Beware of Grammarly, friends!

Well, at least that’s the message from a college student named Marley who got into big trouble after she used the program to help her write a paper.

Marley said she received a ZERO on a paper she wrote and ended up failing a class because she used Grammarly and the paper was flagged for plagiarism.

She told viewers, “I have a public service announcement for you: If you have a paper, essay, discussion post, anything that is getting submitted … uninstall Grammarly from your web browser right now.”

Marley continued, “I had a paper that I had to write. … I turned the paper in, got a zero. I talked to the teacher, the department head, and the dean, and I was ‘unintentionally cheating’ using Grammarly … Uninstall Grammarly right now, because I don’t want you to fail a class like I did.”

She also said that Grammarly actually wrote “absolutely nothing” on her paper, so you can see why she’s pretty upset about this turn of events.

Here’s what she had to say.

@m.stevens03

#granmerly #ai #artificialintelligence #fyp #psa

♬ original sound – Marley Stevens

Marley posted a follow-up video and shed more light on the situation. She told viewers that the head of her department said that someone in her position “lost their misconduct appeal due to this very fact.”

Marley said, “That means that for the rest of their college career, they will have an academic misconduct charge on their record. I’ve had other teachers at this same university recommend that I use it for papers, an English teacher even. So are they trying to tell us that we can’t use auto-correct or spell checkers or anything?”

@m.stevens03

Replying to @Alaina #greenscreen #ai #artificialintelligence #grammarly #college #update

♬ original sound – Marley Stevens

And here’s how folks reacted on TikTok.

Grammarly folks replied to the video.

Another viewer shared how their school handles this.

And one person said this sounds like a bad policy.

I guess you better beware of Grammarly.

You’ve been warned!

UPDATE – Jan 19, 2024

Grammarly contacted us and had this to say about the situation.

Grammarly has been committed to promoting the responsible and productive use of AI in the classroom since our founding in 2009. The product’s writing suggestions have always been powered by various AI and machine learning models that help enhance writing skills while learning. In 2023, Grammarly introduced student-specific generative AI features designed to augment—not replace—their critical thinking and communication skills. These features include the ability to cite the use of generative AI and guidelines that discourage students from generating long-form content.

Grammarly’s trusted writing support helps students improve their writing skills by offering suggestions for spelling, grammatical correctness, clarity, concision, and tone. These suggestions are not powered by generative AI and can still be accessed even when generative AI features are deactivated or not used by the student. However, some third-party tools may mistakenly identify any use of Grammarly as generative AI. We encourage institutions to establish clear policies on acceptable AI usage and adhere to those guidelines when assessing student success.

Grammarly is in touch with the student and has provided her with clarifying information about how the product works—she has since recorded a follow-up video. Grammarly also reached out to her university administration to better understand their AI policies.

Here is that video:

@m.stevens03

Replying to @Grammarly #grammarly #grammarlycanhelp #ai #artificialintelligence #fyp #update

♬ original sound – Marley Stevens

One comment from a high school teacher reveals that she’s run into this when using the Turnitin platform.

Maybe these two companies need to talk and develop a way to prevent this from happening?

Either way, we hope Marley gets this figured out!