Course Hero + QuillBot + Scribbr
Writing is hard!
It takes frequent and consistent practice to improve and gain confidence.
Like I wrote in this post about QuillBot — the amazing AI-powered writing assistance platform — writing effectively and confidently is hard! Have I mentioned that before?
For students who struggle with academic writing, developing a thesis or dissertation for class can send them into a tailspin that could jeopardize their success. In a survey among Course Hero’s customers, we learned that more than 70% of the students polled had used a writing assistant tool the previous year. That’s not surprising given the importance of writing in study, research, and work. We also heard from students that they need more personalized support, especially after the last two years of disrupted learning due to the pandemic.
Based on these insights about how frequently, consistently, and universally writing help is needed by those we serve, we’ve sought to expand the writing services we offer.
I’m thrilled to share that we acquired Scribbr, a much loved writing assistance product and service.
Bas Swaen and Koen Driessen founded Scribbr in 2012. While they were both Dutch students at the time, they came from different academic backgrounds and found a common thread when it came to academic writing. They set out to help anyone become a better academic writer.
Over the following ten years, the Netherlands-based company has grown from a proofreading and editing service with one editor to a network of over 700 editors supporting students across 10 European languages. Scribbr’s academic offerings include grammar edits, language notes, and clarity checks by subject matter experts. The Scribbr platform grew to build and offer industry leading technology to help students detect plagiarism; generate and check citations; and, a learn from a growing Knowledge Base including especially helpful academic writing guides.
Combining AI tech with human intellect
Scribbr’s content, tools, and human-powered language services supplement and add to QuillBot’s AI-powered writing platform. Scribbr’s international reach strengthens our ability to help more learners succeed while developing strong writing skills.
We’re impressed by the scale and expertise of Scribbr’s expert editors, who provide students with real, direct guidance related to structure and clarity rather than simply making grammatical corrections to papers. They never edit the content of a student’s paper, and they never write or rewrite a paper.
9 out of 10 students struggle with citing sources or accidental plagiarism, which can result in lost marks, which can have a significant impact on a student’s grade. Scribbr’s plagiarism detection tool and citation generator/checker not only help prevent mistakes but also support academic integrity. The citation generator and checker are novel in this space, and I’m particularly excited about helping more students gain access to this incredible technology. Students can not only check existing citations, but the proprietary technology will search a source and generate an APA citation in seconds.
Values and Mission Aligned Teams
Scribbr, a team of 65 writing enthusiasts, places a strong emphasis on teamwork, empowerment, and innovation. And, for me, one of the most important pieces of the puzzle is that Scribbr’s mission (similar to our own) is to help students graduate and become better academic writers.
They share our entrepreneurial spirit, our commitment to values, and a vision for growth and excellence. They’re ambitious, tenacious, and data-driven. Together we’ll strive to create solutions that put learning in the hands of students, fostering a “learning mindset” and encouraging genuine curiosity and understanding of course content. We share a passion for continuous learning and skill-building. And we are deeply committed to assisting students in learning more effectively, efficiently, and affordably.
When it comes to tackling academic papers, there are so many amazing technologies that can help students be successful while developing academic confidence, from run-on sentences to distilling a complex idea into a short paragraph. Whether we like it or not, writing is a part of our everyday lives, from text messages to Slack messages to business proposals and presentations. The need for students to write well will follow them into their professional and personal lives, and how we support them now will influence their future success.
So, for your next big or small writing project, try QuillBot and Scribbr to improve your grammar, clarity, and essay structure (like I’m doing with this post right now). Get help with proofreading, citing, checking for plagiarism, writing better, and more. What steps can you take to improve your writing? Everyone can be a life-long learner, so while we want every student to graduate confident and prepared, we also want everyone to feel confident and prepared when communicating with their colleagues, clients, friends, and family. I’m looking forward to expanding Scribbr’s reach and assisting many more millions of writers. I encourage you to try these tools the next time you’re writing something so you can experience the relief of checking your work in real time while understanding the errors you make and improving your writing in the moment.
