Is Jasper the Future of Writing? This Is Day 1 of a 5-Day Test to Find Out!
I have been a content creator for more than 20 years and have no problems writing massive amounts of short-form content for my clients’ websites and social media profiles; however, when it comes to creating longer-form content, especially for my own websites, I struggle.
My two main pain points seem to be 1) coming up with blog post ideas, and 2) the amount of time it takes to write them. Considering the fact that I have several pet website projects that have lingered for years and can’t quite gain traction due to a lack of content, this is a problem.
So, I wondered, is this a problem that Jasper can solve?
Jasper (Formerly Jarvis) is an AI writing assistant who supposedly can help you write faster and more creatively … and who doesn’t want to do that? The website claims that Jasper has read 10% of the Internet and is so knowable about your niche that it will be able to “improve your copy and spark fresh ideas 5x faster with over 50 proven templates” and can “read and write content that’s intelligent and creative in over 25 languages.”
Sounds good so far, right? I thought so. That’s why I decided to try the 5-day free trial of “Boss Mode” to see if it can help break my writer’s block.
I have high hopes, but low expectations.
I also decided that I may as well write about my experience using Jasper. After 5 days, I will make a decision of whether to continue using it or to cancel. I hope you will follow along with me on this 5-day test!
Day 1: Getting Started with Jasper
After signing up for the free trial, I am presented with the Jasper Dashboard. I decide to watch the “Getting Started” video. Clearly, they need to update their video because it talks about Jarvis, not Jasper. The narrator talks too fast for my liking, so I decide to skip it.
Next, I click on “Jasper Bootcamp” and am taking to a training guide. I click on the 45-second “Start Here” video and the narrator promises to take me from a clumsy little caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. Err… what?
Next, I click on “The Basics” and am presented with another video. I watch for about 30 seconds and then get bored. I realize maybe I don’t have a writing problem, maybe I have an attention problem.
I decided to just figure it out on my own and come back to the videos if I need help.
I click on “Templates” and am presented with lots of options. Since the “Long-Form Assistant” is highlighted, I click on that first.
Next, I am presented with two more options, “start from scratch” or “blog post workflow” … I choose the latter.
The next screen prompts me to describe the content I want to create. Ugh. As I mentioned before, coming up with blog post ideas is always a problem for me. I guess Jarvis isn’t really going to help me with that. So, I head over to AnswerThePublic, a search listening tool to help you discover what others are asking about, to try to come up with something. I type in “blog post ideas” and one of the results is “How to write a blog post quickly.” Bingo. Let’s go with that.
I type in a quick description and two keywords and then I let Jasper help generate ideas for the title. I like Jasper’s ideas better than my own, so I go with it.
The next step is to write an intro paragraph. Again, I decide to let Jasper generate ideas. Again, not bad. I choose one and receive a “setup is complete” thumbs up with a prompt to open the editor.
When I open the editor, a tutorial pops up at the bottom of the screen. It looks useful (short and to the point), so I click through it. Basically, it tells me to click the “Compose” button to get Jasper to start writing and that I can highlight text that I want it to rewrite.
Each time you click compose, Jasper writes a few sentences. On the left, I see that there is an “output length” and it is set to medium. There are also options for changing the tone of voice, but I decide to leave it off for now.
The first 375 words are actually pretty good. After that, I guess Jasper has had enough because the last paragraph reads, “That’s it! By following these tips …” yada yada. I decide I need more, so I delete it, switch the output length to long, and click the compose button again. I click it a few more times. I get to over 1,000 words and I am actually impressed and getting a little excited. But, then…
I think I broke it. Jasper starts spitting out some serious jibberish.
“””Here are some training datasets that were used:””” “””Note: this text was generated using Markov chains.””” “””The first two sentences of the blog post are:””” “””
I am not ready to give up on Jasper yet, though. I delete everything, change the output length to long, and click the compose button again.
Unfortunately, now Jasper is just outputting complete nonsense, as well as some strange notes including:
NOTE: THE BLOG POST CONTENT IS NOT COMPLETE, AND I WILL CONTINUE WRITING IT LATER. THIS IS JUST A SAMPLE TO DEMONSTRATE THE POTENTIAL OF USING API CALLS IN NODEJS.
and
I have the full blogging instructions and list of links attached, as well as a file containing just the blog post content (which is not complete yet). I will be adding more to it over time. Please let me know if you need anything else! Thank you so much! :)
Thank you very much in advance!!! Have a great day!!:)
Bindi Shah
I honestly do not know what to make of this.
I decide to go read the 1,000 words that I had pasted into Grammarly before I started getting errors. Maybe I still have enough to work with?
Editing My Jasper Blog Post
Jasper has Grammarly built-in, but I prefer to use my own account so that I can also use its Plagiarism checker (Jasper has one for an additional fee).
Grammarly gives Jasper an overall score of 81. It does come back at 10% plagiarism; however, it is just common snippets such as “Now that we’ve covered how to get started” and “Here are some tips for actually writing the” and it is from 18 different websites, so I feel like that’s fine.
Getting back to the editing, there aren’t any spelling errors, but there are lots of suggestions; I tackle them first.
I spent about an hour making edits and adding my own thoughts, and I did end up changing the title. Once I was done, I ended up with a 1,000+ word post with a Grammarly score of 100 … and I was happy enough with it to add it to my website. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on it!
Day 1: Final Thoughts
I always find it easier to start with SOMETHING rather than NOTHING when it comes to writing, and the content that Jasper produced was not bad and really gave me the “something” I needed. In fact, not only did I end up with a new post for my blog, “Writing Blog Posts Quickly … Without Sacrificing Quality,” I ended up with this Medium post as well!
Tomorrow, I will go back and try “writing” another post, so be sure to follow me and check in tomorrow if you are interested in reading about my experience with Jasper.
Wanna Give Jasper a Try? Use my referral link below!
Of course, as a long-time affiliate marketer wannabe, I immediately applied for their affiliate program. If accepted, my audience will get a special deal through me and I will earn a 30% recurring commission for each referral. In the meantime, they also have a referral program where you give 10k credits and get 10k credits for each new account that signs up. The credits allow you more words per month. You can also earn free credits by joining a live training or leaving reviews on Trustpilot, G2 Crowd, and/or Capterra. Earned credits roll over month to month and never expire.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave comments below!
