled.

Step 3: Write and monitor

With tracking enabled, you can write naturally while the system records your process. The tool distinguishes between different types of content:

• Typed content appears as original work

• Pasted content is flagged as copied material

• AI-generated content is identified, if detected

• Imported text from other sources is categorised appropriately

As you work, you can check your progress by clicking the "See The Report" button that appears once tracking is enabled. This gives you real-time insights into your document's composition.

Step 4: Generate your authenticity report

When you're ready to share proof of your authorship, click the "See The Report" button to access a detailed authenticity report. This report includes:

• an overall percentage of how much text is original

• a breakdown of from where the content has been sourced

• timestamps for when different sections were created

• visual indicators showing which parts of your document were typed versus copied

Step 5: Share your proof

To share your authenticity report:

• click the "Share report" button within the report interface

• toggle the sharing setting to "On"

• copy the secure link that's generated

• send this link to anyone who needs to verify your authorship

Recipients can access your report through the shared link without needing their own Grammarly account. The report provides clear, visual evidence of your writing process and shows how original your content is.

The benefits of proving your authorship

Professional credibility

Freelancers and content creators face unique challenges in proving to clients that their work is authentic.

As the number of AI writing services grows and grows, clients may question whether the content they're paying for is genuinely written by a human.

Having verifiable proof of your writing process can set you apart from competitors and build trust with clients.

It demonstrates professionalism and transparency, which can help further your client relationships and bring about more lucrative opportunities.

Legal documentation

In some professional contexts, proving authorship can have legal implications. Whether you're dealing with copyright issues, contract disputes or intellectual property (IP) claims, having documented proof of your writing process provides valuable legal protection.

The timestamping in Grammarly's reports creates a paper trail that can be crucial in legal proceedings where authorship is disputed.

How accurate is Grammarly's AI detection?

It depends. The system is designed to identify patterns consistent with AI-generated content, but like all detection systems, it's not infallible.

Current AI detection technology, including the technology built into Grammarly, can struggle with:

• heavily edited AI content

• AI text that's been paraphrased a number of times

• short snippets of text where patterns are less apparent

• sophisticated AI tools that better mimic human writing patterns

However, the Track Your Work feature verifies content in a different way. Instead of just analysing the content, it monitors the actual writing process, which is a much more reliable way to prove human authorship.

How Grammarly's AI integration is evolving

As AI writing tools become more sophisticated, the relationship between AI and traditional writing aids like Grammarly continues to evolve.

Grammarly AI features now include writing assistance, style suggestions and even the capability to generate content.

This evolution makes tools like Track Your Work even more valuable. As the line between AI-assisted and AI-generated content blurs, having concrete proof of your writing process becomes increasingly important for maintaining credibility and trust.

Why Track Your Work matters now more than ever

Track Your Work takes a proactive approach to this challenge. Rather than waiting for questions about authenticity to arise, you can document your writing process from the start and create an unassailable record of your authorship.

Being able to access the tool through Grammarly's free plan means it's available to writers at all levels. For freelancers particularly, the ability to provide concrete proof of original work can be significant in setting you apart from the competition.

Clients who are concerned about AI-generated content can feel confident in what you're delivering, which can help you set higher rates and develop stronger relationships in the long term.

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Image credit: Grammarly