To be able to gain higher qualifications, students need to learn to write well. The standards that colleges and universities set are high. It takes practice to master the necessary skills. But, with the help of the right tools, you can speed up the process of learning how to produce the written work you need to secure good marks. Today, we are going to look at the ones that are free to use.
- Citation creator
For most college and university papers you will be required to cite the sources you have used. This enables the marker to check that each student has carried out the necessary research and is basing their arguments on facts. Creating these citations and doing so in the correct format takes quite a bit of time.
However, you can greatly speed up the process by using this free MLA citation tool. All you need to do is to fill in the necessary fields, click the cite source button, then copy and paste the result into the paper you are writing. It works for websites, magazines, books, encyclopedias, and several other popular sources of information that students use.
- Grammar checker
Spelling and grammar checkers cannot pick up every single mistake that you make. But, some of the free ones, for example, Grammarly, will highlight most of them. If you combine it with the checker that is built into your word processor so you will pick up even more.
- Word processor package
Speaking of word processors, if you want to do so, you can easily use one of the free ones. This review post compares 5 of the best side by side.
- Mind mapping tools
Being able to get your ideas down, then organize them is essential if you want to write a good paper. If you cannot do that it will be impossible to develop strong arguments. There are a lot of online mind mapping tools out there. One of the best free ones is MindMup. Once you have learned the keyboard shortcuts you can work fast, which is good for flow. Being able to come up with and get your ideas down almost as fast as you can think of them keeps the momentum going. Importantly, you can share and convert these mind maps into popular document formats such as PDFs.
- Free readability tools
Whatever you write needs to be easy to read. Using readability scores is a good way to spot potential issues. There are several available and most word processor packages have one built-in. You can also use Readable for free.
- Tools to help you to focus
One of the biggest challenges anyone who writes faces is staying focused. It is wise to download and use an app or browser extension that forces you to stay focused. Most work by stopping you from being able to access social media sites, email, and other time-sapping resources that can easily tempt you away from your work.
