Using rewrite
What is rewrite?
Have you ever wished it was easier to word something differently? Rewrite generates on-demand rephrasings of a sentence or paragraph. There are six options to choose from:
- Rephrase to reword the same content a little differently
- Simplify to improve the clarity of your text and make it easier to understand
- Polish to improve fluency and sound more like a native speaker
- Shorten to condense your text and help you cut down your word count
- Enrich to add descriptors and fill out detail
- Modify tone to use a different voice to express your content
How do I access and use rewrite?
You can use the rewrite feature in the online Editor or one of our apps or extensions. Simply highlight a sentence or paragraph that you'd like to modify and select the purple W logo icon:
Select the purple W logo icon, and you'll see the option to simplify, polish, shorten, enrich, rephrase, and modify tone:
Select a rewrite option to generate a new version of your content.
Like what you see? Select the copy icon to copy the suggested content to your clipboard, or select the generated text to insert it into your draft:
FAQs
Q: Can I use rewrite in the extensions?
Rewrite is available in the Chrome Extension on the following sites:
- Articulate Rise
- Coda
- Confluence
- Dropbox Paper
- GatherContent
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Google Docs
- Helpscout
- Jira
- Medium
- Notion
- Outlook online
- Outreach
- Slack web
- Tettra
- WordPress
- Zendesk
It'll be coming to other sites and other extensions soon. Stay tuned!
Q: What's the difference between Simplify and Shorten?
Simplify rephrases the text to be more straightforward and easier to understand. This option may write shorter sentences, or use simpler vocabulary.
Shorten trims the content's length, but doesn't change the phrasing much.
Q: When should I use Polish?
Polish helps non-native speakers catch common grammatical errors and adopt more fluent phrasing:
Q: What exactly does Enrich do?
Enrich may show a variety of possible ways to rephrase your content. The rewritten suggestion may only add a couple descriptors such as adjectives and adverbs. Or, it may embellish a part of your text, like in the first example below. Or, it may append additional content, like in the second example below. The parameters for Enrich are currently loosely defined to provide variations of suggestions. Writer may update or break out these variations into different rewrite options in the future.
Q: What exactly does Rephrase do?
Rephrase says the same thing in a different way. Rephrase doesn't try to make the content a different length, level of difficulty, or tone. Rephrase simply lets you "shake the dice" to get a different version of the highlighted text.
Q: What does Modify Tone do?
Modify tone changes your selection's vocabulary, grammar, and sentence length to follow a designated tone. You have the option to rewrite your content to be more witty, more professional, more casual, or more Shakespearean:
Q: Can I create a custom rewrite option?
In select Enterprise plans, Writer can train a rewrite option to rephrase content based on your brand guidelines, customer segments, best performing content, etc. Contact us for more information.