FREE WRITING SOFTWARE TO MAKE LIFE EASIER
Did you know that over 80% of best-selling iTunes applications are in the academic category?
Also, 2018 has seen a record number of university applicants globally. Seems like that famous saying ‘you don’t need college’ was a myth after all.
With a growing number of students comes a high demand for educational writing tools, which can help study smarter. Our APP will give you an overview about the most popular writing software for studying in 2018. We hope you will find this article helpful!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Grammarly
- Hemingway
- Thesaurus
- Celtx
- StayFocused
- Citation Generator
Most of the writing tools analyzed in our post deal with essay writing, as it is the most commonly searched query amongst students.
Without any further ado, let’s go over some top educational software. It is a free writing software that offers trial periods, but the paid subscriptions offer more opportunities to their users.
Grammarly
Hailing from an unexpected location (Kiev, Ukraine), Grammarly is the dominant grammar and punctuation checker on the market.
Known for being the most accurate online proofreader to date, Grammarly is a paid platform used by both students and businesses. A sneak peek into your university’s admission offices computer monitors will reveal that every email gets checked through Grammarly before being sent to students.
To avoid complicated explanations, here’s an infographic illustrating Grammarly’s main functions:
The downside of Grammarly is that it doesn’t save the formatting of your text. Yes, you’ll have to do all the highlights and bullet points again, manually.
Hopefully, they’re reading this, and they’ll fix it soon.
So far, the only solution seems to be downloading the Grammarly add-on. With the add-on, you can check any online writing software (Google Docs, Word, etc.) without going to their website.
Hemingway Editor
Ever read Ernest Hemingway? His works are very easy to read. That is because he uses simple, bold, and direct language.
That is, essentially, what the Hemingway editor does to your text.
The main free features of the Hemingway Editor are:
1. Locating hard-to-read sentences
2. Suggesting to remove adverbs and passive voice
3. Grammar checking (though inferior to Grammarly)
4. Making your text bold and direct
With Hemingway tool, you may publish to WordPress or any other webpage.
There is also a paid version of Hemingway. Blogs use it to make their text more SEO-friendly.
SEO generally dictates that passive voice is a sin against humanity! It often seems impossible to remove passive voice from the text (even Grammarly can’t help here.)
This is why paid Hemingway is a lifesaver. It shows you many ways you could rewrite your passive text.
Let’s move on.
Thesaurus & RhymeZone
Synonyms, acronyms, pseudonyms, Huckleberry Finn…
Of the many free writing services, Thesaurus and RhymeZone take home the trophy of being most overused. In a good way.
Students use Thesaurus for several reasons:
- To find fancy synonyms, antonyms, etc., to pimp up their writing stylistically.
- Find useful replacement words and phrases that best explain what they’re trying to say.
If you look up a word + definition, it will lead you straight to Thesaurus. Like any classic physical thesaurus, Thesaurus lists synonyms in order from most to least relevant.
Also, it automatically lists similar terms and antonyms below your query.
On the other hand, you got RhymeZone: a gem for students of literature, fiction writers, lyricists, and aspiring rappers.
RhymeZone provides the following invaluable features for those who need them:
- Finding rhymes
- Finding near and far rhymes (you thought nothing rhymes with orange? What about knowledge, college, porridge, storage, torrent…)
- Showing example sentences for searched words
- Listing words with similar sounds
- Finding lyrics and poems where this word has already been used
The list goes on.
RhymeZone is extremely fun to play around with, plus it can turn any average Joe into a rapper!
Celtx
Are you here looking for a script writing software? Students who study arts in-depth or young authors may benefit from using book writing software online. They say even the world’s distinguished authors either download something like an online word processor or hire ghostwriters to cope with their writing.
Celtx is a free script writing software with the paid extra features. The paid version is still cheaper than other script writing software offers.
Celtx currently has more than 3 million users, and it is a cloud-based tool that is useful for storyboarding and production.
Professional bloggers also prefer this free software. If the default features do not seem enough, satisfy your hunger bye purchasing one of the offered subscription packages.
Many famous filmmaking teams used to benefit from using this writing application. It is the best option for the students who need help with screenwriting as its paid subscription costs only $9.99. The writing service from Celtx developers integrates with iOS applications & Android apps.
StayFocused
StayFocused is free writing software that helps you stay… focused.
No pun intended.
This browser extension is free and easy to set up. It limits the time you spend on time-wasting websites, helping you avoid that urge to open Facebook as soon as you’re on the computer.
If you’re having concentration problems, like most of us do in 2018, then StayFocused is what you need!
Online Citation Generators
Everyone hates citations, but they are a necessary evil.
A good pop culture example of why citations are important is hip-hop music. Whenever a rapper uses a sample from a different song, they give the original author credit. Nobody gets respect for plagiarism.
Same goes for academia. However, citation formats are archaic and rather dull. Hence the advent of online citation generators.
Sadly, there are TONS of them, and they are all quite unreliable. We cannot recommend a specific one. We do however plan on making our own improved citation generator, aiming no less than to be the greatest!