Some Paraphrasing Tool can help editors of online magazines to check for the originality of articles. And in this capacity tools such as Copy scape are ideal. They allow an editor to ascertain if the article in question has been copied or not and if so to what extent. The tools are wonderful for this.

Paraphrasing tools are also good if you are a creative writer stuck for a synonym. But are not so good if you want to change a substantial body of text and want a tool to paraphrase it. The end results are usually nonsensical to readers. Writers who do this kind of thing may have an original text, but no one wants to read it.

It is fine to use formatting tools and spell checks, but if you are writing academic English. It is likely that a grammar checking tool will not know how to deal with such writing. As it is not natural language or at least not the natural language the software tool has been program to accept as correct.

For academic writing, especially dissertations and PhD theses. You need a human proofreader-editor to check your work rather than a software tool. If you have a friend whose written English is better than yours. Then ask them to read through your work and make the necessary changes to grammar and spelling. You have to have consistent spelling, either US or British English except for quotations as you cannot change the spelling in these.

If you think your friends are not proficient enough to tackle your writing. Then you should consider using the services of professional academic proofreaders and editors. Proofreaders check for errors, and may not comment on the content of your work. They may not even comment on the amount of padding it contains. That being so you may want to hire the services of a proofreader-editor who will comment on superfluous pieces of text and give suggestions as to how your work could improved.