Top 6 Digital Assistants to Help You in Essay Writing in 2021
Essay writing is like a dinosaur – it stays still and essentially remains the same routine process as a century ago, while the world around us is quickly changing, becoming interactive and digital. On the contrary, essays continue to be take-home, solitary assignments, which consume lots of students’ time and energy.
Nevertheless, the digital revolution is affecting even such stubborn and rigid processes as essay writing. Today, there are hundreds of digital tools and online apps, which help students in writing essays.
These apps and tools can also be downloaded and installed on your mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets (even phones) so that you can use them anytime and anywhere. Some apps can assist in a particular aspect of writing, for example, grammar or plagiarism checks, while others are truly versatile apps that aid writing from scratch to the final draft.
Below, we have made a list of the most useful apps and tools to help you in your essay writing.
RefME
In essay writing, we are often required to include exact citations and make a proper reference list in the end. Some essay requirements demand 4-5 external sources to be used, others may have 10 and more. The difficulty for many students here is how to correctly format their external sources, references, and citations.
A multitude of citation styles, such as Harvard, APA, MLA, AP, Turabian, have their own rules for citations – it’s hard to remember all of them! This is exactly why you need RefME! This tool organizes and formats your references according to a specific citation style. It is a must-have tool for every college student.
Dragon Dictation
This app is a brilliant invention of the informational revolution. It is essentially your humble and restless personal secretary, as it can write down everything you dictate. Use it online or download it to your laptop and start speaking while the app will be typing for you.
If you find typing hard or screens are too harmful to your eyesight – this app is right for you. The app utilizes the latest advancements in the Artificial Intelligence field and is very good at “hearing” and recognizing what you say. To use it, you don’t even need to be in front of your computer – start composing your essay text while walking or driving (be careful of the traffic!).
Coggle
Do you perceive visual information better than a written one? Are you more of a visual type of personality? Then Coggle is the tool for you. It works similar to many popular brainstorming techniques, with the only difference being that the tool takes down all your notes and ideas for you and organizes them in a logical and visually attractive form. Coggle can be used on any digital device and it is a very easy and intuitive app.
Evernote
Evernote is a very powerful and versatile writing tool. It can perform a multitude of operations including taking notes, working with written text, editing, including graphics, saving online references, and storing copies of your files in the cloud or a shared place. If you come across a great article online, you can bookmark it in Evernote to use later in your essay.
Evernote can be used for personal and commercial purposes. For academic and business purposes it is one of the best writing assistants at the moment as it allows shared use of the same document, collaboration, and provides a safe environment to store and access important documents online.
Brain.fm
Do you know that some people can work and write an essay better with gentle background noise? For some this noise can be a sound of a waterfall, light rain, or sea breeze, while for others calm music can do miracles. Brain.fm is your personal background noise manager. With time, it learns your preferred music and sounds and adapts to your writing style. Like the previous apps, it is very easy to use and navigate.
EditMinion
Do not have time for editing? Would you like someone knowledgeable to check your essay? Then EditMinion is a perfect choice. It is an all-mighty editing and proofreading app, which not only checks your spelling and grammar but also suggests changes to the content, improvements to the length of sentences, and tracks down weak and overused words. In essence, it is a collection of different, very useful tools in one single place. With EditMinion your essays will look and read professionally.
For the early 21st-century essay writer, there is an abundance of digital assistants out there. It only takes a minor effort to try some and shortlist the best few to assist in your essay writing daily.
