It's nearing finals and that means we are pounding away at our keyboards. As an English major, and having most of my classes in the humanities, it's been more researching and essay writing season for me. Here is a quick guide of some of my favorite researching and writing tools that get me through this crunch-time:
Hemingway Editor
This trusty app will grade you on your readability and guide you on how to make your sentences easier to read. It tells you which sentences were harder to read than others, as well as, where the passive voice was used. This editor has saved my butt multiple times because I tend to be a rambler. There is a desktop version for a small fee available for both Mac's and PCs.
Diigo
Diigo is a social bookmarking website that allows you to highlight,annotate, and organize online articles. This tool has especially helped me when reading online research sources. You add the diigolet tool onto your bookmark bar, click it on, and you can highlight and annotate away. It also saves everything for you automatically. It's also good when you want to save all your articles you want to read at a later date. This is a completely free application!
Scrivener
A hardcore writing application for the most voracious of writers. This is a software that can both help with organizing thoughts in an academic paper, to creating a manuscript for a creative piece. You can map out your research, and also have several areas in which you can write notes and piece together your paper. This is a paid service, however, there are discounts for students. If you ever participate in NanoWrimo or CampNanoWrimo (the November and July Novel Writing challenges) they give discounts for the service. They also give a 30-day free trial during these months in particular. This is certainly an investment for any writer.
Ommwriter
This is an app that creates a private writing room where anyone can focus on their writing in peace. This is an authentic and safe space to write, and write only. There are various backgrounds and calming music to choose from for your personal writing room. This is a great app if you are easily distracted by the blank white screen of a Word document in front of you. They ask for a minimum donation before downloading to keep the application running. You can download onto a Mac, PC, or an iPad.
Coffitivity
This is an app for both your laptop and your smartphone. Coffitivity recreates the various sounds of the coffee-shop at your fingertips. There is something ultimately satisfying by hearing the clinking of plates hitting the counter, and the steaming of espresso being made. This app creates the aura of the coffee shop feel, anywhere. If you are someone that works well in a coffee shop, but can't afford a $5 cup of joe to do work there, this is the app for you.
Best of luck with the final papers being typed, you got this!
