Write like a pro: 7 tools to master academic writing
Writing like a professional in academic writing is a challenging task. It demands organization, precision, and mastery of tools that encourage you to create compelling research papers, essays, and dissertations.
This article has compiled a list of tools that will help you work smarter and better when writing an academic piece.
What is academic writing?
Academic writing is a formal style of writing used by researchers and educators in publications. It focuses on logical reasoning and evidence-based arguments to reflect the essay writers understanding of the subject.
7 tools to master the art of academic writing
As mentioned above, academic writing can be daunting without access to key tools that can assist you in creating compelling academic essays and research papers. Check out the seven essential tools that will change your academic writing game.
1. Reference Management Systems:
These reference management software are used for organizing, storing, and sharing reference collections. The key advantage of using these tools is to avoid endless trips to the online library and creating easy bibliographies.
Features:
- Get bibliographic data from journals, websites, books, and more
- Structured organization of references
- Generate bibliographies and citations in different academic styles, including MLA, APA, and Chicago.
- Sync references across different devices for smooth access.
Benefits:
- Saves hours of manual citation formatting
- Reduces the risk of inconsistencies and errors
- Integrates with other word processing tools and software for in-text citations
- Allows easy sharing of references with co-authors and collaborators.
Popular Choices:
- Mendeley: Free, cloud-based software with a key focus on research collaboration.
- EndNote: Paid software that offers advanced features like group management references and citation analysis.
- Zotero: Free, open-source tool with eminent integration with word processors and search engines.
2. Plagiarism checkers and Grammarly
Unsurprisingly, even the best writers make grammatical errors and unintentional plagiarism mistakes while writing in a flow. It is always wise to go over your work using these tools to ensure clarity and originality.
Features:
- Identify punctuation and grammar errors.
- Detects potential plagiarism by comparing your content to a vast digital database of resources.
- Identifies overused phrases and words
- Suggests stylistic improvements in writing for conciseness and clarity.
Benefits:
- Ensures your writing is free of errors and polishes
- Minimizes risks of plagiarism, providing peace of mind to writers
- Offers valuable insights into improving sentence structure and writing style
Popular Choices:
- Grammarly: One of the best grammar checkers out there, with a robust plagiarism checker and premium service that offers advanced writing suggestions powered by AI.
- ProWritingAid: This Paid tool focuses on style suggestions, vocabulary improvement, and sentence structure analysis.
- Turnitin: Famous plagiarism detector employed by educational institutions that offer comprehensive resource comparison.
3. Citation generators
Don’t let the burden of complex citations slow you down. Citation-generating tools provide a convenient and quick way to create accurate bibliographies and in-text citations.
Features:
- Generate citations in different academic styles of writing based on source information.
- It offers varied options in citation formats, including MLA, APA, and Chicago.
- Allows manual input for key reference details
- Clubbing these tools with reference management tools provides seamless workflows
Benefits:
- It saves time and effort for researchers in comparison to manual citation formatting
- Minimizes the risk of making any citation errors.
- Offers the perfect helping hand for the starting point of complicated formatting.
Popular choices:
- BibMe: Free web-based tool that offers plagiarism checking, citation generator, and formatting tools.
- EasyBIb: Popular online tool (also a mobile application) that quickly builds bibliographies and generates citations.
- Citation Machine: This free online tool supports different citation styles while working in a user-friendly interface.
Other tools to enhance your writing and readability
Writing compelling academic content and ensuring its readability is up to the SEO standards is almost an impossible task (if you try to do it manually without years of experience). However, whether you have writer’s block or simply need impactful visuals to complement your writing, these writing tools are the best in the market.
4. Hemingway
Hemingway is a tool that helps you to create captivating and impactful academic content.
Features:
- Highlights complex sentences and long paragraphs, encourages crisp and concise writing
- Identifies overused passive voice and adverbs, promoting an active style of writing
- Calculates the readability score of your content, ensuring your writing aligns with the audience’s needs.
Benefits:
- Streamline your writing by focusing on impact and clarity
- It makes your academic content more engaging and easier to grasp for readers
- It helps you write a more direct style of writing
5. Writer Igniter by diyMFA
Writer Igniter helps academic writers and researchers overcome writer’s block and create captivating content by igniting your creative side.
Features:
- Provides a vast library of writing styles across genres, sparking inspiration and new ideas.
- Offers setting descriptions and character generators to kickstart your creativity
- Incorporates daily writing exercises to keep your mind fit to generate creative ideas
Benefits:
- Overcomes writer’s block and gets your creative motor running
- Provides different prompts to explore new styles and themes
- It gets you to practice writing regularly to improve your skills
6. Flesh-kincaid grade level by text compare
This modified readability tool analyzes your content and grades it according to how easy or difficult it is to read (fifth grader being the easiest and college being ‘difficult to read’). Experts in the field suggest that a content guide should be written around the eighth grade for the general public.
Features:
- Reliable measure of readability score
- Analyzes content based on readability in terms of how easy or difficult the content is
Benefits:
- It helps you to tailor the complexity of your writing style and align it with your specific audience.
- Offers a gauge of your readability and how easily your readers will understand your essay
- Optimizes readability by guiding you towards clearer and more accessible goals by indicating the U.S. school grading system required to understand the academic content.
7. VisuWords
Visu Word is a tool that helps you to amplify your academic content by including compelling visuals that complement your writing.
Features:
- It generates free mind maps and word clouds, giving a vision of your ideas.
- Provides a library of royalty-free images to improve your articles
- Offers tools to create data visualizations and custom infographics
Benefits:
- It makes your academic content more visually appealing
- Increases understanding and easier information retention using graphics
- Expands storytelling opportunities and delivers your unique message
Book academic writing service today
These tools help writers to create compelling content that is easy to comprehend and improves your writing skills. However, these are just the starting point of your journey to academic success. Use these tools for continuous learning to master academic writing.
Bonus Tip: Remember to underestimate the power of practice. Take out specific time from your day to dedicate to academic writing without any distractions.