Students can write the best essay with Hemingway app

Another semester has begun, meaning more late nights hunched over your laptop, desperately wishing you had not laughed in your professor’s face when he or she made it clear this essay could not be finished in one night. If this feels like déjà vu, there is finally an app that may put an end to those incessant all-nighters.

The Hemingway app was created by brothers Adam and Ben Long to make writing simpler and intensify its impact, according to The New Yorker.

“Hemingway highlights long, complex sentences and common errors — if you see a yellow highlight, shorten the sentence or split it,” reads hemingwayapp.com. “If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting logic.”

The app is available for download on both Mac OS and Windows for $6.99.

Sophomore Taylor Burns praises the app’s usefulness to careless writers.

“For those who struggle with writing and need guidance but are too lazy to actually go get help, they could just use Hemingway,” Burns said. “Now instead of asking a friend to proofread your essay, you can just have it done on this app.”

Kathleen Franks, a student writing consultant for the Center for Writing Excellence, said she does not think the app stifles literary creativity.

“I don’t think the app discourages creativity, but if it alters the way a student writes, it could change the entire tone of the author’s voice,” Franks said. “Without your own voice, what makes your writing any different than anyone else’s?”

Adam Long told ABC News the main motivation behind creating the app was having a tool to proofread written work.

“We wanted to come up with something that would be a second set of eyes to go over what you’ve written before you send it on to a reader or to your boss,” Long said.

Robert Koch, director of the Center for Writing Excellence, is in favor of an app that helps students do more work at a faster pace, but remains undecided about its usefulness.

“I am acutely aware that spellcheck, grammar check and automatic citation programs have not always helped us learn more,” Koch said. “I always encourage students to use the computer, but remember that we programmed the computer, so there is still a lot of room for error.”

The app uses a formula to assign a reading level to the context. The goal is to “make your writing bold and clear,” according hemingwayapp.com.

Franks recommends collecting ideas for clarity rather then stressing over grammar.

“It’s more important to get your ideas across than it is to make sure everything is perfect,” she said.

Franks stresses individuality when writing to inject tone and voice into various written works.

“There are so many ways to write that we shouldn’t be confined to just one,” Franks said. “If F. Scott Fitzgerald had used Ernest Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory to write, he wouldn’t have been F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

Koch believes the future of creative writing is safe as long as people remember to read what they love and write what they love.

“It’s work, so you better love it,” Koch said. “The more you value it, the more you commit to it. The more you study it and reflect on it, the stronger a writer you will become.”