Compare free and paid academic English polishing

Any current laptop with Java available; no GPU required.

Component	Role	Price	Link
language_tool_python 3.4.0	local LanguageTool grammar and style checks	Free / 免费open-source wrapper that can run a local LanguageTool server; Java and local disk are requiredchecked 2026-08-02	https://pypi.org/project/language-tool-python/3.4.0/

Save as check_english.py

import json, pathlib, language_tool_python
text=pathlib.Path('sample.txt').read_text(encoding='utf-8')
tool=language_tool_python.LanguageTool('en-US')
rows=[{'rule':m.rule_id,'offset':m.offset,'length':m.error_length,'message':m.message,'replacements':m.replacements[:5]} for m in tool.check(text)]
pathlib.Path('free_suggestions.json').write_text(json.dumps(rows,ensure_ascii=False,indent=2),encoding='utf-8')
tool.close()

Run the local check

uv venv --python 3.12 .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install 'language-tool-python==3.4.0'
python check_english.py

Known pitfalls

• Grammar rules are not a scientific-validity check.
• Local checking may miss discipline-specific phrasing.
• Review every proposed change to negation, uncertainty, quantities and causal language.

Browser, Word or Overleaf access. Manuscript text is processed by a cloud service, so check data policy first.

Component	Role	Price	Link
Writefull Premium Premium plan current 2026-08-02	academic-language edits and rewrite comparison	$12.5/mo$150 per year on the official annual plan; taxes and currency conversion may differchecked 2026-08-02	https://my.writefull.com/

Blind comparison scorecard

sample: same_800_to_1200_words
remove_before_upload:
  - author_names
  - participant_identifiers
  - confidential_results
score_each_change:
  meaning_preserved: yes_no
  grammar_improved: yes_no
  discipline_term_preserved: yes_no
  accepted: yes_no
report:
  acceptance_rate_by_tool: required
  meaning_changing_suggestions: required
  unresolved_human_edits: required
rule: Paid output is not ground truth; a domain author approves every change.

Known pitfalls

• The annual price is normalized to a monthly equivalent but billed as $150 per year.
• Cloud processing may be unsuitable for confidential or unpublished material.
• Fluent rewrites can strengthen claims or erase uncertainty.
• Do not compare tools on different passages.