Anyone with a Grammarly account can use Authorship. Just install Grammarly on your desktop and browser, then turn it on via the fingerprint icon. Grammarly can then track your text sources so you can see and show where your words came from.

Authorship works in Google Docs and Microsoft Word. To use it in Google Docs, install Grammarly’s browser extension. To use it in Microsoft Word, install the desktop app.

Because Authorship on Desktop is in beta, it may have some bugs, such as occasional inconsistent attribution. These glitches are expected as we gather more user feedback and refine the feature. For more details, and to report any bugs, please visit our Support Page.

Your privacy and security are a priority at Grammarly, and here’s how that factors into Authorship:

- Authorship is an opt-in feature and will not help track text sources without your consent.
- Authorship only helps keep track of text you copy from a website and paste into a Google Doc. It does not collect other data.
- Grammarly does not store data about your general browsing activity. It stores only data related to text you paste into Google Docs. This stored data is briefly used to categorize the text’s source before being anonymized to protect your privacy.

To learn more about how Grammarly Authorship protects and stores your data, visit this Support article. Want to know more about how Grammarly protects your data and privacy? Check out Grammarly’s Privacy Policy.

Grammarly Authorship is available in Grammarly Free and Grammarly Pro.

Grammarly’s authorship feature makes it easy to demonstrate the originality of your work. It checks your sources so you and your reviewer can see where your text came from. To get started, just install Grammarly on your desktop and browser and turn on Authorship via the fingerprint icon.

To learn more about how to use Authorship, check out our Support Page.

Both Authorship and AI detection can function as originality report checkers for your work. However, Grammarly Authorship provides greater detail and insight to help you demonstrate your work’s originality.

AI detectors check if any of your writing seems to be AI-generated based on language patterns commonly found in AI-created writing. They don’t keep track of document history; they just analyze your text in a moment in time.

Grammarly Authorship, meanwhile, helps you keep track of version history and where text in your writing came from. It doesn’t just show you where you used AI; it also identifies if sentences were written by you or came from a website, a Grammarly suggestion, or a non-web source.


In addition, Authorship creates an originality report you can share with your professor, boss, or editor. It also lets you replay your document’s creation from the first word to the last punctuation mark so you can double-check your process.

As a professor or TA, you can use Authorship to gauge the originality of students’ work. By asking students to include an Authorship report when they submit assignments, you can ensure they are using and citing sources—including AI—appropriately.


Here are a few best practices you can follow when using Authorship or any other originality checker:


- Instead of using Authorship to penalize students, use it as an opportunity to proactively discuss how students should use AI and cite sources.

- Use the circle graph at the top of the report to quickly gauge the student’s sources and process.

- Do a deep dive into the report or replay the document history if you have concerns.

- Use Authorship replays as a starting point for discussing how to draft, revise, and cite work.



You may also find Authorship useful for checking your research papers, articles, and more.