thesis software for writing

7 Must-Have Thesis Writing Tools in 2021

Writing tools like Grammarly, Mendeley online, Thesaurus, BibMe, Evernote, Plagiarism checker, Hemingway Editor, Stay Focused and Dissertation authors have significant importance in thesis writing.  

Traditionally, writing a thesis for either PhD or dissertation was a tougher task, needing huge manual writing, Proofreading, correction, re-writing, and editing things manually. 

So, it was tedious, time-consuming and depressive and therefore no one wants to go for a doctorate. However, the recent scenario is totally different, now we have computers, mobile phones and a lot of apps. 

Things can be done at a fingertip, with one click and all done! Thanks to high-power computers and apps. “Useful” apps make tasks, work and everyday life easy for us. 

We now have apps for writing, proofreading, arranging documents, taking instant and important notes, doing citation & referencing and other stuff during your research. This article explains how a PhD student can utilize apps that are useful. I will also explain how you can use it. 

Features of Mendeley:

How to use mendeley , how to cite the work , features of evernote , how to use evernote , features of bibme are: , how to use bibme, how to use thesaurus , how to use dissertationauthers , features of grammarly: .

• How to use Grammarly? 

Features of Hemingway Editor: 

Wrapping up: , 7 must-have thesis writing tools in 2021, mendeley: .

Citing articles and enlisting references orderly isn’t an easy task; it’s time-consuming and tiresome. But what if a tool can do all this work seamlessly, effectively and precisely? Mendeley is that one tool you need.

Every PhD must have Mendeley- a reference manager tool. This app or web portal is exclusively designed to manage bibliography and citations therefore it must be there on every PhD students’ laptop. 

Four amazing features of Mendeley are, 

• You can store articles, PhD, journal reads on your Mendeley. 
• It automatically creates a reference format. 
• It can cite every bit of information seamlessly and precisely when integrated. 

Meaning just read the article from Mendeley, write your content in MS word and just do insert a citation. It automatically inserts the related citation and reference at the end of the page. 

Besides, several other features are, 

• It automatically generates a bibliography 
• You can import a pdf and research papers from other sources 
• You can find the relevant articles to what you are reading 
• You can collab with other researchers online 
• You can access all your article libraries from anywhere by logging in to your account. 

The Mendeley is developed by Elsevier Publication available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 

• Go to www.mendeley.com from your computer 
• Click on “create a free account”. 
• Enter your email address and continue your work. 
• Download the ‘Mendeley for desktop’ software 
• Start adding reading materials, pdfs and research articles or create your own library. 
• To use Mendeley for citation and referencing, first from your Mendeley app for tools and click on ‘Install MS word Plugin’. 
• Go to MS word>> referencing and insert citation using the Mendeley.

Now you are ready to use, write literature from the article and just click on insert citation and your work is ready. 

We are planning to write a whole article on the present topic, how to use it and how helpful it is, that article’s we will provide you later.

In summary, the very first software or app or tool every PhD student is required is Mendeley to write a thesis. It’s a citation and reference manager tool. 

 “Notes” as writing, images, pdf, article, news paragraph is an everyday part of a PhD student . Whatever you read, whenever you find things related to your PhD topic, you have to keep a note. 

And trust me keeping notes isn’t so easy. If you fail to make it up, you will forget it the next morning. Evernote- is a tool that keeps your notes from desktop, mobile or any other device and syncs them. 

• You can scan and save documents, label them, make important sentences underline and create pdf. 
• You can even save rich notes, save images, record audio, capture ideas. 
• You even can save entire or partial web pages. 
• You can mark, highlight, underline, and pinpoint every note you capture. 
•  And guess what you can excess it from anywhere. 

Go to www.evernote.com and click on sign in. 

Now click on ‘create account’ and create one using your email address. 

Or you can download the desktop apps. 

In summary, to keep notes seamlessly and organized, the Evernote tool is required. Moreover, users can create keyboard shortcuts, note links, anchor notes to remember and share notes. 

BibMe: 

BibMe- The online writing center is the tool or service developed by Chegg. It has many features to improve your academic writing and PhD work. 

One of the best features it has is it cites your work using different styles, even using their recent version of the style. 

• You can create accurate citations in multiple styles 
• Insert citation and references in your article or paper 
• Improve your writing by improving sentence structure, grammar and spelling 
• It can also detect plagiarism and can correct it. 

Go to www.bibme.org .

Click on ‘Create account’. Create your account using your email address and use their features. 

In summary, a BibMe app is an excellent tool, however, it isn’t available as a plugin for MS Word. You can use the free version or can use the paid version to explore more features. 

Thesaurus: 

Academic writing should be professional and precise, one needs to choose the correct word as per the sentence requirement. Using Thesaurus you can find synonyms of various words. 

Besides, You can find antonyms and choose acronyms and abbreviations. 

Go to www.thesaurus.com . 

Click on synonyms and type your word in the search box.  

In summary, Thesaurus makes your writing impressive when you use synonyms and transient words. 

Disserationauthors:  

Writing a research paper, review article or thesis is quite hard for a novice, you may feel helpless sometimes when your writeup is rejected multiple times. Even if you don’t understand what is wrong with your part. 

 If you feel so, don’t worry you can hire writers, experts or writing assistance who helps you. Dissertationauthors hire expert writers for you basically from the USA and UK. 

• Go to www.dissertationauthors.com . 
• Fill the order form 
• Pay for your write up or paper 
• Reach your personal writer 
• Download your completed work

In summary, students have to write their own stuff, however, if your writing isn’t of that level you can use this service. 

Grammarly: 

Grammar, spelling and synonyms are common problems every research student faces, specifically those who aren’t from a pure English background. Imagine, what if some software or tool can do all stuff automatically!

Grammarly is exactly that one tool. They have free and paid plans available, however, the free version is enough for most students. 

It has many services in which the Google chrome “add on” extension is the best. When activated it automatically detects and corrects English problems to all documents. 

Related article: Grammarly: Your PhD writing assistant

• Correct spelling and Grammer 
• Correct wordy sentences 
• Suggest punctuations 
• Structurize the sentence 
• Check plagiarism 
• Adds more transient words and synonyms 
• And a lot more… 

Read more: How to Check Plagiarism for PhD Thesis?- Top 10 Plagiarism Checkers

How to use Grammarly?  

• Go to www.grammarly.com  
• Sign in or sign up for your account. 
• Go to the Google chrome extension search for Grammarly. 
• Add Grammarly to your chrome extension. 
• Do a quick setting as per your requirement. 

In summary, Grammarly is the one tool or software that must be present on every PhD fellow’s laptop. Its technology is based on AI, meaning as you write more, it understands your style more and suggests accordingly. 

Moreover, it also mails you your performances, common problems and how you can improve.  

Hemingway Editor 

This software is somehow similar to Grammarly, however, it has something unique in it. It’s an online editor you can use to quickly edit your article. It finds common errors, sentence structure, and grammatical mistakes. 

It corrects it precisely. Several common features are enlisted here, 

• Highlight lengthy and complex sentences, and corrections 
• Finds common writing errors 
• Finds active or passive voices. 
• It denotes each error with a different color quote. 
• It can also add headings, count the number of words and other things. 

In summary, It’s not that impressive software for the students but can help especially to correct complex sentences. It is useful for bloggers. 

Apps and Softwares make your everyday life easy and when you are in PhD, it becomes so important to make things easy. You should visit and use all this Softwares and its tools. 

However, as per my opinion research candidates should have at least Grammarly, Mendeley and Evernote. These three are enough to do a lot of work. 

Use Mendeley for citation, bibliography generation and other PhD stuff, Grammarly for writing assistance and Evernote for keeping notes and important things. 

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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Dr Tushar Chauhan

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25+ Dissertation & Thesis Writing Apps

Everything You Need To Optimise Your Research Journey

Contributors: Derek J ansen (MBA),   Kerryn Warren (PhD) &  David Phair (PhD) | May 2024

Completing your dissertation   or thesis requires a hearty investment of time, effort and hard work. There’s no shortcut on the road to research success, but as with anything, there are   ways to optimise the process   and work smarter.

Here, we’ll share with you a wide range of apps, software and services that will   make your life a little easier   throughout the research process. While these apps can save you a lot of time, remember that your dissertation or thesis needs to be your own work – no tool should be doing the writing on your behalf. Also, be sure to check your university’s policy regarding AI-based tools and support before using any apps, tools or software. 

Overview: Dissertation & Thesis Apps

• Literature review
• Data collection
• Qualitative data analysis
• Quantitative data analysis
• Writing & Plagiarism
• Project management
• Reference management
• Honourable mentions

Literature Review & Search Apps

The following apps and tools can help you discover, analyse, and synthesise scholarly materials, significantly streamlining the literature review process.

Scite AI – Find & evaluate sources

The Scite AI app uses ‘Smart Citations’ to show how academic papers are discussed—i.e.,  supported, contradicted, or mentioned. This can help you fast-track the literature review process and source highly relevant papers quickly. 

Petal – Chat with your literature

Petal is an AI-driven tool that revolutionises your interaction with documents by enabling direct, context-aware conversations. Upload an article and it will swiftly summarise its contents and allow you to ask questions about the specific study (or studies).

Consensus – ChatGPT for academia

The Consensus app uses a powerful AI engine to connect you to over 200 million scientific papers. It allows precise searches and efficiently summarises key research findings . PS – Get 40% off Consensus Premium by using the coupon code GRADCOACH40.

Litmaps – Visualise related papers

This app is great for quickly identifying relevant research. For any given keyword or resource, it will provide you with a visual citation network, showing how studies are interconnected. This reveals both direct and tangential connections to other research, highlighting gaps and key discussions within your field.

Connected Papers – An alternative

Similar to Litmaps, Connected Papers visually maps academic research, simplifying how you explore related studies. Just input a paper, and it charts connections, helping identify key literature and gaps. It’s ideal for staying updated on emerging research.

Elicit – An “AI research assistant”

Another AI-powered tool, Elicit automates the discovery, screening, and data extraction from academic papers efficiently. This makes it useful for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as it allows you to focus on deeper analysis across various fields​.

Data Collection & Preparation

These apps and tools can assist you in terms of collecting and organising both qualitative and quantitative data for your dissertation or thesis.

SurveyMonkey – Simple surveys

SurveyMonkey is a versatile tool for creating and distributing surveys. It simplifies collecting and analysing data, helping you craft surveys that generate reliable results. Well suited for the vast majority of postgraduate research projects.

Qualtrics – An alternative

Qualtrics is a comprehensive survey tool with advanced creation, distribution, and analysis capabilities. It supports complex survey designs and robust data analysis, making it ideal for gathering detailed insights and conducting high-quality research.

Otter – Easy draft transcription

Otter is an AI-powered transcription tool that converts spoken words into text. It captures and transcribes lectures, interviews, and meetings in real time. Naturally, it’s not 100% accurate (you’ll need to verify), but it can certainly save you some time.

Qualitative Data Analysis

These software packages can help you organise and analyse qualitative data for your dissertation, thesis or research project.

NVivo – All-in-one qual platform

NVivo is a powerful qualitative data analysis software that facilitates data organisation, coding, and analysis. It supports a wide range of data types and methodologies, enabling detailed analysis and helping you extract rich insights from your data.

MaxQDA – QDA simplified

MAXQDA is a robust qualitative data analysis software that helps you systematically organise, evaluate, and interpret complex datasets. A little easier to get started with than NVivo, it’s ideal for first-time dissertation and thesis writers.

ATLAS.ti – For large datasets

ATLAS.ti offers robust tools for organising, coding, and examining diverse materials such as text, graphics, and multimedia. It’s well-suited for researchers aiming to weave detailed, data-driven narratives as it streamlines complex analysis tasks efficiently.

Delve – An intuitive interface

Delve is an intuitive qualitative data analysis tool designed to streamline the qualitative analysis process. Ideal for dissertations, Delve simplifies the process from initial data organisation to in-depth analysis, helping you efficiently manage and interpret complex datasets for clearer insights.

Quantitative (Statistical) Data Analysis

These software packages can help you organise and analyse quantitative (statistical) data for your dissertation, thesis or research project.

Julius – Your “AI data analyst”

Julius is an AI-powered data analysis tool that simplifies the process of analysing and visualising data for academic research. It allows you to “chat” with your data, create graphs, build forecasting models, and generate comprehensive analyses.

IBM SPSS – The “old faithful”

The OG of statistical analysis software, SPSS is ideal for students handling quantitative data in their dissertations and theses. It simplifies complex statistical testing, data management, and graphical representation, helping you derive robust insights.

R Studio – For the data wizards

While admittedly a little intimidating at first, R is a versatile software for statistical computing. It’s well-suited for quantitative dissertations and theses, offering a wide range of packages and robust community support to streamline your work.

STATA – For the data scientists

Stata is yet another comprehensive statistical software widely used for data management, statistical analysis, and graphical representation. It can efficiently handle large datasets and perform advanced statistical analyses.

Writing Improvement & Plagiarism Tools

These apps and tools can help enhance your writing and proactively identify potential plagiarism issues.

Grammarly – Improve your writing

Grammarly is a writing assistant that can help enhance academic writing by checking for errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation in real time. It also features a plagiarism detection system , helping you to proactively avoid academic misconduct.

Jenni – An AI “writing assistant”

Jenni AI helps you draft, cite, and edit with ease, streamlining the writing process and tackling writer’s block. Well suited for ESL students and researchers, Jenni helps ensure that your work is both precise, clear and grammatically sound.

Quillbot – Paraphrasing simplified

Quillbot is yet another AI-powered writing tool that can help streamline the writing process. Specifically, it can assist with paraphrasing , correcting grammar, and improving clarity and flow. It also features a citation generator and plagiarism checker .

Quetext – Solid plagiarism checking

Quetext is a plagiarism detection tool that helps ensure the originality of your academic work. It cross-references your documents against extensive online databases to highlight potential plagiarism and generate detailed reports.

Project & Time Management

These apps can help you plan your research project and manage your time, so that you can work as efficiently as possible.

GanttPro – PM simplified

An intuitive project management tool, GanttPro simplifies planning and tracking for dissertations or theses. It offers detailed Gantt charts to visualise task timelines, dependencies, and progress, helping you ensure timely completion of each section.

Trello – Drag-and-drop PM

Trello is a versatile project management tool that helps you organise your dissertation or thesis process effectively. By creating boards for each chapter or section, you can track progress, set deadlines, and coordinate tasks efficiently.

Toggl – Make every minute count

A user-friendly time-tracking app that helps you manage your research project effectively. With Toggl, you can precisely track how much time you spend on specific tasks. This will help you avoid distractions and stay on track throughout your journey.

Reference Management

These apps and tools will help you keep your academic resources well organised and ensure that your citations and references are perfectly formatted, every time.

Mendeley – Your citations, sorted

Mendeley is your go-to reference management tool that simplifies academic writing by keeping your sources neatly organised. Perfect for dissertations and theses, it lets you easily store, search, and cite your resources directly in MS Word.

Zotero – Great for Google Docs

Zotero is a free-to-use reference manager that ensures your sources are well-organised and flawlessly cited. It helps you collect, organise, and cite your research sources seamlessly. A great alternative to Mendeley if you’re using Google Docs.

Endnote – A paid option

Yet another reference management option, Endnote is sometimes specifically required by universities. It efficiently organises and stores research materials, making citation and bibliography creation (largely) effortless.

Honourable Mentions

Now that we’ve covered the more “exciting” dissertation apps and tools, it’s worth quickly making one or two mundane but essential mentions before we wrap up.

You’ll need a reliable word processor.

In terms of word processors, Microsoft Word will likely be your go-to, but it’s not the only option. If you don’t have a license for Word, you can certainly consider using Google Docs, which is completely free. Zotero offers a direct integration with Google Docs, making it easy to manage your citations and references. If you want to go to the other extreme, you can consider LaTeX, a professional typesetting software often used in academic documents.

You’ll need cloud storage.

The number of times we’ve seen students lose hours, days or even weeks’ worth of hard work (and even miss the submission deadline) due to corrupted flash drives or hard drives, coffee-soaked laptops, or stolen computers is truly saddening. If you’re not using cloud storage to save your work, you’re running a major risk. Go sign up for any of the following cloud services (most offer a free version) and save your work there:

• Google Drive
• iCloud Drive

Not only will this ensure your work is always safely stored (remember to hit the Save button, though!), but it will make working on multiple devices easier, as your files will be automatically synchronised. No need to have multiple versions between your desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. Everything stays in one place. Safe, secure, happy files.

Need a helping hand?

Key Takeaways: Dissertation & Thesis Apps

And there you have it – a hearty selection of apps, software and services that will undoubtedly make your life easier come dissertation time.

To recap, we’ve covered tools across a range of categories:

Remember, while these apps can help optimise your dissertation or thesis writing journey, you still need to put in the work . Be sure to carefully review your university’s rules and regulations regarding what apps and tools you can use – especially anything AI-related.

Have a suggestion? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Simply leave a comment below and we’ll consider adding your suggested app to the list.

15 Comments

It seems some of the apps mentioned are not android capable. It would be nice if you mentioned items that everyone could use.

Thanks for the feedback, Gale!

Yet to explore some of your recommended apps. I am glad to commend on one app that I have started using, Mendeley. When it comes to referencing it really helps a lot.

Great to hear that, Maggie 🙂

I have got Mendeley and it is fantastic. I have equally downloaded Freemind but I am yet to really understand how to navigate through it.

Based on your YouTube lessons,my literature review and the entire research has been simplified and I am enjoying the flow now,more than ever before.

Thank you so much for your recommendations and guide.It’s working a great deal for me.

Remain blessed!

Thank you for all the amazing help and tutorials. I am in the dissertation research proposal stage having already defended the qualifying paper. I am going to implement some of your advice as I revise chapters 1 & 2 and expand chapter 3 for my research proposal. My question is about the writing– or specifically which software would you recommend. I know MS Word can get glitchy with larger documents. Do the “reference” apps you recommend work with other options such as LaTeX? I understand that for some programs the citations won’t be integrated or automated such as cite while you write etc.. I have a paid version of endnote, and free versions of mendeley and zotero. I have really only used endnote with any fidelity but I’m willing to adapt. What would you advise at this point?

Thanks for your comment and for the kind words – glad to hear that the info is useful.

Generally, Word works reasonably well for most research projects and is our first recommendation. As long as one keeps the document clean (i.e. doesn’t paste in loads of different styles, ultra high-res images, etc), it works fine. But I understand that it’s not perfect for absolutely huge projects.

Regarding referencing with Latex, this article covers how to use Mendeley with Latex – https://blog.mendeley.com/2011/10/25/howto-use-mendeley-to-create-citations-using-latex-and-bibtex/ . Perhaps it will be useful. I hesitate to tell you to adopt software X or Y, or to move from Endnote, as each software has its strengths and weaknesses, and performs better in certain contexts. I’m not familiar with your context, so it’s not possible for me to advise responsibly. Mendeley works well for the vast majority of our students, but if there’s a very specific bit of functionality that draws you to Endnote, then it may be best to stick with it. My generic advice would be to give Mendeley a try with some sample references and see if it has the functionality you need.

I hope this helps! Best of luck with your research 🙂

Thank you for your amazing articles and tips. I have MAC laptop, so would Zotero be as good as Mendeley? Thank you

Derek would you share with me your email please, I need to talk to you urgently.

I need a free Turnitin tool for checking plagiarism as for the tools above

I have been going crazy trying to keep my work polished and thesis or dissertation friendly. My mind said there had to be a better way to do literature reviews. Thank God for these applications. Look out world I am on my way.

Wow Thanks for this write-up i find it hard to track down extremely good guidance out there when it comes to this material appreciate for the publish site

Sir I have chosen topic substance abuse and psychological makeup a study on secondary school students but my supervisor told me to see some variable on this on which u work plz Need ur help

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Best Tools For Thesis Writing: Dissertation and Academic Writing Tools

In the quest to master the art of thesis writing, selecting the right tools is crucial. This comprehensive guide introduces the best tools available for thesis writing, each tailored to enhance different aspects of the writing process.

From advanced language proofing to efficient reference management, these tools are designed to streamline your workflow, ensure academic integrity, and elevate the quality of your thesis. Discover how each tool can transform your thesis writing experience, making it more efficient and effective. 

Best Tools For Thesis Writing

Grammarly – Language Proof Your Thesis

Grammarly is not just a grammar checker; it also cater to various aspects of academic writing, from ensuring the originality of content to assisting with the intricacies of formatting and citation.

Grammarly integrates with word processing software like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. It facilitates real-time editing and proofreading, allowing students to refine their thesis statements and arguments as they write. 

The tool’s compatibility with online sources is a boon for literature reviews, streamlining the process of integrating various studies and reports into a cohesive narrative.

It works with many reference management software, ensuring that all bibliographical entries are error-free and consistently formatted. These includes: 

One of the lesser-known features of Grammarly is its ability to suggest rephrases for overused or unclear phrases, a common issue in lengthy academic pieces like dissertations or theses. This aids immensely in maintaining a clear and engaging narrative throughout the writing process.

Additionally, for students working with LaTeX for technical writing or complex document formatting, Grammarly’s ability to check the clarity and readability of text, when used in conjunction with a LaTeX editor, is invaluable.

Grammarly’s free version is robust enough to handle the basics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. However, for a more in-depth analysis like vocabulary enhancement and advanced grammar checks, the premium version steps in.

Turnitin – Remove Plagiarism From Your Academic Writing

Turnitin is far more than just a plagiarism checker; Turnitin offers a suite of features that profoundly enhance the writing and research process.

One of Turnitin’s standout features is its ability to compare submitted work against an extensive database of academic papers, offering peace of mind to those concerned about inadvertent plagiarism in their dissertation writing.

This comparison includes a thorough check against online sources, making it a robust tool for literature reviews.

Turnitin’s integrates with word processing software like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. This way, you get real-time plagiarism detection, ensuring that all citations and references are accurately credited, a crucial aspect in academic integrity.

The software is also invaluable in managing the format and citation style of a thesis.

Whether it’s APA, MLA, or Chicago style, Turnitin helps ensure that your bibliography and in-text citations are correctly structured, thus avoiding common errors in academic writing.

Additionally, Turnitin’s feedback and grading tools are a boon for educators and students. They allow for detailed comments and suggestions, which can be crucial in refining a thesis statement or rephrasing sections for clarity and impact.

This feature is particularly beneficial in the revision phase of thesis writing.

Suppose you use reference management software like:

In this case, Turnitin’s compatibility ensures a seamless integration, making the management of bibliographies and citations more efficient.

This integration is especially helpful in disciplines requiring extensive reference management, such as in technical writing or legal studies.

Microsoft Word – Base For Your Thesis Writing 

Microsoft Word, offers a plethora of features tailored for the rigorous demands of thesis writing and dissertation crafting. It’s more than just a word processor; it’s a comprehensive tool designed to streamline the writing process for students and researchers.

Microsoft Word’s template feature can be a game-changer for academic writing. You can set up a standard format for your thesis, including predefined styled for:

• Subheadings, and

This not only saves time but also helps in maintaining a professional look required for academic submissions.

One of the lesser-known yet incredibly handy features is the ability to create and manage citations and bibliographies.

Compatible with reference management software like Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote, Word simplifies the process of citation, crucial in avoiding plagiarism and ensuring proper acknowledgment of sources.

For those dealing with extensive research papers, Word’s navigation pane is a boon. It allows easy mapping and reorganization of sections, crucial in maintaining a coherent structure in your thesis. 

Word’s Review feature is invaluable for collaborative writing. It allows for tracking changes, inserting comments, and even comparing different versions of a document. This is particularly useful when multiple revisions are involved in the thesis writing process.

Freemind – Outline Your Dissertation

FreeMind, a mind mapping software, is an innovative tool that’s increasingly being utilized in the realm of academic writing, particularly for thesis and dissertation preparation.

This free, open-source software offers a dynamic way to organise:

• Research, and

At the heart of FreeMind’s utility is its ability to help students and researchers create visual outlines for their academic projects. This is particularly advantageous during the initial stages of thesis writing, where organizing a vast amount of information and ideas can be overwhelming.

FreeMind allows users to create nodes for each main idea or chapter of their thesis, to which they can add sub-nodes for more detailed points or references. This hierarchical structure makes it easier to map out the entire thesis, providing a clear overview of the project.

For graduate students embarking on extensive literature reviews, FreeMind can serve as a tool to categorize and link various sources and theories.

This not only aids in avoiding plagiarism by keeping track of citations but also helps in synthesising information from different sources cohesively.

Additionally, FreeMind’s compatibility with various word processing tools, like Microsoft Word and LaTeX, ensures that the transition from mind mapping to actual writing is seamless.

Its ability to export maps in multiple formats allows for easy integration into other software used in the writing process.

FreeMind’s real-time collaboration feature is a boon for those working on joint research papers or dissertations, facilitating brainstorming and idea-sharing among team members.

This feature, along with its intuitive interface, makes FreeMind a valuable asset in the toolkit of academic writing tools, enhancing both the efficiency and quality of academic writing projects.

ChatGPT – Best AI Writing Assistant

ChatGPT is based on advanced AI technology, and can be used to assist in various aspects of academic writing. This makes it a valuable asset for students and researchers.

In the context of thesis writing, ChatGPT can be utilized for brainstorming ideas, generating outlines, and even providing suggestions for thesis statements.

Its ability to process and generate text based on user prompts makes it an excellent tool for drafting initial versions of academic documents.

For those engaged in the laborious process of writing a dissertation, ChatGPT offers real-time assistance in:

• Rephrasing sentences,
• Enhancing clarity, and
• Suggesting alternative ways to present complex ideas.

For researchers conducting literature reviews, ChatGPT can help summarize articles, providing quick insights into their content. This is particularly useful when dealing with a large volume of literature.

However, it’s important to note that while ChatGPT is a powerful tool, it should be used to complement traditional research methods, ensuring accuracy and credibility in academic work.

ChatGPT’s versatility extends to its compatibility with various software tools used in academic writing, such as Microsoft Word, LaTeX, and softwares like Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote. This compatibility streamlines the writing process, from initial research to the final draft.

Canva – Software Tools For Graphics

Canva, primarily known for its graphic design capabilities, is increasingly finding its way into the realm of academic writing, particularly in the visual presentation of complex data and information.

This tool, with its user-friendly interface, offers a fresh approach to creating visually appealing elements for theses, dissertations, and research papers.

In the process of thesis writing, Canva can be used to design compelling graphics, such as infographics and charts, which are essential in representing data in a more digestible format.

This is especially beneficial in fields where visual data presentation can significantly enhance the understanding of complex topics.

Canva’s vast library of templates and design elements allows for the creation of professional-looking graphics without the need for advanced design skills.

For graduate students working on dissertations, Canva provides an array of options to create layouts for posters or presentations, often required for thesis defenses or academic conferences.

The tool’s drag-and-drop feature simplifies the process of designing these materials, making it accessible even for those with limited graphic design experience.

For those concerned about plagiarism and citation, Canva can aid in creating original graphics, ensuring that your academic work remains unique and authentic.

While it doesn’t replace traditional writing software, Canva complements them by adding a visual dimension to academic writing, enhancing the overall impact and readability of scholarly work.

Zotero – Citation Tools For Writing

Zotero has become a cornerstone tool for academic writing, especially in the fields of thesis and dissertation writing.

As a comprehensive tool designed for students, researchers, and academic writers, Zotero simplifies the process of managing research materials, such as: 

• Organizing, and

One of the standout features of Zotero is its ability to seamlessly integrate with browsers. This allows users to easily add sources from the web to their Zotero library with just a click.

For thesis writers who rely heavily on online sources for their literature review, this feature is a significant time-saver.

Zotero’s ability to automatically extract citation information and store it in an organized library simplifies the management of research sources.

Zotero offers robust support for various citation formats. Whether it’s:

• Chicago, or

Zotero can generate bibliographies and in-text citations in the chosen format, directly integrating with word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. This integration is particularly beneficial for maintaining consistency in citations throughout a lengthy academic document.

Furthermore, Zotero stands out for its collaboration features. It allows users to share libraries with others, making it a useful tool for co-authored research papers or group projects.

The real-time syncing feature ensures that all members of a research group have access to the latest resources and references.

Zotero’s compatibility with PDF management tools and its ability to index the content of PDFs for easy searching adds another layer of efficiency. For graduate students and thesis writers, this means quick retrieval of information from a vast collection of saved research papers.

Wrapping Up: Best Academic Writing Apps And Tools

In conclusion, the journey of thesis writing is made significantly smoother with the aid of these versatile tools. From Grammarly’s meticulous language polishing to Zotero’s efficient citation management, each tool offers unique capabilities to enhance your academic writing.

By integrating these resources into your workflow, you can focus more on the content and quality of your thesis, ensuring a well-crafted, professionally presented final document. Embrace these tools to unlock your full potential in academic writing and research.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

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Thesis Apps: Best Applications & Software for Graduate Students

The process of writing a thesis requires a lot of time and patience. Custom-writing.org experts are willing to make this task easier for you. We’ve compiled a list of thesis writing apps and software. These tools will help you make plans and self-organize. There are also free apps to improve your productivity, help you carry out the research, boost your vocabulary, and check your work for mistakes.

With the thesis apps on this list, you won’t ever have to wonder how to write a dissertation because you’ll know the answer – it’s easy!

• 📑 Word Processors
• ⏰ Time Managers
• 🚀 Productivity Apps
• 🎓 Dictionaries
• 🔬 Research Tools
• 🔤 Grammar Checkers

1. 📑 Word Processors and Note-Taking Apps

This should be a no-brainer, but writing is one of the essential parts of creating a thesis. So it’s evident that you need to have the best thesis apps to deal with this task effectively.

Here are some apps that you might want to check out.

• Google docs . This is probably the first app that comes to mind when you think of alternative free word processors. It has all the functionality and capabilities you’ll need to write and format your thesis. It also allows users to work together on the same document in real-time. It’s available for Android, iOS, or as a web app.
• WPS Office . This multi-platform solution includes not only a word processor. It’s also a full-fledged office suite that allows you to create and work with spreadsheets, presentations, and PDF documents. What else could you need to create a perfect thesis?
• Office Online . This one is for those who want to get the most out of Microsoft Office for free. This one is as good as it can get — an online version of Office. Enough said.
• Jarte . This is a free word processor based on the WordPad engine. It has all the necessary functions and provides a comfortable way to work with text—and it’s free. This app also can export your documents to PDF and HTML files.
• Evernote , Google Keep , and OneNote . The reason why we put these three together? They’re all note-taking apps. Do we know that there are many other similar apps too? Yes, we do. But there’s a reason why these three are so popular. They all offer the same thing – a way to keep all your notes in one place. The difference between them is how it’s all organized, along with some extra features. All of these thesis writing apps are free, too.

2. ⏰ Time-Managing Thesis Apps

With all the steps you need to complete to write a good thesis, it’s not hard to get lost. You can quickly get stuck in one place without knowing what to do and end up making no progress at all.

Or you can use one of the dissertation apps in this category to build a plan and organize your workflow!

• Pocket . Pocket brings order to the chaos of posts and articles you want to read or use to write your thesis. You can easily save them all in one place and look through them later. Then you can decide whether or not you’ll need a particular piece of information.
• Todoist . This one is a free time manager (though it also has paid plans with extra features). With this app, you can set deadlines for each stage of your thesis creation process, and it will remind you of them beforehand. This app will help you stay on track of what plans are waiting for you next.
• Wunderlist . This to-do list app indeed does wonders. It lets you build short- and long-term plans and keep them all in order. You can set notifications to stay on track and always be sure that you’re performing according to your schedule, whether it’s a particular stage of your thesis writing or some other assignment.

3. 🚀 Thesis Apps to Improve Productivity

We all have days when things don’t work, and everything is a distraction. So how can you deal with this all-too-common problem?

There’s a good selection of productivity apps that can help you out. With one of these, you’ll finish writing your thesis in no time.

• Any.do . This one is a task manager that’ll help you stay on track of whatever your current tasks are. It will help you build a habit of reviewing your tasks and make sure that you know which assignments you need to pay the most attention to at the moment. With this app, you won’t miss deadlines or find yourself wondering what to do next.
• IFTTT . This tool allows you to create short automation sequences without any coding skills. It will remember every little thing that you tend to forget. On the one hand, you’ll get those things done; on the other—you won’t get distracted by those tasks and will be able to concentrate on what’s important right now. The app supports plenty of services and is easy to use.
• RescueTime . This app will track the time you spend completing tasks. It will also report all the websites you visit, the apps you use, and breaks you take during the day. By doing so, it helps you create greater self-awareness. As a result, you’ll immediately see whether something is going wrong and keeping you from following your plan.
• StayFocusd . This Chrome extension helps you stay focused on your current task (which, of course, explains its name). It will block all those distracting sites that tend to get in your way while you’re working. You can set a specific time for blocking or choosing a time limit for a certain time during the day.
• Write or Die . This one is a web-based tool. It is also available for iOS, with an Android version coming soon. The tool helps you eliminate writer’s block. Within the app, you can set a specific period and the word count you need to reach within this time. It also features stimuli and rewarding images.

4. 🎓 Vocabulary Boosters and Dictionaries

At this stage, dictionaries and vocabulary boosters come into play.

• Merriam-Webster Dictionary . This is one of the most well-known dictionaries out there. Apart from listing definitions and offering a thesaurus, it also features word games. These word games aim to increase your vocabulary, which will come in handy when writing a thesis. Apart from having a web-based version, there are also apps available for Android and iOS.
• Cambridge Dictionary . This is another famous dictionary listing almost every aspect and sphere imaginable. In long-term perspective, it’s even more useful than the best thesis statement generator , as it can potentially provide you with knowledge you’ll keep forever. All of the resources are available from the site, widget, or official mobile apps. A wide selection of available dictionaries and thesauruses will surely meet all of your writing needs.
• The Free Dictionary . There are many things to discover under this simple name. This web service provides dictionaries on a variety of topics. It also features a thesaurus, idioms, acronyms, a grammar book, and encyclopedia articles. What else can you ask for?

5. 🔬 Tools for Conducting Research

Another essential part of writing a thesis is research. Without properly researched sources and data , everything that’s written in your thesis will be highly questionable.

To avoid poorly supported arguments , and to be able to conduct outstanding research, consider using one of the following tools.

• Mendeley . Once you try this tool, you won’t believe that you ever researched without it. It will help you complete any type of research, come up with a topic for your paper, organize your literature review , make annotations, and manage your research materials. This multi-platform tool also allows syncing across all your devices.
• Mindmup , Bubbl.us . Both of these apps are great tools for mind mapping. They’ll help you get all of your thoughts and ideas in order. This organization will significantly help your research, as everything will be neatly organized and accessible. Both of these tools have free plans and web versions. They only differ with their extra features.
• WolframAlpha . This is a go-to source of expert knowledge on a wide variety of disciplines. This answer engine is also available on mobile platforms. Instead of just giving a list of documents or web pages that may or may not answer your question, it comes up with results from a curated knowledge base in response to your query.

6. 🔤 Grammar Checkers

Everyone makes mistakes. But it’s not a bad idea to make sure that there’s none in your thesis. The apps described below can help you with that.

• Hemingway Editor . This tool aims to improve your writing style and make it as straightforward as possible. It makes colored highlights to indicate long or very complicated sentences. As a result, you get a clean piece of content that’s understandable and easy to digest.
• Ginger . This multi-platform solution helps you find and correct all types of grammar mistakes. It also makes it easier to edit text, which improves your overall productivity, as you’ll spend less time correcting errors.
• Grammarly . This tool has gained so much popularity that it probably doesn’t even require an introduction. It finds and corrects mistakes that no word processor can spot. The tool has a browser extension, offline software, and a premium version with extra features.

Hopefully, you’ll get some thesis help by using these free tools. With these apps at your disposal, you’ll be able to craft a fantastic thesis easily.

Did we miss something? Are there any free thesis apps that you like to use that aren’t on this list? Tell us about them in the comments!

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I need pure thesis

The Best Software for Writing Your Dissertation

By  Lesley McCollum

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Lesley McCollum is PhD student in neuroscience at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. You can follow her on Twitter @lesleyamccollum.

I’m writing this post in Microsoft Word. Chances are, it’s where you do a lot of your writing as well. It’s easy, convenient, familiar, and gets the job done for simple text documents. There are a lot of great features to MS Word if you want to (or have to) stick with it for your writing. If so, check out our previous post by Hanna on quick tricks for formatting in Word.

Some tasks call for a bit more than a basic word processor, though. If you’ve ever spent too many frustrating hours trying to format a Word document with multiple tables and figures (why does my figure keep moving halfway off the page?!), then you will likely agree that it’s not always the best to work with. As I embark on the dissertation-writing journey, I have been looking for an alternative to MS Word that is up for the job—something that can handle a large multi-chaptered document with robust formatting options.

The ideal software would be cheap (preferably free), fairly quick and painless to learn, and compatible with a reference/citation manager. One barrier to changing software is that my mentor likes using MS Word to edit my documents with the track changes feature. So a bonus would be that files could easily be converted to .docx to ease sending them to my PI for reviews. Here are a few non-Word options I have come across in my search for the best dissertation-writing software that seem to be favorites:

Windows, Mac OS X, Linux/Unix

LaTeX is an open-source document preparation system that was designed for scholarly and technical writing, and is great for handling large documents. It is a powerful and highly customizable typesetting system that, in contrast to MS Word, separates the content and document design. LaTeX is a markup language—it’s not exactly a programming language, but it does have similarities to coding. Because of this, there is definitely a learning curve when starting out. I was first exposed to LaTeX during college and used it to write my undergraduate thesis. It did take a while to learn, but has a huge amount of document support, and a great online community to answer just about any question you come across. The features I found that really made it worth the effort were its phenomenal job at handling mathematical equations, tables, and figures, and its own powerful reference manager BibTeX. Because it was designed to be used with LaTeX, they integrate perfectly and handle citations and cross-referencing effortlessly. One downside is that LaTeX does not export to .docx file format, so if you need a Word document for revisions or submission, there is no streamlined conversion from LaTeX. If you’re lucky, some schools provide LaTeX thesis templates already meeting the required specifications, so all you have to worry about is the content. Check out this great, detailed article on why you should use LaTeX for writing your dissertation.

If you are sold on the powerful and flexible typesetting available with LaTeX, but aren’t crazy about working solely with the markup language, a great compromise is LyX. It uses LaTeX in the background, but lets you write the content in a user interface similar to a word processor like MS Word. It still has all the advanced capabilities of LaTeX for mathematical equations and formatting, and integration with BibTeX. Other users have found that it doesn’t completely remove the need to understand LaTeX, but reduces the learning curve a bit. There are other programs that also provide a graphical editor for LaTeX such as Scientific Workplace or TeXmacs .

Mac OS X, Windows, Linux (beta)

Cost: $35-45 (free 30-day trial)

If you are a veteran GradHacker reader, you’ve likely seen Scrivener mentioned before, like here and here . In addition to standard word processing, Scrivener is great for project management and organization. It combines the visual appeal and ease-of-use that Macs are known for, and its users swear by it. It has a drag-and-drop interface, so a large document can be easily written in fragments, and provides a personal research database for easy storage of notes, folders, images (and just about anything else) that you collect as sources for your project. Another great feature of Scrivener is its compatibility with multiple file formats, making it easy to export in just about any document type. There are a couple of downsides for scientific writing, however. Scrivener lacks integration with reference management software—though users have found ways to handle citations, it doesn’t work seamlessly. It’s also not great for document layout containing formatted tables and figures. Check out this ProfHacker article on the values of Scrivener for academic writing.

An important note: don’t let the preparation of your dissertation get in the way of writing it . A complex document of this size could be edited and formatted forever, so don’t let that be a mode of procrastination! Try the software out, and it you don’t jive with it, stick with what works for you. Tools like these should only be sought if they will streamline the process for you, not hinder it. Adapt your writing software to meet the needs of your writing project. There isn’t always one perfect option—you may find that integrating multiple writing programs works best for the writing, compiling, and editing stages. Maybe all you really need is a distraction-free writing space to get the job done.

Check out these other helpful resources for finding an alternative to any software and for a detailed comparison of word processors .

What software are you using to write your dissertation, and what do you love about it?   Please share it with us in the comments!

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user Ross Mayfield and used under a Creative Commons license.]

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AI for thesis writing — Unveiling 7 best AI tools

Table of Contents

Writing a thesis is akin to piecing together a complex puzzle. Each research paper, every data point, and all the hours spent reading and analyzing contribute to this monumental task.

For many students, this journey is a relentless pursuit of knowledge, often marked by sleepless nights and tight deadlines.

Here, the potential of AI for writing a thesis or research papers becomes clear: artificial intelligence can step in, not to take over but to assist and guide.

Far from being just a trendy term, AI is revolutionizing academic research, offering tools that can make the task of thesis writing more manageable, more precise, and a little less overwhelming.

In this article, we’ll discuss the impact of AI on academic writing process, and articulate the best AI tools for thesis writing to enhance your thesis writing process.

The Impact of AI on Thesis Writing

Artificial Intelligence offers a supportive hand in thesis writing, adeptly navigating vast datasets, suggesting enhancements in writing, and refining the narrative.

With the integration of AI writing assistant, instead of requiring you to manually sift through endless articles, AI tools can spotlight the most pertinent pieces in mere moments. Need clarity or the right phrasing? AI-driven writing assistants are there, offering real-time feedback, ensuring your work is both articulative  and academically sound.

AI tools for thesis writing harness Natural Language Processing (NLP) to generate content, check grammar, and assist in literature reviews. Simultaneously, Machine Learning (ML) techniques enable data analysis, provide personalized research recommendations, and aid in proper citation.

And for the detailed tasks of academic formatting and referencing? AI streamlines it all, ensuring your thesis meets the highest academic standards.

However, understanding AI's role is pivotal. It's a supportive tool, not the primary author. Your thesis remains a testament to your unique perspective and voice.

AI for writing thesis is there to amplify that voice, ensuring it's heard clearly and effectively.

How AI tools supplement your thesis writing

AI tools have emerged as invaluable allies for scholars. With just a few clicks, these advanced platforms can streamline various aspects of thesis writing, from data analysis to literature review.

Let's explore how an AI tool can supplement and transform your thesis writing style and process.

Efficient literature review : AI tools can quickly scan and summarize vast amounts of literature, making the process of literature review more efficient. Instead of spending countless hours reading through papers, researchers can get concise summaries and insights, allowing them  to focus on relevant content.

Enhanced data analysis : AI algorithms can process and analyze large datasets with ease, identifying patterns, trends, and correlations that might be difficult or time-consuming for humans to detect. This capability is especially valuable in fields with massive datasets, like genomics or social sciences.

Improved writing quality : AI-powered writing assistants can provide real-time feedback on grammar, style, and coherence. They can suggest improvements, ensuring that the final draft of a research paper or thesis is of high quality.

Plagiarism detection : AI tools can scan vast databases of academic content to ensure that a researcher's work is original and free from unintentional plagiarism .

Automated citations : Managing and formatting citations is a tedious aspect of academic writing. AI citation generators  can automatically format citations according to specific journal or conference standards, reducing the chances of errors.

Personalized research recommendations : AI tools can analyze a researcher's past work and reading habits to recommend relevant papers and articles, ensuring that they stay updated with the latest in their field.

Interactive data visualization : AI can assist in creating dynamic and interactive visualizations, making it easier for researchers to present their findings in a more engaging manner.

Top 7 AI Tools for Thesis Writing

The academic field is brimming with AI tools tailored for academic paper writing. Here's a glimpse into some of the most popular and effective ones.

Here we'll talk about some of the best ai writing tools, expanding on their major uses, benefits, and reasons to consider them.

If you've ever been bogged down by the minutiae of formatting or are unsure about specific academic standards, Typeset is a lifesaver.

Typeset specializes in formatting, ensuring academic papers align with various journal and conference standards.

It automates the intricate process of academic formatting, saving you from the manual hassle and potential errors, inflating your writing experience.

An AI-driven writing assistant, Wisio elevates the quality of your thesis content. It goes beyond grammar checks, offering style suggestions tailored to academic writing.

This ensures your thesis is both grammatically correct and maintains a scholarly tone. For moments of doubt or when maintaining a consistent style becomes challenging, Wisio acts as your personal editor, providing real-time feedback.

Known for its ability to generate and refine thesis content using AI algorithms, Texti ensures logical and coherent content flow according to the academic guidelines.

When faced with writer's block or a blank page, Texti can jumpstart your thesis writing process, aiding in drafting or refining content.

JustDone is an AI for thesis writing and content creation. It offers a straightforward three-step process for generating content, from choosing a template to customizing details and enjoying the final output.

JustDone AI can generate thesis drafts based on the input provided by you. This can be particularly useful for getting started or overcoming writer's block.

This platform can refine and enhance the editing process, ensuring it aligns with academic standards and is free from common errors. Moreover, it can process and analyze data, helping researchers identify patterns, trends, and insights that might be crucial for their thesis.

Tailored for academic writing, Writefull offers style suggestions to ensure your content maintains a scholarly tone.

This AI for thesis writing provides feedback on your language use, suggesting improvements in grammar, vocabulary, and structure . Moreover, it compares your written content against a vast database of academic texts. This helps in ensuring that your writing is in line with academic standards.

Isaac Editor

For those seeking an all-in-one solution for writing, editing, and refining, Isaac Editor offers a comprehensive platform.

Combining traditional text editor features with AI, Isaac Editor streamlines the writing process. It's an all-in-one solution for writing, editing, and refining, ensuring your content is of the highest quality.

PaperPal , an AI-powered personal writing assistant, enhances academic writing skills, particularly for PhD thesis writing and English editing.

This AI for thesis writing offers comprehensive grammar, spelling, punctuation, and readability suggestions, along with detailed English writing tips.

It offers grammar checks, providing insights on rephrasing sentences, improving article structure, and other edits to refine academic writing.

The platform also offers tools like "Paperpal for Word" and "Paperpal for Web" to provide real-time editing suggestions, and "Paperpal for Manuscript" for a thorough check of completed articles or theses.

Is it ethical to use AI for thesis writing?

The AI for writing thesis has ignited discussions on authenticity. While AI tools offer unparalleled assistance, it's vital to maintain originality and not become overly reliant. Research thrives on unique contributions, and AI should be a supportive tool, not a replacement.

The key question: Can a thesis, significantly aided by AI, still be viewed as an original piece of work?

AI tools can simplify research, offer grammar corrections, and even produce content. However, there's a fine line between using AI as a helpful tool and becoming overly dependent on it.

In essence, while AI offers numerous advantages for thesis writing, it's crucial to use it judiciously. AI should complement human effort, not replace it. The challenge is to strike the right balance, ensuring genuine research contributions while leveraging AI's capabilities.

Wrapping Up

Nowadays, it's evident that AI tools are not just fleeting trends but pivotal game-changers.

They're reshaping how we approach, structure, and refine our theses, making the process more efficient and the output more impactful. But amidst this technological revolution, it's essential to remember the heart of any thesis: the researcher's unique voice and perspective .

AI tools are here to amplify that voice, not overshadow it. They're guiding you through the vast sea of information, ensuring our research stands out and resonates.

Try these tools out and let us know what worked for you the best.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, you can use AI to assist in writing your thesis. AI tools can help streamline various aspects of the writing process, such as data analysis, literature review, grammar checks, and content refinement.

However, it's essential to use AI as a supportive tool and not a replacement for original research and critical thinking. Your thesis should reflect your unique perspective and voice.

Yes, there are AI tools designed to assist in writing research papers. These tools can generate content, suggest improvements, help with formatting, and even provide real-time feedback on grammar and coherence.

Examples include Typeset, JustDone, Writefull, and Texti. However, while they can aid the process, the primary research, analysis, and conclusions should come from the researcher.

The "best" AI for writing papers depends on your specific needs. For content generation and refinement, Texti is a strong contender.

For grammar checks and style suggestions tailored to academic writing, Writefull is highly recommended. JustDone offers a user-friendly interface for content creation. It's advisable to explore different tools and choose one that aligns with your requirements.

To use AI for writing your thesis:

1. Identify the areas where you need assistance, such as literature review, data analysis, content generation, or grammar checks.

2. Choose an AI tool tailored for academic writing, like Typeset, JustDone, Texti, or Writefull.

3. Integrate the tool into your writing process. This could mean using it as a browser extension, a standalone application, or a plugin for your word processor.

4. As you write or review content, use the AI tool for real-time feedback, suggestions, or content generation.

5. Always review and critically assess the suggestions or content provided by the AI to ensure it aligns with your research goals and maintains academic integrity.

You might also like

What is a thesis | A Complete Guide with Examples

Software for Writing a PhD Thesis

There are four categories of software for thesis writing: (1) project organizing; (2) word-processing; (3) bibliographic organization; and (4) specialty software. Here are some of the best programs, along with those I find essential to my PhD thesis and scholarly writing workflow.

[UPDATED 2 February 2019 –  And I have successfully completed the PhD! Hooray! ]

Now I’ll be using a macbook pro for the task, but many of the software programs I mentioned can run on mac or pc (though some run better on one or the other).

Proje ct organizing/note taking.

Some might use a word-processing program for this while others might find a specialized program instead. I’ve heard of many people using Evernote , a free program I also have and like okay but use very little. (If you use Evernote, you must consider Brett Kelly’s guide, Evernote Essentials! ) There’s also MS OneNote, Simplenote, and Springpad (see a review of these here ).

I’ve decided on a more complicated yet powerful program, Scrivener . It’s difficult to describe what this program does in few words. It is similar to a word-processor–it in fact has a streamlined word processor as a main feature. But it is much more. It allows you to compose, organize and edit a complicated project (like a dissertation, book, or screenplay), its various chapters (or documents), notes and relevant documents (pdfs of articles, summary notes or quotes, etc.), among other things. Learning the program takes an initial investment in time (perhaps a Saturday morning), but the tutorial document walks you through the program’s main features quite nicely. I think this might be the single most powerful program I’ve been using in writing my thesis. In fact, I now have dozens of projects in Scrivener, from academic projects to business ventures. I love it.

So why use this and a word processor? For me, Scrivener’s real power is in the research/note-taking, initial composition and organization–especially organization!–phase of thesis work. While using Scrivener will add a step to the process (as opposed to using Word from the start), I Scrivener saves me time in the long run.

Scrivener is very affordable and they offer great customer support. Here are your four options for when you’re ready to purchase (education licenses are discounted):

Scrivener 3 for Mac OS X (Education Licence) Scrivener 3 for Mac OS X (Regular Licence) Scrivener for Windows (Education Licence) Scrivener for Windows (Regular Licence)

Though I’ve not used it, the Dummies guide for Scrivener has excellent reviews for those wanting more help.

File Syncing/Backup

While more a ‘service’ than ‘software’, consider a plan for backing up the files you create with all this software! I recommend a physical home back up solution that you perform at least monthly (preferably more often) in addition to  a cloud backup of your most important files. For the latter, DropBox   is my choice– sign up for free !

Word-processing.

One must, after all, be able to compose, format, and publish the thesis. Some use Scrivener for this (see above), and that is an option. Other opt for Microsoft Word ( amzn ). While Pages for Mac has some nice features, OpenOffice is capable, too, and I’ve heard a few, mostly those working with the Hebrew language extensively, recommend  Mellel ( amzn ) I have years of experience on Word and it is very widely used. Further, the University of Michigan Library has published a pdf online entitled “ Using Microsoft Word 2011 (Mac) for Your Dissertation ” to help! If you’re using Word for Mac for academic writing, it’s a must-read.

Bibliography organization.

Various programs on the market today specialize in organizing bibliographic data and integrating this data easily into word-processing documents. The top two I’ve heard people using are EndNote ( amzn ), and Zotero (one might add Nota Bene or Sente). I’ve only used Zotero, but its powerful, efficient, easy to learn/use, and costs nothing! I won’t be looking elsewhere. It also powerfully integrates into Word (for Windows or PC). I can also use it with Scrivener, my organizational and initial composition program. For a video on the power of Zotero for a theological library, see Andy Naselli’s helpful blog post here .

A lot of research goes into thesis writing. Let me introduce you to a web tool I’ve created to help: reSearch Engine . Just enter a search term, press enter, and presto.

Specialty Software.

I have and use all three and each has its pros and cons. I will likely use Accordance for my “quick and dirty” searching and copy-pasting of ancient languages. Of course, its a powerful program that can do intense searches, and I will likely use it for this when such searches are needed. Logos is my go to program for secondary resources, especially exegetical commentaries and quick referencing church fathers or other ancient sources. Logos has not just saved me money on print books, it has saved me from needing multiple book shelves!

I’d be happy to hear what others are using and find helpful.

106 Responses to Software for Writing a PhD Thesis

What I can’t seem to figure out is how to load ZOTERO on my MAC. I did it once a while back, but have a new computer now. I spent a couple hours once trying to download it and make it work… no joy 🙁 a post on where/how to install would help me… I may be hopeless, I still like binders and paper copies to organize research by chapter…

John Mark, good to hear from you! Do you remember when this was you tried to load it and whether it was the version that runs in the Firefox web browser or the stand-alone version? I’m now using the stand-alone version for mac which functions like a normal app. The other version I used (which is still available) was actually an extension in Firefox and, as I recall, was loaded differently. Here’s the Zotero download page –you’ll see the stand-alone versions down the page a bit. If you happen to have used one version or there other (or both), your library is sync-able, one to the other. I hope that helps a little.

> OpenOffice is capable, too

The development of OpenOffice has been stalled for a while, since its sponsoring company (Oracle) dropped it and its new home (Apache) is still trying to get organized. LibreOffice is its main successor, with an active development community and several new releases. I enjoy LibreOffice and have been using it for a study I’ve been writing over the last year (currently 60+ pages).

David, thanks for commenting–it’s been a while since we’ve talked! I wasn’t aware of the circumstances of development you’ve mentioned. I’ve used OpenOffice just a bit on Ubuntu, but since I already had Word, I wasn’t motivated enough to invest time into it (nor Ubuntu for the matter). Sounds like LibreOffice is serving your needs quite well. I’ll have to give it a look.

Josh, Take a look at http://www.ActiveScholar.com for an all-in-one application, designed by academics for academics: ResearchWriter. Love to hear your comments.

This looks interesting, but perhaps you can tell me how it is superior to Scrivener or other alternatives? It looks like the special pricing for your product is still twice the cost of Scrivener, and, correct me if I’m wrong, yours requires the user to also use MS Word?

I don’t know much about ActiveScholar, but from fiddling with it for about 5 minutes, I would instead recommend the free, more robust Citavi. Citavi is WONDERFUL and easily surpasses ActiveScholar, from what I can see. One can watch Citavi videos at http://www.citavi.com/ . Note: Citavi is for Windows computers, and if you want to run it on a Mac, you’d have to run Windows on your Mac.

Have you had a chance to use Scrivener?

[…] while back I mentioned using Scrivener for writing a thesis. Thought I’d share a few more thoughts on what I’ve enjoyed about it this […]

Don’t forget Mendeley for bibliography organization…it’s the best! mendeley.com/

In what ways do you think medeley is better than Zotero?

+1 to Mendeley.

I have tried all of them–Zotero, Endnote, etc., etc. Mendeley wins HANDS DOWN! The one and only, ONLY thing Zotero may do better than Mendeley is handle web snippets better than does Mendeley. Maybe. I haven’t tried to hard to deal with web snippets in Mendeley. I have gotten around this by using the snippet program provided on my laptop, saving my snippet in PDF format, and storing it in Mendeley. Also, snippets can also easily be stored in Citavi (another program worth a serious gander for Windows users or those willing to run Windows on their Mac). I tweak my academic workflow periodically, and at the moment Mendeley and Citavi are essential to my workflow. Citavi allows you to manage your note-taking and bibliography generation near flawlessly. I do not use Mendeley for bibliography generation, just FYI.

Some of what it is about Mendeley: the deep searching capability; the ability to annotate and note take and tag and key . . . all while leaving the PDF clean; the collaborative capabilities; the backup; the simplicity of syncing between its desktop and web versions . . . I could go on.

Once reason I can’t leave Mendeley: Say I vaguely remember an article I collected, but not too well. Perhaps I remember that it was about Peirce and Radford and algebra. Mendeley will allow me to quickly, quickly see which of the 1000+ PDF articles or book excerpts in the collection contain these three words. Then I can open and search the PDFs side-by-side, and deeply.

Mendeley and Zotero do “speak with one another,” from what I’ve read. However, I only deal with Mendeley and Citavi for source management. I blog a bit about this. 🙂 It’s a great topic.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Using Scrivener and Zotero, it seems I can get similar results as you describe here, though since I have not tried it with Mendeley and Citavi, I can’t offer a comparison. One difference appears to be Mendeley’s ability to handle pdfs, especially in annotating, etc. I can’t imagine the “time saving factor” is too different, but of course it all depends on what exactly you’re doing.

Thank you. This is so helpful!

Glad you found it helpful!

As PhD you must use latex document preparation system.

Perhaps in Math related studies, but this isn’t true across the board, esp. in humanities.

Can you import fonts into Scrivener (e.g., Greek and Hebrew fonts)?

So far as I know, Scrivener is able to use all (or at least most) the fonts you have installed on your system, including Greek and Hebrew. I copy and paste a lot of my Greek and Hebrew in unicode, and I’ve had no issues with them in Scrivener.

I’m just diving in to the writing of my dissertation (DBA) and I’m curious as to what “original language research” is. Is this specific to your topic? or do all research projects entail some form of original language research to some degree?

Excellent post by thew way, I definitely think that Scrivner looks promising.

i study theater literature in masters degree in iran.i wanna know which software is best for me to use. i should be compatible with office word and i can use persian font in it…what kind of software do you suggest?? is zotero good?can i use persian font in it?…my operating system is windows 7.

I need this organisation to help me out on how to write thesis and dissertation

How about instead of Scrivener, you go with Evernote!

I have Evernote, but just haven’t found it as useful as many say it is. If your primary purpose is note taking, data organization, etc., then Evernote is probably great. Scrivener offers a lot of other organization and word-processing features. I’m sure the two could be incorporated together fairly effectively, too.

Indeed, Evernote is great to take note and organize your digital information (the notes, pdfs or any type of digital information). However, it is a poor word processor and I would never recommend its use for that purpose!

Agreed, Michel. I am using Evernote more now than I used to, primarily for record keeping.

thanks so much respect

My pleasure.

[…] my previous post I discussed some of the software choices I’ve made for working on a PhD thesis. This evening […]

[…] By the way, I’ve begun gathering information and advice to incorporate in an ebook for anyone interested in better writing (e.g., theses, essays, etc.). The goal is to be thorough yet concise. Topics include research, organization, writing style, process of writing, and technological aids (software, web, etc.). If you want to hear when its finished, sign up below. If not, no worries!  See also: writing software recommendations. […]

I have developed a thesis writing software in the true meaning. Have a look at my site. My software helps you to create the thesis title, thesis statement, research questions, hypothesis tests and conclusion. See my audio and video descriptions.

@ Joshua L. Mann i am a ph.d researcher and i want to know is there any good free version software that can do all my thesis writing work like bibilography organisation, chapter preparations etc.

Vinay, for bibliography management, I use a free program called Zotero (see links above). For writing, one of the better free word processors is part of the Open Office software (google it). I assume at this point in your education you have written a fair bit, so I would consider sticking with the word processor you feel most comfortable with, so long as it can handle your subject, field, etc. If it is a matter of money, talk to the IT dept. at your institution about your problem. Perhaps they will work with you on obtaining the software you need.

What’s your url, I’d like to check out the software???

Thank you for these very helpful posts! I currently use a Mac, but am planning to go back to a PC, and I want academic humanities outlining and note organization software that has longevity, so I don’t have to learn a new program in a year or two. I’m almost ready to try Scrivener, on the basis of your review. But I’m not clear from your posts whether it does the two things I most need: a) allow one to expand and collapse outlines, so that one can view a short version, longer version, and longest version; and b) allow one to attach one’s notes to an outline section and then, as one writes, delete them from that section (so one can “crunch” the notes into text, till they’re no longer notes!) For instance: 1. TOPIC 1 A. subtopic A i. sub-subtopic i. ii. sub-subtopic ii. B. subtopic B 2. TOPIC 2 Sometimes I want to look at only the TOPICS (i.e. Arabic numerals), to see the broad shape of the project. Sometimes I want to look only at the TOPICS and subtopics, but not the sub-subtopics, to see a slightly more detailed version without all the detail. And sometimes I want the whole thing (when I’m writing, for instance). My current technique is to have three outlines in three separate documents–short, medium, and long–and I’m constantly editing them all, trying to keep them in alignment, and failing! Re turning notes into text: currently I write my notes in paragraphs with headings (each paragraph is like a notecard). I then copy them into Word endnotes attached to each relevant outline section, and then take them out of the endnote when I’m writing that section and organize them, deleting each one as I incorporate it into text. This doesn’t allow me to see them the way I would if they were notecards on my desk. And it’s very cumbersome (and I’ve occasionally accidentally deleted a whole endnote full of notes). This system also doesn’t keep them connected to their source texts, so I have to type out bibliographic info for each of them. My question: can Scrivener a) collapse and expand my outline; b) allow me to attach my notes to outline sections, and delete as I go (ideally keeping notes linked to bibliographic entries). Grateful for your help!

JP, Scrivener should be able to do all that you’re asking. If you have some doubts, I recommend that you download a trial version and give it a test drive. It should come with an instruction file which leads you through the functions of the program. I went through it in a weekend (about 2 afternoons). As far as longevity, Scrivener seems stable to me.

I’m glad you found this helpful. If you decide to purchase, you can go through my link in the post which helps me (at no extra cost to you), but no worries if you decide not to. Up to you. Drop me a line if you have further questions.

hi! i’m a phd student. i find scrivener very useful for organising n writing my thesis as it compiles everything in one place. however, i’ve got some questions to ask before considering to purchase:

1. does it crashes on a windows pc/laptop? my laptop specs are toshiba win 7 core i5 vpro running on a 2.5ghz processor 4GB ram 64 bit os. 2. i’m using mendeley for organising my references. does scrivener allows integration with mendeley? if yes, that is a bonus!!!

Hanna, (1) I’m not aware of any issues in the windows version that would make it crash, but since I do not use it on windows, I would do a little research. It looks to me like your hardware will handle it just fine. (2) I’m not sure where Mendeley is at it terms of Scrivener support. There is demand for it (see here )!

scrivener is UH-GLEE!!! very windows 98 at least on pc. it didn’t work for me. perhaps i needed a financial incentive. LMFAO 🙂

I think the appearance reflects the intentionally minimalistic design. I never thought of it as ugly, but I suppose I am not surprised that others might. (I’m not sure what you mean by “financial incentive,” but if you mean to imply that my recommendation of Scrivener is based on a financial incentive, you are wrong.)

I started using Scrivener for Mac a week or two on Joshua’s recommendation (thank you Joshua!) I’m happy with many aspects of it. However, I’ve found that I can’t load the many articles that are the sources for my project: trying to do so crashes the system. I plan to create reference links to these articles, but… this is a downside. Second, I’m having trouble managing the formatting, both of documents I’ve transferred in and documents I’ve created. For instance, I use hanging indents for my bibliographies. But I can’t seem to create new hanging indents (only increase or decrease existing ones). Finally, there are times when folders seem to disappear from my binder (only some folders and only sometimes). When I open the binder category (with the small arrow at the left), they don’t appear (causing panic that I’ve lost my work!) But if I close the system and reopen it, they then appear again. Any help appreciated!

Thanks for the info. I’m not sure I have answers for you since I have not had those specific issues, but I would certainly let the folks at Scrivener know. I assume your Scrivener and Mac OSX software is up to date?

Thanks for the share on Scrivener. Sounds like the perfect program for dissertation writing!

Joshua, have you tried BookEnds for Bibliography?

I have just started on my dissertation and am looking at software to use. I intend to use Apple Pages instead of MS Word, since I already have it. The University also provides EndNote license to use, but I had some issues with it on a Mac and especially with Pages. I have used BookEnds for other papers, and if it is setup the way you intend to use it, it is very good.

I will try Scrivener and see if it will be helpful for my dissertation. Thank you for the information.

I have not used BookEnds, but from what I’ve heard, it is comparable to its competitors. I can’t speak to how well Pages will work with it or any other program. I have Pages but never use it. I would hesitate to use Pages, mostly because Word is so dominant in my field (including with publishers). Also, your software developers are going to be absolutely sure their program plays nicely with Word since a majority of their users are going to be also using Word. Something to consider. Thanks for stopping by!

Mendeley is a nice software but I will not recommend it at all for a writing a phd thesis. Works fine for small papers, but It’s incredibly slow if you have more than 100 references. If you google “mendeley slow” you’ll see what I mean

[…] from my site. I recommend a word processing program called Scrivener, and I wrote a bit about how I incorporate it into my scholarly workflow. After I had published the post, I found out the company has an affiliate program whereby I earn a […]

Hey Josh, thank you for the article. Have a question on Hebrew font within the Scrivener document. Did you notice any “space” issues between the lines when you copy and past Hebrew Text or type Hebrew words? It happens in the MS Word for me, and in Scrivener. So, I am wondering if you know of any solution for that. I use SBL Hebrew or Ezra SIL, no matter what font I use, the second I resize them, I will see so much space in between two lines. I am in the process of writing dissertation – OT Concentration (well, just getting started, actually). Hopefully I will be able to use Scrivener and others you suggested.

Joel, I have noticed issues with Hebrew fonts. Few Word processors offer really great right to left Hebrew font support. Mellel is an exception (www.redlers.com/mellel.html). However, I think you might be able to fix your line spacing problem in Word by going to the “Format” menu, selecting “paragraph,” and changing the line spacing to “Exactly” and then entering the desired size of line spacing (e.g., 12 point, 24 point, or whatever). This ought to make the line spacing consistent no matter the font used. Scrivener should be able to do similar formatting.

Hi Josh, Thanks for the reply. I do have Mellel, but I am not sure how to use it well. I just do not want to run into compiling/exporting after working in Mellel or Scrivener, since my professors like “Word” 🙂 So they can edit and send comments/remarks etc. Do you work with Mellel as well? My paper will be mostly with Hebrew Text. Also, I have noticed “numbering” format in your video. How did you do that in Scrivener?

Thanks for your help!

I don’t use Mellel, but I know some others who do and like it.

As for the numbering question, I am not entirely sure what you mean. Could you explain? (Also, I should also note that the video was done by someone else.)

Ok. The numbering format I was talking about was the numbers I have noticed in the video, right before the blue folders: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and so on…

Hi Joshua, I wondered if you knew about any software available for doing a PhD thesis in APA format? Or can you tell me at least how to hunt one down, thanks, Angelique

Angelique, any of the major bibliography programs will handle APA, so which one you go with is a matter of (1) how much you like the program and (2) if it’s compatible with your word processor. For example, the bibliography manager I use is free (Zotero), and I can use it with the two word processors I use, Word and Scrivener. Hope that helps!

Hi, i have used Scrivener for a few years on both Mac and now on PC. It is a very versatile and powerful tool. However … I understand that Scrivener is meant for writing and not formatting but as I construct my text I find that even maintaining consistent fonts, indents, bullets and line spaces to be a constant drama. Even basic bulleted lists are problematic. The whole visual issue with Scrivener I find distracting. Thanks for your article Alex

Yes, Scrivener has its advantages and disadvantages to be sure. I use it everyday, but I also use it in tandem with Word.

Thanks for this helpful post. I’m in crisis trying to decide a word processor and bibliographic manager as I begin my dissertation. I’ve been using Nota Bene for academic work for several years but need to move into the MS Word and unicode world. I have a MacBook but am glad to use a PC. My dissertation will include biblical Greek and Hebrew. Here are the combinations I am considering:

– Mellel with Bookends (I’m not attracted to the Mellel learning curve.)

– Word with Bookends

– Word with Zotero Will Zotero allow me to customize the Turabian format if my university has it’s own unique tweaks to this academic style?

I’m using QIQQA for bibliographic management, PDF annotation and citations directly into Word, it has automatic keywords and theme generation. It imports Bibtex directly from Google Scholar. It has brainstorming tools and online library syncing. The problem I have with it is that the citation fields are only designed for Word, so for Scrivener I have to cite as a comment inline with my text and then insert citations once I have exported to Word. This works but isn’t as streamlined as I would like. An alternative for use with Scrivener is Mekentosj’s ‘Papers’ which uses plain text code for its citation tool. I was using Papers a lot (Windows and Mac) but as I started to use more of the features I discovers more and more features had bugs. Papers is however a potentially great solution on either platform. I used Endnote for years but always found it had a very old style interface and wasn’t very helpful for the note and PDF annotation process. Cheers Alex

Yes, you can customize with Zotero, so Turabian should not be a problem. I have not used Mellel to any major extent, but I have two friends who are using it and like it (one is doing an OT in the NT sort of thesis, so he needs a Hebrew-friendly processor). Word for mac does not support right to left unicode which is silly but true, so you may have to use Word on Windows. Hope that helps!

“For this category, Microsoft Word for Mac (2011) was the clear winner. ”

I wrote my Thesis in Latex and the results certainly look better than Theses produced in Word. Assembling a large document with many figures and citations was a lot easier in Latex than it would have been in Word (based on what I’ve seen others have to go through).

Rob, I would honestly love to give Latex a good try, but I’m afraid I’m intimidated by the learning curve (I think is) required for it. In any case, when I say “winner,” I also take into account pragmatic concerns that are specific to me. But thanks for sharing your experience!

Scrivener looks good, just downloaded it. Still trying to figure out how to do referencing in it. Might not use it due the same reason as with dissertation writing the reference management is a must. Also, In terms of attaching the documents to the chapter of concept looks weak.Perhaps, it is meant for book writing primarily. I guess there is no one answer to managing whole writing dissertation bit, where one software can help manage your writing, your pdf files and references. Please suggest, Thanks

I continue to use Scrivener (more than one year now) for organizing notes. Word continues to be my main word-processing program, however. One can use shortcode references in Scrivener and then run the (.rtf) file through a bibliography management program which will convert shortcode to full citations. Since Word files are so standard in my field, I just can’t escape it as a word processor.

Thanks for your marvelous posting! I certainly enjoyed reading it, you’re a great author. I will make sure to bookmark your blog and will eventually come back later on. I want to encourage you to continue your great writing, have a nice holiday weekend!

[…] of planning and labeling notes effectively in their Can’t Miss Tips. And for now –  Joshua Mann blogged a quick and dirty intro to Scrivener for PhD students; the video is really helpful. Just […]

Thank you Mr Joshua for your thoughts. Iam regular user in Mendeley only and into Material Sciences. Shortly in a few weeks i’l be commencing my Research project and currently collecting relevant papers to my topic. If you have knowledge of any Science oriented softwares please do list them out.

Much of the software in the post should be applicable, though you may find some kind of database software useful for tracking results, statistics, etc. I suggest you talk to some experienced scholars in your field and see if they have any software specific to your work.

I would like to be able to highlight multiple documents/PDFs/Articles and then be able to easily scan/search and be able to see a list of information highlighted or noted from multiple articles. Which program does this best? I realize none seem to do this from simple highlighting. But can I cut and paste in a note or annotate somehow and d this? Or must is simply be done manually in a large word doc?

Mike, Some pdf viewers (like Mac Preview) will display a list of highlighted material per pdf, but I’m not sure of a solution that can collect the material as you’ve described–That doesn’t mean there isn’t something out there.

Two thoughts: (1) Evernote can auto OCR all documents (included PDFs and images) and these become easily searchable as a whole; (2) One way to speed up the manual highlighting is to select the line(s) you wish once, press ‘ctrl-C’ (or cmd-C) to copy, then toggle the highlighting (your PDF viewer likely has a shortcut, perhaps cmd-H). With the line also copied to the clipboard, you can quickly paste it into your preferred word processor. So you essential select text, press cmd-C then cmd-H, then cmd-V to paste in document.

I only know of one application on a Mac that will present a list of all highlighted and annotated sections of a PDF: Sente. ( http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/site/SenteForMac.html ). It is free for a small library, so you can find out if will work for you without having to pay anything.

It has a very nice interface for highlighting, taking notes, and writing comments on quotations. There are also scripts for exporting your highlights and notes into an external file.

http://www.thirdstreetsoftware.com/site_6.6/Images/Notes.png

I just read Joshua’s comment, and indeed Preview will give you a list of highlights. I didn’t know it would do that! However, Sente may work well for you with multiple PDFs because you can export those annotations into an extra file, and then combine them. That will avoid having to copy/paste everything.

[…] more here – Software for Writing a PhD Thesis – Joshua L. Mann. […]

thank you so much for this incredible post.

I’m hoping you can point me in the right direction i am a graduate student writing my Master’s Thesis in Special Ed and could use a few pointers

after 30 years, i have returned to college. don’t laugh but i never had to write a research paper before.

i have a collection of articles that i am reading and need to take notes my kids use index cards and then sort them as they begin to compile and organize their thoughts

i’ve watched a number of tutorials and i’m not sure what is the best way for me to implement a form of note taking that would enable me to best leverage the feature set of scrivener

all my research (so far) is in PDF. i know that i can import the files – Can i highlight in Scrivener? is it possible to create a separate note card for individual notes that i take while reading each article? or is there a better way? i.e. – would it be better to create color coded tags for each article and then color code the notes – not sure how that would work as far as sorting and organizing

thank you all so much for your help.

with warm wishes -Ethan

Ethan, Glad to hear you’re back at it. Best of luck in your essay writing. I’ll answer your specific questions first:

Can i highlight in Scrivener?

You can highlight entered text, but not within pdf files (to my knowledge). Evernote premium would have an advantage here, as it can OCR pdfs and, I believe, offer highlighting functions.

is it possible to create a separate note card for individual notes that i take while reading each article? or is there a better way?

Yes, you can create a new “document” for each article, each article section, or more narrow if you wish. You can also nest them inside of each other, color code them, and add tags. I’m not sure there is a ‘best way’. I think you’ll have to experiment a bit to find what works best for you.

Generally, I will create a rough outline of my paper (project, etc.) as early as possible, and begin filing notes under the headings of the rough outline. Now, this outline may change over time, and if/when it does, I will reshuffle my notes. That seems to be the pattern I’ve settled into at the moment. Hope that helps!

[…] Check out software recommendations for thesis writing. […]

[…] Software for Writing a PhD Thesis […]

Dear sir, i am doing my Ph.D in India and i am looking for good grammar checking software for my thesis, so please suggest the software that fulfill my needs. thanking you advance for your kind courtesy.

Given the complexity of language (its grammar and syntax, etc.), computer programs do a poor job at consistently ‘checking’ or ‘correcting’ it. Rather than look to software, I suggest you seek some help from you institution. Sitting down with someone who can read your writing and offer feedback will help you in the short AND long run. If you cannot find anyone to work with you, I may be able to help if you’re writing in the English language. Do check the resources on offer at your institution, first, though–they will usually be freely offered.

I did an in-depth post on using Scrivener and Papers specifically for academic history research papers including dissertations. For those interested, you can find it here: http://earlyamericanists.com/2013/06/18/digital-workflow-for-historians/

Thanks for this, Michael.

Thanks Joshua, such a helpful post and thread.

I couldn’t read your article on my phone because of your incredibly annoying big assed advert

Thanks for letting me know you had problems on your phone. Because the slide in message is not functioning correctly on certain phones, I have now prevented it from appearing on mobile devices. Sorry for the inconvenience. It is a temporary announcement that will remain for the duration of the KickStarter project.

The lifehacker review of note taking tools is really old (from 2011). This is much more up to date and it’s crowdsourced!

http://www.slant.co/topics/697/~what-is-the-best-cross-platform-note-taking-app

Also just backed your kickstarter! Looks amazing 🙂

Thanks for you support!

Thanks for this!

Hi, I’m going to be writing a thesis; I’m a windows user thinking of switching to mac. However I’ve heard that ms word for mac struggles with large text documents and the track changes function. I’ll be sending such files to pc users; also I’ll be using footnotes for references, obv if word for mac does struggle with large docs then I wouldn’t make the switch.

Any advice please.

Sean, I have not had any issues with Word for Mac as you describe, but I tend to make my documents chapter length rather than writing chapters within one document. I also use footnotes and have no issues. (If by chance you need right-to-left unicode, as with Semitic languages, avoid Word for Mac).

Dear Joshua,

Thankyou for the reply. I’ll feel better informed!

Kind regards,

How is your PhD thesis coming along?

The thesis is going well. Thanks for asking!

Good to hear. I’ve just started mine and have been researching the best software to help me organize everything. Scrivener does seem like the best choice.

I wish you well in your studies. I continue to use Scrivener for notes and organizing, while using Word for most writing articles, essays, and chapters.

Man, there is so much stuff to digest here as a first year graduate student that hopes to be Biblical scholar one day, what seems to be the best way to organize notes/research with a word processor that makes your bibliographic information a breeze?

I am willing to spend money.

I use Logos and Accordance to study/research.

Seems like finding one program that can do it all would be more user friendly? thoughts on using two different programs? (Ex. one for notes/research and another for Bib. work?)

D.A. Carson and N.T. Wright have suggested using Nota Bene, so that makes that tempting just based on what those men have written, but in this post and comments, it seems the best options are MS with Zotera or Mendeley?

I am so confused, and I don’t want to make the wrong choice. Please help!

Hi i am a Ph.D. researcher and i kindly request you to provide me the details of getting full versions of scriviner, plagiarism detector, zotero and other thesis writing softwares as i am feeling difficulty in writing my Ph.D. thesis.

Joshua Mann thank you very much for your patients explaining this initial step of thesis. I am a master in Rheumatology, I would ask if there is any software for processing clinical trials data and integrated it’s reports in microsoft word?

I am a doctoral student. My university suggests getting the dissertation professionally edited. I cannot afford this service. Can you recommend an APA editing software to replace the professional editor?

Ken, I personally do not know of any software I would depend upon for editing. You could swap services with a fellow student who you trust. I’ve also known of peers gifted in editing skills who will do it for a reasonable price.

I am interested in using Scrivener for my dissertation but I use a Chromebook. Can you recommend any comparable programs that are compatible with the OS operating system. Thanks

I’m not sure but perhaps you’ll find this article helpful.

Joshua: Congratulations on being awarded your PhD! Thank you for your research and work on “Software for Writing a PhD Thesis”. I am also working on a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies (Biblical Studies, Ministry, & Leadership). Question: Does Scrivener allow me to deposit multiple PDF references in one folder and Scrivener search a term, subject, phrase, or date within all those PDFs, like Logos Bible software? Thanks and In His Service!

Mark, I’m afraid I don’t know the answer because I have never tried this. But I think you may be able to. You might check some of these articles: http://www.simplyscrivener.com/tag/pdfs/

Hi Josh, I’ve been considering a field in academic theology and digital humanities and this blog seems to do just that! Would you mind answering some questions on this career path?

Hi Russell. I’d be happy to answer your questions. I’ll send you an email and you can follow up there.

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Top 11 Software Tools for Thesis Writing: Boost Your Research

Crafting a thesis may seem challenging, but employing suitable software tools transforms it into a more structured and approachable undertaking. Delve into these potent resources to simplify your research, elevate your writing, and excel in your academic pursuits. This post elaborates on several tools commonly utilized for academic thesis writing.

Citavi is a comprehensive reference management and knowledge organization tool. It allows you to manage references, create citations, and organize your research materials. Citavi is commonly used by students and researchers.

Docear is a unique solution to academic literature management, i.e., it helps you organizing, creating, and discovering academic literature. This unique literature management tool designed specifically for academics when it comes to discovering, organizing and ultimately creating academic literature. A recommender system that helps you to discover new literature: Docear recommends papers which are free, in full-text, instantly to download, and tailored to your information needs.

3. Paperpile

Paperpile is a software for reference management that is just like Zotero and works like an extension for the Google Chrome browser, making it accessible for Linux, Mac, and Windows users. We suggest that you use it to discover and import information from stage platforms such as PubMed, arXiv, and Google Chrome. You can undoubtedly trade all the PDF archives and information to Google Drive, which implies you will have the chance to edit your papers collaboratively. This collaboration will not end, as you can send data back and forth between P Zotero and Paperpile, such as Mendeley.

4. RefWorks

RefWorks is accurate; select from thousands of customizable citation styles to use within authoring tools. Generate bibliographies and citations in a snap with any authoring tool. Use our integrations to insert citations in Word and Google Docs. Leverage thousands of pre-built citation styles and request new styles. Customize citation styles or create your own from scratch with the citation style editor.

5. SpellCheckPlus

SpellCheckPlus applies the same concept to the writing process. Rather than simply correcting your mistakes, it summarizes them into distinct categories. SpellCheckPlus offers feedback that not only improves your current project but also your writing and grammar at large. In other words, SpellCheckPlus is no mere editing tool; rather, it’s a teaching tool. And as even the very best writers know, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to how you deliver your message.

MindMup acts as an online mind-mapping canvas, perfect for representing ideas and concepts visually. Capture ideas at the speed of thought using a mind map maker designed to help you focus on your ideas and remove all the distractions while mindmapping. MindMup is also a terrific collaborative tool.

7. iA Writer

iA Writer gives you the essence of pure writing by providing an unobtrusive interface that lets you concentrate on your text. Despite its minimalistic approach, the application offers a variety of distinctive features that are specifically designed for writing-focused tasks. With iA Writer, you can gain unparalleled insight into your writing structure, detect superfluous words and clichés, and navigate through your documents and notes with ease.

Elicit uses language models to extract data from and summarize research papers. As a new technology, language models sometimes make up inaccurate answers (called hallucinations). They reduce hallucinations and increase accuracy by: training our models on specific tasks; searching over academic papers; and making it easy to double-check answers. Elicit only shows you papers that actually exist and are part of the scientific literature.

9. Lucidchart

It is an online diagramming tool to create flowcharts, diagrams, and visuals. Lucidchart is an intelligent diagramming application that brings teams together to make better decisions and build the future. Lucidchart helps users sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams, providing designs for anything from brainstorming to project management.

10. Trinka AI

Trinka is an online grammar checker and language correction AI tool for academic and technical writing. Trinka finds difficult errors unique to academic writing that other grammar checker tools don’t. From advanced English grammar errors to scientific tone and style, Trinka checks it all! Trinka goes beyond professional grammar checks and enhances your writing for vocabulary, tone, syntax, and much more. Make your point confidently with Trinka.

11. WhiteSmoke

WhiteSmoke renders you with the highest quality proofreading abilities available, correcting not only simple spelling mistakes like old-fashioned word processors but everything from grammar, word choices, and even style mistakes, all without breaking a sweat.

https://www.ref-n-write.com/blog/academic-writing-tools-and-research-software-a-comprehensive-guide/

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Best Academic Writing Software: 21 Top Options (2024)

In this article, you’ll discover the best academic writing software options based on their features, prices, and usability. 

I remember spending countless hours in my University’s library, desperately trying to format my thesis correctly, surrounded by half-empty takeaway coffee cups. If only I had known that the right academic writing software could have helped me save time and improve the quality of my work. 

Whether you’re a university student struggling to finish your thesis like I was or a researcher with deadlines looming, you can rest assured that the right academic writing software will take an enormous weight off your shoulders. What is academic writing? Read our guide to find out!

Academic writing requires meticulous attention to detail which is why we’ve scoured the web looking for software that will support you in the following areas:

• Concise sentences
• Readability improvements
• Chapter, footnotes, and bibliography automation

The academic software options in this article will help you unlock your true potential as an academic writer by improving your grammar, structure, style, and planning.

1. Grammarly

2. prowritingaid, 3. scrivener, 4. google docs, 9. obsidian, 11. microsoft word, 13. mendeley, 14. endnote, 16. turnitin, 17. copyscape, 18. chatgpt, 20. authorea, why should you trust me , our testing criteria, is grammarly good for academic writing, 21 best free & paid academic writing software.

Pricing : Free version available, Premium $12/month, Business $15/month Use for : For plagiarism and grammar checks of academic writing

Grammarly is the most popular writing software on the market, and it’s being used by all types of writers, from high-school students to academic writers in top institutions and universities.

I personally never submit work to my clients without running it through Grammarly first, and I’ve even shelled out for the yearly premium subscription to get access to the plagiarism checker. To find out more, read our Grammarly review .

Some new students also wonder if it’s ok to use this tool to edit their essays and papers. It’s fine to use but if you need more context, in this article, our writer answers the question, is using Grammarly cheating ? 

• Grammarly is user-friendly, allowing you to either copy and paste your work directly into the application or have it check your documents while you type
• Makes Suggestions to improve sentence structure and explains why the change has been suggested
• Picks up on adjectives that could lead to exaggeration
• Encourages you to write in the action instead of the passive voice
• Works for British English, American English, and Australian English
• Plagiarism checker is only available to premium customers
• Plagiarism checker doesn’t cover academic papers
• Live checker is not available for Microsoft Word

We tested dozens of grammar checkers, and Grammarly is the best tool on the market today. It'll help you write and edit your work much faster. Grammarly provides a powerful AI writing assistant and plagiarism checker.

Pricing: Free version, $20/month, $79/year, $300/lifetime Use for: As an alternative for grammar and plagiarism checkers of academic writing

ProWritingAid is an affordable grammar checker that leverages artificial intelligence and a personal support system to help you improve your writing by pointing out specific areas of weakness. 

ProWritingAid presents suggestions similarly to Grammarly through bold pop-up boxes that are easy to navigate. However, this software targets professionals looking to make fundamental changes to their writing style. To find out more, read our ProWritingAid review .

• Reasonable prices, especially with the lifetime option
• Compatible with Microsoft Word
• Includes a digital writing coach
• Style score gives you a guide regarding the quality of your work
• Plagiarism is not included in the free version
• PLagiarism checker less accurate than Grammarly

ProWritingAid is a powerful, accurate grammar checker and style editor. It's suitable for non-fiction and fiction writers and doesn't require a monthly subscription. Save 20% per month or year.

Price: 30-day free trial, student/academics discount $50, IOS $19.99, Standard macOS and Windows $58.99 Use for: For managing large academic papers, organizing research, and references

Scrivener may not be as well known as the last two software options, but it has much to offer academic writers. For example, the platform will help you get your references in order, and it will help you integrate large chunks of text into one, which is useful when you’re moving big paragraphs.

Although bloggers and journalists overlook Scrivener, if you’re someone who is dealing with long research papers, this could be the ideal software choice. To find out more, read our Scrivener review .

• Great formatting tools for academic writers
• Affordable prices, especially with the academic discount
• Helps organize your reference 
• Keep all your files, including PDFs and web pages, inside your Scrivener account
• Take a snapshot of your work and return to early versions if you want to make retrospective changes
• No plagiarism checker
• No live checker for editing on external platforms such as Google Docs and Word
• A learning curve

Scrivener is our go-to app for long-form writing projects. It's popular with best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more. 

Price: Free Use for: General writing, collaborative writing, and editing

Google Docs is probably the most well-known writing software, and it’s used by professional writers, bloggers, and academics worldwide. I’m personally using Docs to write this post, as its sharing feature makes sending your work to an editor a breeze. 

Docs offers many valuable features for academic writers, including headers and footers, collaborative comments, citations, and the new document comparison tool. 

This platform is useful when combined with Grammarly, its spell checker, and writing tips are highlighted clearly in Google Docs, and you can accept and reject suggestions with one click. 

• Easy to use, familiar software
• Collaboration made easy
• Easy to format text with citations, headers/footers, and Headings 
• Grammarly compatible
• Export in PDF
• Document comparison does not make up for the lack of a plagiarism checker
• Native spell checker is a little unreliable, but adding Grammarly makes up for this

Price: Free Use for: For writing scientific papers

LaTex is a writing software designed to help people improve the structure of their academic papers. It’s worth noting that LaTeX doesn’t offer a spell-checking service, so you’ll want to use it in combination with Grammarly or ProWritingAid. 

The software interface may not boast a high-quality-looking interface, but the underlying features are impressive, especially considering the software is free to use. 

• Automatic indexing and bibliography generator 
• Automatic chapter and paragraph macros
• Math typesetting
• No spelling and grammar checker 
• Not as user-friendly as some competitors

Price: 30-day free trial, $3/per month for students, $5/month for academics, $10/month for business Use for: To manage, read, annotate, and share your research references

Papers help you gather your research materials across multiple devices, making your books, articles, and journals easy to access and organize. 

If you’re writing a long research paper, manually collating all your references into one library would be extremely time-consuming. Papers automate the process, letting you focus on writing, 

Although Papers isn’t a stand-alone academic writing software due to the lack of most expected features, it will be handy for academic writers struggling to organize their references and sources.

• Low price for academics and students
• Import references to your library from multiple platforms
• Access all your research sources in one place
• Collaborative annotation of notes and sources
• $10/month is a little expensive, considering you don’t get plagiarism or a spell checker

Price: Free Use for: As a markdown editor and for organizing academic notes

Zettlr is an open-source markdown editor software that lets you focus on your writing without worrying about making it HTML compatible manually. Zettlr is excellent for academic writers looking to include citations or export their work in multiple formats. 

• Export in multiple formats
• Citation system.
• Tags to help you organize information
• Writing goals tracker
• Preview documents without opening them
• You may need some CSS coding knowledge to get the best out of the software.
• No plagiarism checker.

Price: $5.99/month or $39.99/year Use for: Writing on IOS devices

Ulysses is a writing software designed for use on Mac, iPad, and iPhone, so if you aren’t an Apple user, then this one isn’t for you.

Although academic papers are usually full of data, graphs, and charts, you sometimes need to focus on your text, which is where Ulysses can help. Ulysses is minimalist in design with a clutter-free interface, so if you’re someone that quickly gets distracted from writing, it could be a great option. It supports Markdown. You can also use it to prepare an academic paper for publication. To find out more, read our Ulysses review .

• iCloud synchronization
• One payment plan for three devices
• Minimalistic design.
• Set and track writing goals.
• Lacks academic writing features such as a bibliography, references, and chapter organization
• No option for collaborative writing
• Not available for Windows

Price: Free, but you can make a one-time payment of $25 for special developer features and a yearly $50 for commercial use rights Use for: Note taking and organizing

Obsidian is a note-taking and personal knowledge management tool for improving how research writers organize ideas and notes. 

Academic writing often involves developing complex ideas and presenting them clearly. Obsidian can help you develop your theories by organizing your ideas and notes into mindmaps and information stacks. 

Obsidian won’t be the standalone app you use as an academic writer, but it can help you develop ideas and connections within your papers. To find out more, read our Obsidian review .

• Unique mind mapping system
• Many plugins offer features such as voice recording, formatting, and writing templates
• If you have some knowledge of coding HTML or Java, you can customize parts of the software for your specific needs
• It will take some time to get to grips with all the features
• Lack of specific academic writing needs such as a plagiarism checker

Price: Free Use for: Organize your notes across various platforms

Joplin is an open-source note-taking software that operates across various devices and has a thriving community developing free tools to improve the platform. You can share your notes from Joplin across different platforms, and it runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. 

For academic writers, Joplin offers a space to collect web clippings and notes from online sources and access them from multiple devices. 

• Accessible on all major operating systems
• Web clipping system is excellent for researchers gathering notes
• The community is constantly developing new features
• No collaborative feature
• No free storage/cloud
• Like other note-taking apps, it doesn’t check for plagiarism or spelling

Price: $6.99/Month Use for: General writing, editing, and note-taking

Microsoft Word is one of the most widely used word-processing applications for academic writing. Known for its user-friendly interface, it offers various formatting options and tools. It has an inbuilt spell checker, dozens of fonts, and various formatting options.

It’s a fairly general writing tool that lacks some of the more specialized features of some of those mentioned in this article. Nonetheless, Word is a tried and tested writing companion you should consider using with a good referencing software from this list.

• Robust formatting tools for academic writing
• Familiar to most writers
• Available on almost all PCs
• Solid offline writing tool
• Collaboration features are not as good as other options
• Additional cost for extra cloud storage
• Outdated UI
• Lack of specialist tools

Price: Free Use for: Organizing references

Zotero is an open-source reference management software ideal for anyone struggling to keep their bibliography neatly ordered. If you’re writing a lengthy academic paper and haven’t settled on a referencing software, Zotero is worth a try, especially as it’s free.

If you’re working on a group project, Zotero’s collaborative features are helpful when organizing citations in various formats, including Chicago and APA. Naturally, as this is citation software, you’ll want to combine it with a writing platform such as Docs or Word.

• Free version
• Over 10,000 citation styles
• Collaboration features
• PDF reader built-in
• Compatible with Google Docs and Word
• Limited customer support
• Limited offline access without a paid subscription
• Not the easiest to use without spending several hours practicing

Price: Free with optional premium plan Use for: Researching and referencing

Mendely is a free-to-use reference management tool that PhD students created. You can tell from the software that the people who created it had wasted hours manually referencing and wanted a more streamlined and efficient way to add citations to their papers.

The Mendeley Library has millions of papers and can be easily browsed from tablet, PC, and mobile. Combining it with a reference management tool will help you organize your research.

• Social networking for research collaboration
• Over 100 million articles in the database
• Clean UI, even on smaller screens
• It can be used to generate bibliographies
• Storage is limited in the free version
• Reports of poor synchronization on collaborative documents
• The downloadable version for PC is no longer available

Price: $269.95/Full License Use for: Referencing, annotating, and journal matching

EndNote is a premium academic research and writing software that is a market leader in providing reference management, citations, and bibliography creation. The premium price tag might be worth swallowing if you’re a serious academic writer.

EndNote can help you match your research papers with potentially compatible journals via its Manuscript Match tool. This software is easy to integrate with popular writing software like Google Docs and makes reading and annotating PDFs very easy, even on your phone.

• Excellent reference management
• Smooth integration with word processors
• Top-class PDF reader and annotator
• Novel journal matching tool
• Collaboration is made simple
• The price tag is out of most people’s range
• The learning curve for new users
• The student discount isn’t very generous

Price: Free trial or $1000 Use for: Collaborative reference management and writing

Citavi is an academic writing and reference management tool. The software combines a seamless collaborative writing experience with an automatic citation tool with over 10,000 styles. 

The software automatically links citations, creates a bibliography, and allows you to export directly to Microsoft Word. The software is impressive and has received great reviews, but the price tag naturally means most people will probably settle for something cheaper.

• Covers citations and writing
• Easy export process to Word
• Collaborative writing is as good as with Docs
• Complex academic search queries can be narrowed down with several filters
• The price is high as the product is aimed at companies, not individuals
• Lacks Google Docs compatibility
• The free trial is very limited

Price: Free Use for: Plagiarism checker

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that anyone writing research papers should consider using. Most major research institutions use Turnitin to ensure they don’t publish plagiarized work.

The software is easy to use and rates the uniqueness of academic rating based on its massive pool of papers. Turnitin doesn’t just give a yes or no answer. It points out sections of your work that may be plagiarized and links them to citations of the work that appears to be being copied.

• Trusted by major institutions and leading universities
• Easy to use
• The feedback system gives a detailed breakdown of where you’ve plagiarized and helps you avoid it in the future
• Not the most modern user interface
• Does occasionally flag non-plagiarized copy as plagiarized
• No in-depth writing support or cross-compatibility

Price: Free version or pay per word Use for: Plagiarism checker

Copyscape is a plagiarism checker designed for online content creators and anyone who runs a blog or a website. Although it’s probably less helpful for academics than Turnitin, it’s still worth mentioning, as it can help academics in the early stages of research that involves collecting information from sources other than official journals. 

The software is straightforward to use as it is a simple copy-and-paste system. There is a limited free version, but even the premium per-word rate is very reasonable.

• Great for someone running a blog that posts academic content from multiple writers
• PDF compatible
• Generally, Turnitin is more appropriate for academics
• The website has a very cheap feel

Price: Free version or $20/month Use for: AI-enhanced writing, editing, and researching

ChatGPT has been the most talked about technological innovation this year. Its impact on the world of research and writing is still evolving, and the model is still developing. It’s a fantastic tool for researching if you’re willing to spend a few hours learning how to create effective prompts. 

ChatGPT can rapidly search the web for content published before 2021 and present it concisely. Regardless of the topic you’re researching, this software is going to be able to help you research and write more efficiently.

If you want an in-depth review of ChatGPT and how you can use it to become a better academic writer, check out our ChatGPT review . 

• Rapid response to even very niche research requests
• Finds sources from all over the web much faster than a traditional Google search.
• Speeds up the writing and editing process
• It is a useful tool to master, considering the likelihood of more large language models hitting the market in the future
• It does make factual mistakes.
• Sometimes, the AI suffers from so-called hallucinations that can result in very strange answers.
• Its access to the web was cut off in 2021, so it can’t find the latest research papers.
• You’ll need to spend some time learning about writing prompts to get the best out of ChatGPT

Price: Free version or $4.99/month Use for: Spelling and Grammar

Ginger is a spelling and grammar software that offers an interesting alternative to Grammarly. This software is compatible with most popular writing platforms and goes beyond basic grammar and spelling checks.

Ginger offers unlimited rephrasing suggestions and can translate documents into dozens of languages. In addition, they’ve managed to undercut Grammarly’s prices, so this could be worth a try if you feel Grammarly is too expensive.

• Solid grammar and spell checker
• Very nice UI
• The rephrasing tool will help you add new life to your writing
• Well priced particularly if you pay for a yearly subscription
• The translation feature makes it stand out from the crowd of grammar checkers
• The free version isn’t as comprehensive as the one offered by Grammarly
• Only available on three browsers

Price: Free version available Use for: Writing and publishing

Authorea is a collaborative writing tool designed for researchers working in small teams. Importantly, Authorea goes beyond just helping you write by offering several tools that help researchers publish their papers once it’s completed. Beyond the basic collaborative writing features you may expect, it also offers automatic citation formatting even when multiple people are editing one document.

The software can automatically format research papers to suit 40 of the biggest publishers in the world. The free version is fairly comprehensive, but frustratingly, it’s unclear how much they charge for the premium service, as the price has to be negotiated directly via email with the team. It appears to vary depending on the insulation you work for and the size of your team.

• The publishing feature will be beneficial for academic writers.
• Free to use
• Elegant website and UI
• Collaborative writing and automatic formatting of citations
• The premium pricing plan is not clear
• It’s specialized software, so using it will require some practice
• If you only publish in one journal, then the formatting feature won’t be that useful

Price: Free version available Use for: Specialized academic spelling and grammar checker

Trinka is an AI-powered technical writing grammar and plagiarism checker. This is essentially a more technical version of Grammarly that’s been designed specially to help academic writers. It can help you create a more formal tone, introduce technical terms, and even have the option to focus suggestions on specific scientific areas such as medicine, chemistry, and physics. 

In addition, it has a publication feature that can help you get your paper into the format required by most publishers. If you’ve been using Grammarly as an academic writer but feel that its suggestions are too general, then Trinka could be a great alternative.

• A spell checker designed for academic writers
• Suggestions tailored to your scientific field
• Formatting tool and an in-house plagiarism checker
• Tone enhancement designed for academic papers
• Premium version reasonably priced at $80/year
• The free version is slightly limited
• Only 5,000 words per month with the free version
• Slow response times from customer support, according to some reviews

If you need a good grammar checker, Grammarly is our top choice due to its accuracy and speed. Scrivener excels at managing long-form papers, but Ulysses is easier to use. Obsidian is great for managing research as it Papers.

My work as a journalist has been published in major news outlets such as The Daily Mirror, Newsweek, Zenger, and Yahoo. In a hectic newsroom, there’s no time to waste, and mistakes are rarely forgiven, so I’ve spent hundreds of hours using writing software to guarantee accuracy and clarity in my copy. 

In my opinion, you can make the best use of academic writing software by combining different options based on their individual strengths. I recommend using Google Docs if you collaborate with a team combined with Grammarly or ProWritingAid for spelling and plagiarism and then adding something like Papers to help organize your sources. 

We update this roundup of the best academic writing tools regularly. We test key features by checking MS Word documents, blog posts, essays, articles and even book chapters. 

These writing samples range from several hundred to several thousand words. Typically, we use the web, desktop and browser apps and plugins, factoring in price, ease of use, and functionality. We’ve reviewed many of these tools individually and included links to those reviews.

FAQs About The Best Academic Writing Software

Grammarly is useful for checking academic writing for grammar and spelling mistakes. It can also help academic writers improve the readability of their reports or papers. However, Grammarly isn’t meant to function as a tool for planning and writing academic papers. For that use, a traditional word processor or a dedicated academic writing app.

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It has saved me, as I was having difficulty cited and referencing for my first degree.

Helpful for checking reference format

I find this tool is very helpful when I am listing references as it allows me to check I have correctly formatted my references in accordance with APA 7

it's very easy to use if you can find…

it's very easy to use if you can find the articles/journals, which you can find most of

Very Impressed!

Makes referencing so easy and quick. Very simple to follow and understand. I love it!!

Easy, convienent but remember to check

Easy, convenient but remember to always check it yourself as the program can make mistakes with less often cited articles!

Thank you Jonathan

Thank you Jonathan. It was quick, professional, and he went far and beyond to make sure I had the best text. (Including explanation of my errors and sources of further information)I am so very grateful for the support.

Its a wonderful tool and love it.

User friendly

User friendly. Helped streamline my masters degree

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Thesis Help: 95 Best Online Tools for Thesis Writing

Writing a thesis is like being sentenced to life and hard labor in libraries. Forget regular working hours or your natural right to sleep and rest. Only successful defense of your project will break you free.

• Word Processing and Taking Notes
• Knowledge Management
• Student Planners
• Bibliography Helpers
• Academic Research Tools
• Productivity Apps
• Vocabulary Builders
• Dictionaries
• Plagiarism Check
• Grammar and Style Check

The following free tools, however, provide a ray of hope. Draconian time management and supernatural self-organization can help you cope with your thesis faster. Optimize the process and enjoy the time you save.

📝 Word Processing and Taking Notes

Although you may be used to Microsoft Word, the following free alternatives can be of much help for thesis writing:

• LaTeX is a high-quality system equipped with special features for technical and scientific documentation. A great tool for thesis help due to its user-friendly interface and dozens of helpful features. For example, the tool automatically generates bibliographies and indexes.
• LyX is a free document processor that emphasizes the importance of document structure.
• Scrivener is a popular text-editing tool for Windows users. Use one of several templates to construct your document. There are also labeling options available during the working process.
• XMind is an easy-to-use text-editing and mind-mapping tool. Develop essay maps with this paper editor you can use on an iPhone or iPad for creating, editing, and storing your files.
• OpenOffice is free and intuitive editing software popular with students. Try this excellent writing tool you can easily use instead of Microsoft Word. It gives similar functions for typing, formatting, and revising.
• AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word and suitable for a wide range of academic tasks.
• Jarte is a free word processor that is based on Windows WordPad and fully compatible with Windows Word.
• Google Docs is Google’s awesome service that allows you to create, format, store, and share documents online.
• ThinkFree is a free Java-based word processor that is fully compatible with Word.

• Etherpad is an open source text editor that allows real-time collaborative editing online. You and your mentor can use this tool for online revision of your thesis.

🧠 Knowledge Management

Here’s the kicker:

While doing research for your dissertation, you will need to dig through an incredible amount of literature. Maybe even look at some free college essays examples.

To make your job easier without getting lost or wasting time, consider the following knowledge management tools — they are great for dissertation help.

• KeepNote is a particularly effective note-taking application that can help you use full-text search and store your findings and notes.
• TomBoy is a free and easy-to-use note-taking and mind-mapping application. When making an analysis of sources or gathering articles in one place, it’s easy to get lost in dozens of links. Tomboy allows you to store every link carefully and have access to them anytime from your desktop.
• TiddlyWiki is a knowledge management app with a number of helpful features of much help for your thesis.
• Mindnote is an effective mind-mapping tool that can help you organize your thoughts intuitively.
• Mendeley is a tool that allows you to create your own easily searchable library of your research findings and accessible from any device.
• VUE stands for Visual Understanding Environment. This tool can be used for structuring and sharing information.
• EyePlorer is a convenient tool for creating charts and mind maps online. You can just drag in your thesis statement’s keywords and get the results.
• Zotero is a valuable academic research and knowledge management tool that combines functionality of a citation maker and knowledge management.
• Endnote can help you find, save, and share the information you need. You can work on a document with your team, see the history of changes, and get your sources cited in one of 6,000 styles.
• Cam scanner is probably one of the easiest ways to save bibliographic information by simply “scanning” a resource with your phone or any other device.

⌚ Student Planners

In being preoccupied with your thesis, you may easily forget something. The following free tools will help you be better organized:

• Any do can synchronize your personal tasks and help you achieve maximum potential.
• Trello can help you see everything about your project in one place.
• Exam Countdown is a free and easy-to-use app to keep track of all your deadlines. Thesis development consists of many parts. Don’t miss any of them with this helpful and vivid tool.
• Wunderlist is a tool for ticking off all your personal and academic goals.
• Todoist is a free online task manager that will kindly remind you of approaching deadlines.
• Tomsplanner is an online chart to help you get things done.
• HabitRPG is a free productivity app that treats your life like an exciting game. Habitica is an RPG game that not only motivates you to start a thesis but also helps with everyday routines like cleaning your room or getting enough sleep.
• Todokyo is a simple way to create to-do lists online.
• Ta-da Lists will help you reach those amazing “ta-da” moments with all your daily and weekly tasks.

🙋 Bibliography Helpers

Collecting resources and formatting citations is important for your dissertation writing, but imagine letting free citation tools do that work for you! Make this academic dream come true with our past list of the top 25 free online best citation generators , or check out the following collection of free tools:

• BibDesk will help you edit and manage your bibliography. This tool can help you keep track of not only bibliographic information but also related links and files.
• BiblioExpress will help you find, manage, and edit bibliographic records.
• Docear is a free academic literature management suite that helps you discover, organize, and cite your resources.
• Recipes4Success is an open source bibliography maker that formats citations in MLA and APA. It works as a rewording generator—you fill in the fields, and the tool gives you a full sentence in one of the most popular citation styles.
• Ottobib is a free, easy, and fast bibliography maker that allows formatting citations using only ISBN. If you use ISBN for your referencing, you can save a lot of time.
• Citavi is a free reference management and knowledge organization tool that can help to not only create citations but also organize and highlight text.
• Cite This for Me is an open source and easy-to-use citation maker that is compatible with a wide range of citation styles.
• GoBiblio is a free online citation maker that generates citations in MLA and APA.

🔬 Academic Research Tools

One more thing you will appreciate is an academic full-text research environment free of commercial links:

• Google Scholar is the place to start your online research that will help you with your thesis.
• ContentMine is a tool that extracts scientific facts from around a billion academic resources.
• Data Elixir is a twice-monthly digest of the latest scientific discoveries.
• Labii is a template-based electronic notebook. Keep all your data organized into categories like protocols, results, samples, and so on.
• LazyScholar is a free Chrome or Mozilla extension that will do an automatic full-text search and create fast citations.
• Scientific Journal Finder can help you access the latest and most relevant resources in your field.
• Scizzle is a fast and easy way to discover new papers on a topic of your choice.
• MyScienceWork is a platform for making your research papers visible to anyone on the web or getting access to research of others.
• Sparrho is a collection of scientific channels and an easily navigated search engine. It contains more than 60 million scientific articles, and the best universities in the world use it.

Working with sources and doing research may be rather exhausting.

Here’s the deal:

You have to work on your performance and productivity.

🏃‍♀️ Productivity Apps

Another important routine change that can save hours and days of your life is blocking or minimizing distractions:

• TimeDoctor is an easy to use time-tracking app that will prevent you from distractions and increase your productivity.
• Online timer by TimeCamp is a free and simple solution for measuring your work time divided by separate tasks.

• Freedom can help you block the most distractions
• SelfControl is a Mac app that will help you avoid distracting websites. Just block social media or news feeds that interfere with your work.
• Write or Die is a web-based app designed to boost your productivity by reaching a target word count within a chosen time frame.
• Focus Time is a combination of an activity tracker and a Pomodoro timer.
• Rescue Time promises to help you block all distractions. Control the choice of blocked resources or use the default list.
• Leechblock NG is a Firefox add-on that can block time-wasting sites.
• StayFocusd politely questions if you shouldn’t be working and helps you achieve that.
• Write Monkey is software that can create a distraction-free interface for simply writing.
• Nirvana will help you prioritize your tasks and get the most important ones done on time.
• Tomato Timer is a minimalist timer that will help you work according to the well-known Pomodoro technique (working 25 minutes before taking a 5-minute break).

📖 Vocabulary Builders

By the time you finish your project, you can undoubtedly boast of having a rich and diverse academic vocabulary. You may want to boost your vocabulary even further with the following tools:

• IntensiveVocab is a free tool designed to help you improve your vocabulary, score higher on standardized tests, and thus improve your dissertation’s language.
• WhichWord is an iOS app designed to help you better understand the difference between frequently confused words.
• Just the Word is an online tool to help you better combine words in a sentence. You enter “just the word” into a search line and receive examples of how that word can be used and other students’ errors.
• Lexipedia is a tool that creates semantic differences for a word of your choice. This tool organizes the results in a mind map. It’s available in English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian.
• Wordnik is a free tool that will give you several definitions for a word of your choice.
• Wordhippo is an easy and quick way to find synonyms and antonyms for a certain word. You can also find rhymes, scrabble options, words with specific letters, and so on.
• SAT Vocab by MindSnacks is a free app that can help you learn SAT vocabulary and formulate more difficult sentences by simply playing games.
• Vocabulary Builder from Magoosh is a free app to quickly boost your vocabulary.
• Visual Vocab SAT is a free but effective app for building your vocabulary.

📚 Dictionaries

This collection of sources will make you thesis writing process easy and professional.

• Abbreviations is a huge directory of all abbreviations imaginable. It’s a vast library of acronyms and abbreviations in various fields like science, medicine, government, business, and more.
• Cambridge Dictionaries is a collection of free online English dictionaries and thesauruses including bilingual and semi-bilingual resources.
• Definitions is a multilingual dictionary that provides definitions from many reputable resources. It knows every word in many narrow fields like trees, dinosaurs, and ancient history.
• Macmillan Dictionary is an open source tool with activities and word lists to not only find the words you need but also learn them.
• Merriam Webster is a free dictionary with a variety of online quizzes and tests. It’s one of the most valuable online dictionaries.
• Thesaurus is an open source dictionary offering synonyms and definitions.
• Urban Dictionary is the go-to place for synonyms and definitions. This is the best place to search for slang words.
• Ozdic is a free online collocation dictionary. You can get a full analysis of a particular word you need to learn.
• YourDictionary provides simple definitions that anyone can understand.

✅ Plagiarism Check

• PlagScan will compare your documents with billions of others.
• Article Checker is a free online plagiarism-checking tool that can search for copies of your text on the web.
• Duplichecker is a free plagiarism detection tool restricted to 1,000 words per search.
• PlagiarismCheck.org generates plagiarism reports and offers an unlimited number of free attempts.
• Plagium is a free, quick search that helps you detect instances of occasional plagiarism in your paper.
• Dustball is a free plagiarism detection tool that will easily find plagiarized parts in your text.
• ThePensters is free plagiarism-checking software for students and beyond. It analyzes the percentage of plagiarized text from web pages. Also, with the help of this tool, you can create a bibliography by ISBN code.
• PlagTracker is a convenient online plagiarism detection tool.
• Plagiarisma is another free online plagiarism checker. It supports about 200 languages, and you can switch between Google and Bing search engines when checking your documents.
• Copyscape will help you scan your thesis for any copies on the web.

✍️ Grammar and Style Check

Grammar and style checking of large amounts of text can last forever if you do it manually. The following free tools will make a world of difference for you:

• Ginger is a quick and quality online grammar checker. This is a perfect tool to eliminate misspellings.
• Grammarly with its grammar, style, and plagiarism check is a must-have for students.
• AftertheDeadline is a spell, style, and grammar checker that promises intelligent editing.
• Spellchecker is a spell check solution with a 300-day free trial. Along with grammar mistakes, it shows misused words and syntax errors.
• Online Correction is a tool for detecting style, spelling, and grammar mistakes in writing.
• Spell Check Online is a website for quick spell check online.
• Paper Rater is a free tool that offers online proofreading and does not require download.
• Grammar Check.me is a way to check and correct style, grammar, and spelling of your text online.
• Language Tool is an open source tool for style and grammar check.

Would you like to add some tool to this list? Which free apps and websites help you with your thesis?

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I got 64 % similarity for my assignment. is it bad or good? if it’s bad please tell me how to fix it?

Thanks for these helpful Tools.

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Wow good bro

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the feedback, Abderrahmane!

Hi, I would like to ask you about the thesis for Diploma

Hello! Sure, please do not hesitate to ask our experts ivypanda.com .

I’m glad, your message via Twitter brought me here and I really found your blog so helpful. Cheers!

Thank you for your kind words! 🙂

Wow right time, thanks for such a great article. Helpful.

Melik, I’m glad the article was helpful to you 🙂

If you are going for ‘fancy stuff’ you might mention markdown, rmarkdown/knitr etc. This will replace latex imho.

And if you mention Latex you should mention Overleaf (an online version and a way to learn it).

Overall though, a very interesting list. Do you rate/rank these tools?

Thank you for the feedback, David!

OUTSTANDING!!!

Thank you for putting this together.

Thank you very much, Michele 🙂

Thanks regarding furnishing this kind of well put together content.

Thanks for your feedback, Mandila! Glad you liked it!

That’s an apt answer to an interesting question.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope these tools are really helpful to you. Good luck!

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19 Academic Writing Tools (that are completely free!)

A selection of tools for academic writing – from collaborating, time-tracking and project management to finding the perfect phrase or translation. We are continuously updating this list (latest update: April 2023).

I often get asked about my favourite academic writing tools. That’s why I compiled this scientific tools list for you with 19 great tools to support your academic writing. You can use all these scientific research tools for free and some of them have paid versions with additional features.

Just one word of caution: Exploring new academic writing tools can be a time-suck and distract you from getting your actual writing done. If you are one of those people who spend hours signing up for new software for academic writing and getting it set up, only to abandon the tool a few days or weeks later – then be careful reading this scientific tools list, and don’t get overenthusiastic. 😉

By the way, I don’t have any affiliation with any of the academic writing tools listed below, and none of these are affiliated links.

Here, we go, 19 tools for academic writing and scientific research I recommend in no particular order:

ACADEMIC Writing tools

1. writefull.

This proof-reading tool for scientific texts is powered by AI and big data. You can integrate the Writefull app into Word or Overleaf for free. A reader of the blog brought my attention to this tool (thank you so much!) and I’ve only recently started using it, so I can’t give you a full-blown review just yet but so far the results are promising. Writefull is owned by Digital Science, a company that has released several Open Science apps, such as figshare, Overleaf and Altmetric. 

2. Phrasebank

Created by Dr John Morley from “The University Language Center” of Manchester University, the Phrasebank is a database of common phrases used in papers, dissertations and grant proposals – a real goldmine!

The phrases are organised both by the common sections in a paper such as the Introduction, Methods, Results or Discussion section. For example, in the tab for the Introduction section, one can find entries for “establishing the importance of the topic for the world or society” or “identifying a knowledge gap in the field of study”. If you click on the latter, you can find among others the following suggested phrases: “It is still unclear whether…”, “However, the behaviour of X has not yet been investigated” and “Causal factors leading to X remain speculative”.

You can also look for phrases by choosing a general language function. Some of the choices are “being cautious”, “describing trends”, “signalling transition”.   

The Phrasebank is very useful to get inspiration for new wording but I do not endorse all entries. Sometimes you find language that is a bit clunky or overly complicated so do use your own judgement when you browse this academic writing tool. PS: You can also download the Academic Phrasebank as PDF or Kindle file.

3. Thesaurus.com

If you’re looking for synonyms, thesaurus.com is the best online thesaurus I’ve found so far. It divides the synonyms based on different meanings of the word and indicates the relevance of the synonym by using three shades of orange.

Just one word of caution: Don’t fall into the trap of using too many synonyms in your academic writing. Being precise is so much more important than varying the words you are using in your writing. In particular for field-specific terminology, I advise against using synonyms .

This is a hot tip for researchers who need to transcribe interviews (hello, social scientists!), who like to record research ideas or those who like to write by dictating text into their phone. Otter is an AI-based transcription tool that works for English language recordings. The quality of the transcriptions is comparable to other transcription services using AI, meaning they are often not accurate and can give nonsensical, even comical results — especially when the recorded voice has a strong or unusual accent. Still, the automated and quick transcriptions (real time transcriptions are available too!) can be a good starting point and are a huge time saver. What’s cool about Otter compared to its competitors is that they give you 300 minutes of transcriptions per month for free!

There are many online dictionaries but Linguee is my favourite for academic writing. It suggests a translation on the basis of previous translations published on the internet.  Therefore, this dictionary is especially great if you’re looking to not only translate a word but a certain turn of phrase or idiom. Linguee translates to and from English in over 20 languages. An essential academic writing tool for all non-native English speakers!

ACADEMIC WRITING TOOLS FOR Collaboration AND CO-WRITING

6. authorea.

The magazine “ TechCrunch ” describes Authorea as “a Google Docs for scientists”. On the academic writing platform, you can write, edit, and insert citations, figures and data. And it’s great for collaborative writing: Co-authors can access the same text at the same time, track the changes they made, insert comments and even live-chat during writing sessions. Documents can be imported from LaTeX and Word and exported as LaTeX, Word and PDF documents. You can also submit your article as a bioRxiv preprint straight from the Authorea platform. This software for academic writing is free for up to ten documents with limited sharing options.

7. Overleaf

Overleaf is to LaTeX users, what Authorea (see tool #6) is to Word users: an online editor that allows you to access and collaborate on your writing projects from anywhere. You can, for example, invite others to comment on your work. Overleaf offers some other neat collaborative writing features, such as a track-changes function, but – unfortunately – only on the paid plan. LaTeX may seem a bit intimidating at first but you actually get the hang of it quite fast (and feel like a coder 😎). Also, in my experience, you save a lot of time formatting your text (and feel smug about it when you talk to Word users 😁).

Slack is a chat tool that you can use in your lab or with your collaborators. Used in the right way, it allows you to save time by cutting down on emails and create a group atmosphere even if the members are not working in the same location. You can easily add files to the chats and create different channels for subgroups or certain topics. There also exist virtual communities on Slack you can join, such as the New PI Slack community for Assistant professors around the world. 

Loom is a great scientific research tool when you want to share a quick video with a colleague, student or collaborator. This could be a recorded presentation or lecture, your comments on the paper of a co-author, or a tutorial on using a piece of software. You can record your screen, camera and microphone. The neat thing is that after you’re done recording, Loom auto-generates a link you can share.

Academic writing tools for Productivity and project management

Toggl is a time-tracking app that you can install on your phone and computer. There’s only one way of knowing how long certain writing tasks typically take you, and that is by tracking the time they took you to complete . Time-tracking has another great advantage: You can identify time-sucks in your day. And these may be less obvious than you think.

I like to use Toggl for time-tracking because it’s quick to use and integrates with various other scientific research tools I am using. You just need to click the big red power button to start or stop a recording and assign tracked times to different projects. This scientific research tool has paid plans but for most people the free basic plan will be sufficient.

Are you easily tempted to check your phone when you really should be writing? This app called Forest may be just right for you then. Once installed on your phone, you can start planting a virtual tree whenever you want to focus. It grows from a little plant to a full-grown tree. When you pick up your phone and leave the app, the tree dies. This way, you can build your forest representing the time you have spent on focused work (or quality time with your family and friends…). I’m not using Forest myself, but I’ve heard that it works really as an academic writing tool well for some people. Give it a go!  

12. Focusmate

As Forest (see tool #11), Focusmate is an app to help you stay focused. Instead of  gamification, the concept of Focusmate is based on social accountability. Here is how it works: You schedule a 50-minute virtual co-writing session with another Focusmate member, turn on your webcam when your session starts, greet your temporary co-worker and then get to work silently.

Even though being filmed while working is a little strange in the beginning, co-writing sessions work really well for a lot of researchers. This is why we offer co-writing sessions as part of our academic writing program, the Researchers’ Writing Academy, as well.

13. Cold Turkey

If Forest (tool #11) or Focusmate (#12) don’t get you to focus on your writing, you may need to go Cold Turkey . This software for academic writing blocks any other application and turns your computer into a typewriter. You can choose whether you want Cold Turkey to prevent you from digital distractions for a certain amount of time or until you’ve hit a certain word count. With the paid version, you can even access integrated productivity soundtracks and text formatting.

Not an app exactly, but free as well: Click the orange button below to have me walk you through my step-by-step system to write clear & concise papers for your target journals in a timely manner . This free academic writing training is perfect for you if you’re reading this blog post because you are procrastinating on writing your paper.

Trello is an excellent project management tool for your academic writing, which you can use for managing each of your writing projects, for creating a publication pipeline and as a daily and weekly to-do list. Trello is a great introduction into project management because it’s a lot easier to learn and use than most other project management software. For each project called a “Board”, you can create different “lists”, which are vertical collection of “cards”, which you can move between lists. You can add due dates, checklist lists, links, files and text to each card. To work collaboratively, you can leave comments on cards and assign them to members on your team. You can also use Trello as a brainstorming tool, using the cards just as you would use post-it notes.

Members of my online course, the Researchers’ Writing Academy , get access to Trello templates I created to easily manage their publication pipeline, the writing process for each of their scientific papers and all of their other daily, weekly and monthly tasks and projects.

15. Todoist

Todoist is an alternative to Trello (see tool #16) or can be used in addition. It’s an online to-do list organiser and project management tool that comes as an app and browser version. You can organise your tasks in projects and schedule them for a certain day. This academic writing tool shows you today’s tasks as well as those for the next seven days. It also tracks your productivity, i.e. how many tasks you have completed.

academic writing Tools for finding and reading the literature

Feedly is a neat RSS feed manager that helps you stay up to date with the scientific literature. Instead of getting email alerts from journals (because who wants to get more emails…) you can view and organise the literature you are interested in by following journals’ RSS feeds. You can not only use this for scientific literature but also subscribe to blogs, for example the one you’re reading right now, by simply putting the URL in the Feedly search: https://annaclemens.com/blog .

Are you a mindmapper? Then you need Xmind , a free mindmapping and brain-storming tool. It’s intuitive, looks good and does exactly what you want a mindmapping tool to do. The free version allows for embedding of hyperlinks, images, attachments, so you can really use it however you like! That’s all I can really say about it as I’m not using mindmapping myself. But I know scientists who swear by it!

18. Audemic

Audio formats have become so popular (I’m a big podcast lover myself!) so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise that there now is an audio tool available for the scientific literature too: Audemic . This tool — completely free to use for individual researchers — creates summaries for you (that go beyond the abstract), lets you skip sections, highlight text and take notes while listening.

There are a few reference managers for your academic writing to choose from, some of which cost money. Zotero is free, open-source and doesn’t lack in functionality. You can easily save references from your browser, organise them in folders and with tags and create bibliographies with the right style. You can also create a citation library with your co-authors or share your library with others.

That’s it: 19 academic writing apps and scientific research tools to support your writing for free! However, the best academic writing software won’t make you more productive if you don’t rely on a streamlined writing process and if you aren’t using your writing sessions effectively. If you want to get your hands on a template to write scientific papers in a systematic fashion, sign up for this 1-hour writing training now. It’s free too!

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Top 11 Dissertation Writing Software For Students 2024

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Dissertation Writing Software: Your Research, Streamlined.

Writing a dissertation or thesis plays an important role in one's academic career. However, it is also a rigorous task that students often struggle with. Writing a thesis requires a lot of research, dedication, and organisation which needs to compile a lot of information together. To create a well-crafted and cohesive dissertation, it’s important to equip yourself with the right tools that will make the writing process easy for you. Well, here’s the good news for you: there are many dissertation writing software available that will help you up your game & increase your chances of producing a top-quality thesis. In this blog, we will be covering some of the top thesis-writing software that will help you write a dissertation that will stand out. 

Top 11 Dissertation & Thesis Writing Software 

To write an effective thesis, one needs to do extensive research and consider many factors that will help one’s dissertation stand out. We are covering some of the best dissertation writing software that will help you stay organised and write an effective dissertation. These tools will help you with meticulous research and planning. Without further ado, let’s check out some of the amazing dissertation writing software. 

Top Feature: Organize and Label Items

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, iPadOS, Android (beta)

Rating: 9.1/10

Review: Excellent Open Source Citation Software with Multiple Integration Plug-ins Available

The first one on our list of dissertation writing software is Zotero, which helps you organize and label items. Zotero is a reference management software that helps in managing bibliographic data and research-related materials. This is one such dissertation writing software that will make your research task easy and organize & label items. The user-friendly interface and additional features such as web browser integration and collaboration options. 

Top Feature: Translation

Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux/Unix

Rating: 4.7/5

Review: Latex is very helpful for preparing the documents. It has high-quality typesetting system.

Another of the best dissertation writing software is the open-source document preparation system that was exclusively developed for scholarly and technical writing. This software is known for its highly customizable and powerful typesetting system. Students can take the utmost advantage of this software when writing a dissertation or thesis using its strong reference manager, BibTex. 

Top Feature: Mind Mapping

Platform: Windows, MacOS, Linux

Rating: 8.2/10

Review: A unique approach for organizing literature, focusing on your annotations instead of documents. It allows you to find the information you are looking for much faster.

While writing a dissertation, students often face a blocker in keeping multiple documents organized and sorted. Docear’s single-section user interface lets you sort documents and annotations. It contains a variety of tools, including PDF management and mind mapping, which allow its users to connect with new literature related to their area of research.  

4. Otter.ai

Top Feature: Custom Vocabulary, Playback Control

Platform: iOS or Android app

Rating: 4.5/5

Review: Great alternative to manual transcription services as it is faster and easier to access.

Another one of the best dissertation writing software is Otter, which develops speech-to-text transcription. Otter, developed by Otter.ai, was founded in 2016 by Sam Liang and Yun Fu who has a history of working in artificial intelligence. Otter does the hours of work with just a click; instead of writing for long hours and spending most of your time on the keyboard, you just have to speak, and Otter will do the rest of the work for you. This simple yet powerful app converts the audio into text format and ta da you on your way to writing the best dissertation. 

5. SpellCheckPlus

Top Feature: Spelling, Grammar, and Vocabulary Checks.

Platform: Web App

Rating: 4.1/5

Review: Grammar checker that finds common spelling errors and grammatical mistakes in English.

While writing such a long thesis or dissertation, mistakes are bound to happen well, what if we tell you that there is a tool that will not only edit but will give you suggestions to make your writing better? Isn’t it great? SpellCheckPlus is one of the best dissertation writing software that gives a summary of the suggestions that can make your writing better. It has a free version that gives you suggestions based on the content, whereas you can opt for an upgraded “pro” option, which includes additional features. 

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Top Feature: Bibliography & Citation Maker

Platform: Windows, MacOS

Rating: 2.6/5

Review: This is a great plagiarism checker at a good price.

A dissertation or thesis is incomplete without bibliographies; however, it takes a lot of time to manually find and write them. With BibMe in frame, this has become easy. The fully automated system generates citations and cited pages for you with just one click. All you have to do is select the format of your choice—APA, MLA, or Chicago/Turabian—and choose from a database that provides a wide range of options. Click “add” and download the bibliography of your choice. 

Top Feature: Different Controls & No Annoying Installation

Platform: Google Drive

Rating: 4.2/5

Review: Easy to use, lots of different controls, and no annoying installation.

With so many thoughts and ideas to make one's thesis better, it becomes too difficult to keep track of it becomes overwhelming. With Mindmup in the picture, you can easily connect the dots and your ideas and create an amazing thesis. Mindmup is one of the best dissertation writing software that works as online mind-mapping that makes it easy for students to put down their thoughts into action. MindMup is also a terrific collaborative tool.

8. iA Writer

Top Feature: Focus Mode, Content Blocks

Platform: Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android

Rating: 4.4/5   

Review: A pleasing minimalist tool for short-form writers, content creators, and bloggers.

Received recognition from The Guardian and The New York Times, iA Writer is one of the best dissertation writing software. It allows students to focus more by providing them with a writing-conducive environment. It has some of the best features, like focus mode, version control, cloud support, and insightful metrics. With broader clarity as to what it needs to rectify, it keeps the focus on the text and focuses on improving the content. 

9. Grammarly Premium

Top Feature: Tone Adjustments; Plagiarism Detection

Platform: Windows, iOS

Rating: 4/5

Review: Yes, the premium version of Grammarly is worth every penny.

Another one of the best dissertation writing software is Grammarly Premium, which can make your dissertation better with its amazing features. Grammarly Premium proofreads your content and gives you suggestions based on the analysis. It also has a handy feature of plagiarism check that will help you in making your thesis better. Another good feature is it easily integrates with Word, Google Docs and Chrome and gives you instant suggestions for rectification.

10. RefWorks

Top Feature: Stores and Organizes all forms of information

Rating: 4.3/5

Review: It is a useful program for managing citations and has helpful features for organisation.

RefWorks is a web-based reference management tool that helps you organize and store your references. It has amazing features like citation formatting, collaboration options, and document sharing. RefWorks is one of the best dissertation writing software that will help you keep your references handy and well-organized. 

Top Feature: Text Editor

Platform: Safari, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge

Rating: 4.8/5

Review: Notion is a good note-taking app for collaborating and is packed with features.

Writing a thesis or dissertation requires extensive planning and research. This leads to organizing and keeping things on track, which, if not handled properly, can lead to confusion. Notion allows you to organise your ideas and provides a flexible and customizable workspace. You can use a combination of text, tables, lists, media, and more. The notion also allows you to color-code text to keep the content highlighted. 

Writing a thesis requires a lot of research, which can often make it difficult for students to keep their research material organized. This dissertation writing software will let you organize and create an outstanding thesis or dissertation. These thesis writing software will make the process of writing dissertation easy for you and stand out.   

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the most popular thesis writing software options, how does ai-assisted thesis writing software work, what features should i look for in thesis writing software, can i use free software to write my thesis, what are the advantages of using specialized thesis writing software over traditional word processors.

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Thesis and Dissertation: Getting Started

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The resources in this section are designed to provide guidance for the first steps of the thesis or dissertation writing process. They offer tools to support the planning and managing of your project, including writing out your weekly schedule, outlining your goals, and organzing the various working elements of your project.

Weekly Goals Sheet (a.k.a. Life Map) [Word Doc]

This editable handout provides a place for you to fill in available time blocks on a weekly chart that will help you visualize the amount of time you have available to write. By using this chart, you will be able to work your writing goals into your schedule and put these goals into perspective with your day-to-day plans and responsibilities each week. This handout also contains a formula to help you determine the minimum number of pages you would need to write per day in order to complete your writing on time.

Setting a Production Schedule (Word Doc)

This editable handout can help you make sense of the various steps involved in the production of your thesis or dissertation and determine how long each step might take. A large part of this process involves (1) seeking out the most accurate and up-to-date information regarding specific document formatting requirements, (2) understanding research protocol limitations, (3) making note of deadlines, and (4) understanding your personal writing habits.

Creating a Roadmap (PDF)

Part of organizing your writing involves having a clear sense of how the different working parts relate to one another. Creating a roadmap for your dissertation early on can help you determine what the final document will include and how all the pieces are connected. This resource offers guidance on several approaches to creating a roadmap, including creating lists, maps, nut-shells, visuals, and different methods for outlining. It is important to remember that you can create more than one roadmap (or more than one type of roadmap) depending on how the different approaches discussed here meet your needs.

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• September 13, 2022
• Software Used to Write Thesis & Research Papers
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• Author Diana Clark

Every student at one point or the other has felt the need to say write my research paper to reduce their work load or finish an urgent submission. Students need to write many papers in their academic lives. They need to write essays to achieve higher academic scores while at school. They need to write admission essays or pass an admission test to get enrolled in the chosen institution for their education. Finally, they need to write a thesis to finish their studies and finally obtain a diploma.

Because of it, students often and quite desperately search for tools that would help them with the thesis and research papers. Thankfully, there are many such tools available today. To help you, we’ve narrowed down the list to some of the best software used to write, research, reference and edit these complex assignments.

Writing Software

Writing research papers or a thesis isn’t simple, but with the right software, it is much easier. Depending on how often you need such software and how many papers you’ll write, you can decide between more advanced and simpler choices to use. For example, you can use tools like Microsoft Word, Scrivener, or LaTeX for writing and publishing. Those who are more tech-savvy will use tools like LibreOffice or OpenOffice. Some hate typing and choose verbal writing software like Zapier or Dragon.

These are the most popular software used for all kinds of writing. Whatever choice you make out of the list, you can’t go wrong with your thesis and research papers.

Microsoft Word

All technology-led generations know of Microsoft Word. After all these years, it is still the most popular software for the creation of documents. With the Word app available now, users can even edit and view the documents from various devices, collaborate and share it with others. Since it is easy to use and has a myriad of attractive features, it’s definitely a tool to consider for your thesis and research papers.

LaTeX is a widely popular tool for typesetting, most commonly used for academic, scientific, and technical documents. Compared to Microsoft Word that has the most widespread use in terms of writing software, this one was specifically created for technical documents and publishing assignments.

However, if you choose this one, keep in mind that it isn’t a word processor and does not at all focus on the appearance and format. That being said, LaTeX can be very useful when you’re writing your first draft since it focuses on the content itself. But, when you need to format and edit, you might want to use a text processor.

Have you used Scrivener just yet? This is word-processing software mostly used by writers and authors. It’s a platform that works wonders with big projects since it lets you organize concepts, research, notes, and various documents.

Libre-Office and Open-Office

These two software choices let you create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. Similar to Microsoft Word they are currently the biggest competitors to the first tool in the list. They both share a large variety of features.

Zapier and Dragon

These two are highly popular dictation tools that transform voice into writing. They are widely used by authors who have to write on a daily basis, as well as by students when they need to write large research papers and a thesis.

Referencing Software

With big papers like the thesis, you’ll have to use the proper format to organize dozens, if not hundreds of different sources. This can take hours of your valuable time, but with the help of good referencing software, you can do it within minutes and be certain that the citation is spotless.

When it comes to referencing, the following two are the most popular among students.

Citavi is a popular, rather versatile software used for business and academic purposes. It will help you manage all sources, save the most important passages, as well as note down the page numbers for future use.

Ref-N-Write

This is a slightly more complex tool than Citavi, but one that’s much used among students. Ref-n-write lets you perform a text search, look through all the files you have, check the tone you used in the paper, evaluate your vocabulary, etc. Its features go beyond just referencing since the software is also used to help out the writing process and paraphrase texts.

Researching Software

When you’re working on your research, the right tools and methods can make the process easier and much more effective. These are some of the best sources for research.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Office tools are very popular among students. In terms of research, Microsoft Excel is at the top of most student’s lists. It helps them perform quantitative analysis with the help of its numerous statistical functions. Moreover, Excel lets you visualize everything in charts and tables, as well as organize all that data without errors.

Google Scholar

This is a free tool for research made and maintained by Google. It’s extremely popular among those who need to find academic articles, journals, literature, patents, and white papers. All of this makes it perfect for your research papers and thesis.

Research Gate

ResearchGate already has over 11 million users, which makes it one of the most popular research platforms for academics, researchers and scientists. It’s an amazing place to discuss and look for important academic sources.

Editing Software

All of the tools above will help you write that paper, but what happens when you finish your draft? Editing is very hard on the person who wrote the content and it is very easy to miss the crucial mistakes in your paper, especially with lengthy tasks like a thesis.

Here is the editing software that will ensure that this won’t happen.

MS Word Spelling & Grammar Checker

MS Word has its own spelling and grammar checker. Still, you should remember that human editing is essential and a paper can’t be great without it. Even so, the MS checker is very detailed and amazing at finding the errors.

The second most popular editing tool after MS Word is Grammarly. This tool doesn’t just look for spelling or grammar errors. If you choose the paid version, it will find more mistakes than you can imagine and even offer suggestions for content improvements.

Have you tested all of these tools? Writing the research papers and thesis can be so much easier with the right software, so you better start using them today!

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Best Dissertation Editing Software: Top15 List

Why Use Thesis Editor Software and Thesis Checker Tool

Writing is an art. And a thesis or dissertation can make or break a student’s academic experience. Students need to be capable and equipped with the right thesis checker tool and complete their thesis. 

A high-quality and reliable dissertation editing software that can help to revise thesis website ensure quality thesis content. A way for students to get grammar correction with dissertation editing help free of charge is also great.

Top 15 Software for Helping with Thesis Editing

One of the widely-used popular grammar check software online. Grammarly can also be used as an extension for browsers, document editors, email, and popular communication apps. 

• ✓ Supported by AI-powered writing tools
• ✓ Responsive user interface
• ✓ Real-time spelling and grammar check
• ✓ Establish writing goals for tone, mood, and style
• ✓ Cross-platform compatibility

Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor is a grammar checker software that enhances the style of the writing content. It highlights passive voice, poor adverb and word choices, and complex phrases.

• ✓ Color-coded highlights for errors
• ✓ Import and export to/from document editors
• ✓ Direct publishing of writing content
• ✓ Provides desktop version for offline editing

ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid has the tools for grammar check, writing guide, and style editor. It checks and helps correct grammatical and punctuation errors, spelling issues, poor tone and weak writing style. 

Feature: 

• ✓ Automatic error identification and correction suggestions
• ✓ Provides a comprehensive thesaurus and word explorer
• ✓ Browser and document editor extension

After the Deadline

After the Deadline is an open-source grammar checker solution for style correction, contextual spelling check, and language correction. It checks and highlights common writing errors in spelling, grammar, and styling.

Features: 

• ✓ AI-supported and Natural Language Processing core technology
• ✓ Add-on integration for browser and document editor software
• ✓ Multi-language support
• ✓ Cross-platform compatibility 

WhiteSmoke provides an all-in English writing correction tool for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and writing style. It has tools to help write, edit, and translate for both native and non-native english speakers. 

• ✓ Built-in multiple language dictionaries, templates, and translators.
• ✓ Add-on integration for browsers and text editors
• ✓ Uses AI and Natural Language Processing algorithms
• ✓ Cross-platform desktop, website, and mobile applications 

Ginger software is a grammar and spelling checker tool that identifies and corrects grammatical, styling, punctuation, and spelling errors in writing content. The software also helps correct and improve poorly written sentences.

• ✓ Access to comprehensive thesaurus, dictionaries
• ✓ Intuitive word predictions
• ✓ Cross-platform web and mobile app 

GrammarCheck

GrammarCheck is an open-sourced web-based spelling and grammar checker software. This grammar check software is simple to use – paste writing content on to the designated area, then click Check.

• ✓ AI and NLP-supported intuitive error identification and correction
• ✓ Enables advanced and in-depth check and correction
• ✓ Color-coded error and correction suggestions

Reverso is a translation tool with built-in grammar and spelling checker tools. The site also provides writing style, punctuation correction assistance, and full-text translation services. 

• ✓ Comprehensive word and phrase index and libraries
• ✓ Supports multi-language translation
• ✓ Intelligent correction assistance
• ✓ Cross-platform web and mobile app

Google Docs

Google Docs is the Google Suite document manager app  where users create, edit, and style their writing. It is a cross-platform app accessible to web and mobile devices. 

• ✓ Built in grammar and spelling checker and corrector
• ✓ Extensive thesaurus and dictionary
• ✓ Built-in document translation tool
• ✓ Comprehensive third-party add-on app library
• ✓ Google Suite tools integration

Microsoft Editor

Microsoft Editor is the Microsoft writing assistant available for Microsoft Word, Outlook, and browser. This is available for Microsoft account holders, with the free version easily accessible.

• ✓ AI-supported writing assistant
• ✓ Built-in spelling, basic and advanced grammar checker and corrector
• ✓ Clarity, Conciseness, and vocabulary improvement
• ✓ Formal language and punctuation conventions

LanguageTool

LanguageTool is a spelling and grammar checker for professionals. The software also provides tools for improving writing style and contextual correction. 

• ✓ Customizable dictionary for commonly-used words
• ✓ Multiple language support
• ✓ Browser and document editor extension and plug-in integration
• ✓ Offline standalone version 

PaperRater is a free online grammar and spelling checker software with tools focused on evaluating content structure and automated content proofreading. It is equipped with automated grammar, spelling, writing style, and punctuation error detection tools.

• ✓ Plagiarism check and originality score
• ✓ Automated essay score
• ✓ Vocabulary assistance and builder
• ✓ Real-time writing reports and statistics

Scribens is a powerful grammar checker software that uses an advanced syntactical algorithm to identify and correct over 250 types of spelling, grammar, and writing style errors.

• ✓ Provides readability indicator
• ✓ Writing statistics
• ✓ Built-in dictionary and thesaurus
• ✓ Email and document editor compatibility
• ✓ Third-party app integration and extension

Slick Write

A powerful grammar, spelling, and writing style checker, Slick Write is best suited for students’ thesis helper , SEO professionals, bloggers, or any and all writing enthusiasts. The software provides contextual feedback and improvement suggestions to your writing.

• ✓ Writing content report and statistics
• ✓ Contextual word association
• ✓ Import file options

Online Correction

Online Correction is a free and easy-to-use online correction tool for essays or any type of writing content. The website provides the necessary grammar and spelling detection and correction tools. 

• ✓ Writing construction and vocabulary improvement feedback
• ✓ Support for multiple English dialects  

Selecting the Best Software for Editing your Thesis

Choose the one most compatible with you and your devices. Regardless of the OS or the device, you should be able to access the dissertation editing software. Choose the most accessible and cross-platform compatible.

Choose the thesis editing software that allows you to monitor your writing statistics. Your thesis comes with strict limitations and formatting constraints. Choose the dissertation editing software that will help you write the best thesis within those limitations and software testing dissertation content quality.

Choose the thesis editing software that best fits your budget. Not everyone can afford to buy an entire software or even a monthly subscription. Choose the thesis helper with the most features at the most manageable cost as your thesis grammar checker free online.

Choose the thesis editing software that has all the tools you need. Check the features of the software against what you need in a thesis checking software. Choose the thesis checking software that is equipped to meet all your editing needs.   

Make the right choice for your thesis! Use our thesis editing helper to improve your thesis writing.

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Top 7 Free Online Tools for PhD Thesis Writing

Top Free Online Tools for PhD Thesis Writing

Writing a Ph.D. thesis? Don’t know how to write a Ph.D. thesis? Do not fret! Here are 7 free online tools to help you with your PhD thesis writing. If you are a research scholar currently dealing with a tough Ph.D. thesis, then you have come to the right place. In this article, iLovePhD has compiled a list of the top 7 free online tools to streamline your PhD thesis work.

• Some scholars may find it difficult to decide which tool to use, especially considering the abundance of available online alternatives and their capability to perform various tasks.
• Each online tool has its own advantages and limitations.
• Some tools are completely free, while others are free trials of software that cost money.
• Some only carry out the bare minimum of tasks, while others possess highly unique skills that enable them to do much more with the data.

Free Online Tools for PhD Thesis

1. grammarly.

• Grammarly is a free online grammar and text editing tool that can greatly help users enhance and improve their writing.
• Along with assisting you with maintaining your word count, Grammarly can help you improve your writing abilities and grammar.
• The “My Grammarly” section on the homepage of the tool allows the user to create or upload a document.
• Grammarly offers numerous alternatives for you to modify your text while also helping you save time and effort. 

2. Word-Counter.io

• When it comes to actual text editing and counting, the word count is the go-to free online tool. 
• Using an online word counter tool is a straightforward solution for students and teachers. 

• The word counter is a straightforward and user-friendly online tool that displays the appropriate word count for the text entered into the writing area. 
• The free online word counter tool can access various text statistics that greatly help the user, including word density and other crucial data like all words, words with and without spaces, words, sentences, pages, etc.
• It assists in avoiding repetition in one word and ensures that your words are consistent with one another.
• The number of rewrites and cuts may also be decreased, thus saving time and effort.

3. Quillbot’s Citation Generator

• Quillbot’s Citation Generator is a fast, reliable way to make citations for your essays, presentations, and other projects.
• We can create APA, MLA, and Chicago-style full and in-text citations in a snap. 
• Quillbot is one of the top writing tools on the internet that serves the best of multiple integrated tools to the user. 
• Any user can easily use the free citation generator of Quill Bot to automatically and even manually create citations within just a few seconds, with hundreds of different citation styles to choose from.  

Website link: Quillbot’s Citation Generator

• Mindmup is a limited free online mind map creator tool designed by Sauf Pompiers Ltd that enables to the creation of graphic, digital mind maps. 
• We can create, collaborate, and share mind maps in the cloud based on an open source mind map editor, with a simple and open data format.” 

5. Text Readability Calculator Tool

• This free online tool can easily assess your text’s comprehensibility and readability, which are the most important factors to consider while writing any type of content. 

6. Plagiarism Checker free online Tool for PhD Thesis

• A plagiarism checker tool is an online tool that helps any user performs a deep web search to see if the written content matches any other similar content on the web. 
• With a plagiarism checker at your disposal, you can now confirm the accuracy of the data you are about to publish.
• Any content that is to be published, it must be cross-checked with the plagiarism checker to see if it is the original content. 

7. Similarly Checker

• Finally, the similarity checker can help you determine whether the current piece of writing is a repeat of earlier work.
• The Similarity Checker can compare two different types of content side by side to see if they match in any way. 
• It is done so you can always create fresh content and avoid repeatedly writing the same type of text.
• The similarity checker examines every section of the provided document and identifies and highlights any content that matches in seconds. 
• Using this tool, you can quickly check for repetition by comparing current assignments with similar ones and other relevant work. 

As it is said before, getting a Ph.D. degree is not an easy one. So, to make it convenient and easy for scholars, iLovePhD has compiled a list of 7 free online tools that can greatly reduce the stress of writing a Ph.D. thesis. 

Using the right tools can improve your productivity, enhance your content, and overcome any challenges you may face.

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New online guide for graduate thesis writing

Get tips and strategies to enhance your academic writing and develop your skills.

If you’re a PhD, Masters by research or Honours student, the Library’s new Graduate Research and Thesis Writing Guide is for you.

Whether you’re just starting out, mid-way through your candidature, or in the final stages of writing your thesis, this new resource provides advice, tips and strategies to enhance your academic writing and develop your skills. Learn how to write for publication in academic journals, produce well-structured literature reviews and how to get started on the main chapters of your thesis.

The guide also includes links to workshops and further online resources to assist you.

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How to Write an Immediate Resignation Letter (With Samples)

Resigning from a job is never easy—and leaving without notice can make it even more difficult. If life throws an unexpected situation your way and you have to make a quick decision, don’t panic. It happens, but it doesn’t have to put your professional reputation at risk. The key is to handle it professionally and make the transition as smooth as possible. That’s why we’re here to help you write an effective-immediate resignation letter.

We'll cover everything you need to know about writing a resignation letter for immediate resign situations—including valid reasons for leaving right away, tips on the best way to do it, and how to craft a resignation letter that's both respectful and clear. Plus, we've invited experts to share their insights and offer advice on navigating this challenging process.

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Understanding immediate resignation

An immediate resignation means leaving a job without giving the standard notice period outlined in your employment contract—typically two to four weeks. This kind of resignation usually happens due to urgent personal or professional issues that make it impossible to stay in the role.

In the U.S., most employment is “at will,” meaning that both the employee and employer can end the employment relationship at any time, for any reason, with or without notice. Still, it’s a good idea to check your employment contract to see if there are any rules or restrictions about resigning immediately.

“While employees generally have the right to resign at any time, doing so abruptly may be considered a breach of contract if they have an employment agreement requiring notice,” says attorney Michele Diglio-Benkiran, Founder of Legal Counsel, P.A , who drafts employment agreements and handles disputes. “However, courts rarely force employees to continue working, though they may face damages.”

“In many fields, quitting without proper notice is considered a major lapse in professionalism that can completely scorch that bridge,” says HR consultant Conor Hughes . “I've witnessed it sabotage countless employees' prospects when former employers get contacted—no positive references, no rehire option, just negative accounts that torpedo new opportunities.”

If your resignation is due to a personal crisis, explaining your reasons can sometimes mitigate the negative impact. “Employers might understand if they see you’re dealing with unavoidable circumstances,” says Susan Andrews, an HR specialist at KIS Finance . “You have to be prepared for mixed reactions, though, since some employers may still view it negatively.”

Valid reasons for immediate resignation

“I always advise reviewing the contract's fine print around resignation protocols, giving the statutory minimum 1-week notice if feasible, and being prepared for the company to potentially enforce working the full notice period,” Hughes says.

That said, deciding to resign immediately can be tricky and is usually driven by urgent and compelling reasons, like:

Personal reasons

• Health emergencies: A serious illness or injury affecting yourself or a close family member might require your immediate attention.
• Family crises: Situations like the death of a loved one or a family member requiring urgent care can force an immediate departure.
• Relocation: An unexpected move to a distant location might lead to an immediate resignation.

Work-related reasons

• Toxic work environment : A workplace that is harmful to your mental or physical health due to persistent negativity, bullying , or other toxic behaviors.
• Harassment : Experiencing harassment, whether it is sexual , racial, or otherwise, can require an immediate departure to protect your well-being.
• Unethical practices : Discovering illegal or unethical activities within the company that conflict with your values and could implicate you legally or morally.

Career-related reasons

• Unexpected job offer: A new job offer with an immediate start date might require an immediate resignation from your current position.
• Entrepreneurial pursuits: Deciding to start your own business could require an immediate departure from your current employment.

How to write an immediate resignation letter in 6 steps

When you need to resign immediately, it's crucial to write a clear and professional immediate resignation letter without notice. Follow these steps:

1. Clearly state your intentions

Begin your immediate resignation letter by clearly stating your intent to resign from your position effective immediately. This removes any ambiguity and sets a clear timeline for your departure.

2. Provide a brief explanation for your decision

While it’s not mandatory, offering a brief explanation for your immediate departure can offer useful context. This is especially helpful if you have a pressing and valid reason for immediate resignation.

“If it’s for health reasons, then mention them briefly without too much detail,” Andrews says. “If your workplace is toxic, focus on your need to leave for your well-being. The key here is to use respectful language and avoid unnecessary details. This will maintain your professionalism and ensure the message is clear.”

3. Express gratitude for the opportunity

Even if your experience wasn’t entirely positive, keep a professional tone and express gratitude for the opportunities and experiences you’ve had with the company. This will help preserve your reputation and work relationships.

4. Offer to assist with the handover of responsibilities

Show your commitment to a smooth transition by offering to assist with the handover of your responsibilities. This can include helping to train a replacement or providing documentation of your tasks and projects.

5. Include your contact information

Give your contact information so your employer can reach you if needed. This shows your willingness to remain cooperative and helpful during the transition.

6. Proofread before sending

Before sending your letter, make sure to proofread it carefully. Check for any spelling or grammatical errors to ensure your letter is polished and professional. Once you're satisfied, you’re ready to send it.

Immediate resignation letter samples

Here are some immediate resignation letter examples for different scenarios, each tailored to address specific situations while keeping professionalism and clarity.

Sample #1: Immediate resignation letter for personal reasons

[Your name] [Your address] [Email address] [Date]

[Recipient’s name] [Recipient’s title] [Company name] [Company address]

Dear [recipient’s name],

I am writing to inform you of my decision to resign from my position at [Company Name], effective immediately. Due to unforeseen personal circumstances, I am unable to continue my role at this time.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunities and experiences I have had while working here. I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition and I am available to assist in any way possible during this period. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please, feel free to contact me at [email address] or [phone number] if needed.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely, [Your name]

Sample #2: Immediate resignation letter due to health issues

I regret to inform you that, due to health issues, I must resign from my position at [Company Name] effective immediately. This decision was not made lightly, but it is necessary for my well-being.

I appreciate the support and opportunities I have received during my time here. I am willing to assist in any way I can to ensure a smooth transition and I apologize for any inconvenience this decision may cause. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email address] or [your phone number] for any follow-ups.

Sample #3: Immediate resignation due to a toxic work environment

I am writing to inform you of my immediate resignation from [Company Name], effective immediately. I find it necessary to step down from my position to prioritize my mental and emotional well-being.

I appreciate the experiences I have had while working here, and I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please feel free to reach out to me at [email address] or [phone number] if you need any further assistance.

Sample #4: Immediate resignation for career advancement

I am writing to resign from my position at [Company Name], effective immediately, as I have been offered an opportunity that aligns closely with my long-term career goals. This new role requires an immediate start, which unfortunately prevents me from providing the standard notice period.

I am sincerely grateful for the opportunities and experiences I have gained during my time here. I will do my best to assist in any way to ensure a smooth transition. Please do not hesitate to contact me at [email address] or [phone number] if you require further assistance.

Immediate resignation letter template

Here's a general template that you can customize for any immediate resignation scenario. This template includes all the essential components and uses a professional and respectful tone.

I am writing to formally resign from my position at [Company Name], effective immediately.

Due to [briefly state your reason, if desired], I find it necessary to step down from my role at this time. This decision was not made lightly, but it is essential for [briefly mention your priority, such as personal well-being, family responsibilities, etc.].

I am deeply grateful for the opportunities and experiences I have had while working with [Company Name]. I appreciate the support and guidance provided by you and the entire team. I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition and I am available to assist in any way possible during this period.

Please feel free to contact me at [email address] or [phone number] if you need any further information or assistance. I will do my best to help facilitate a smooth handover of my responsibilities.

Key takeaways

Even if you resign in person out of frustration or in a moment of anger, sending a well-crafted immediate resignation letter is crucial for documentation. “That written record clarifies all dates, obligations like equipment return, and transition planning,” Hughes says. “Plus it eliminates ambiguity.”

Immediate resignations are sometimes necessary due to urgent personal issues, toxic work environments, or career opportunities. They help protect your well-being, uphold ethical standards, or seize professional advancements.

Regardless of the reason, maintain a professional and respectful tone in your letter. Avoid negative comments or criticism. Keep it simple and direct: state your intent and last working day, provide necessary details, offer to assist with the transition if possible, and express gratitude. Sending farewell messages to colleagues you have a good relationship with can also help preserve connections.

Beyond spelling: How word prediction software enhances the writing process

Several years ago, I was working with an insurance company, and we were trying to obtain the medication my daughter needed. We had many calls and conversations, but the one I remember the most was when he asked me to identify the gum in the straw. The gum in the straw? I repeated. He explained the metaphor, and he meant the holdup in the process. Since then, I have used this concept to identify places in the writing process where a writer could become stuck, and there are many of them. In order to compose, writing involves idea generation, planning, sentence structure and construction, focus, organization, and language. Additionally, writing involves spelling, conventions, and the use of grammatical rules. And then, to complete any type of written text, writers must use both fine and gross motor skills. Each one of these skills has nuances and subskills that complicate them, leading to many metaphorical places in a straw where a writer could get stuck. Therefore, I welcome systems, scaffolds, and tools that can isolate skills and make the process easier if possible.

Some of the ideas I’ve used include writing prompts for ideas, graphic organizers for planning, pictures for helping with memory, and sentence frames for fluency and organization. Text dictation programs help writers who can verbalize their ideas, but struggle with spelling, handwriting, or keyboarding. Just like a carpenter finds the right tools for a construction project, writing teachers have more and more tools to choose for their instruction.

Word prediction software has emerged as a powerful new tool. Originally, I thought of it as a spelling tool. With a background in special education, I could see its benefits for students who struggle with spelling and encoding. However the more I study the process of writing and the implications of word prediction, the more I appreciate the range of benefits it offers any writer (myself included), and especially writers who sometimes struggle with getting their words into the world. Co-Writer prediction in Read&Write offers much more than assistance with spelling.

In addition to spelling help, Co-Writer prediction in Read&Write helps students to form sentences correctly using the right words in the right context. If a student begins a sentence, the prediction tool will suggest words that could follow using correct grammar and syntax. The suggestions remove that element of brainwork involved with written expression, allowing students to focus on the many other cognitive demands involved in getting ideas to paper in ways readers can understand.

Because Co-Writer Prediction offers specific suggestions for words, it alleviates the dilemma I have over whether students should have spelling notifications turned on or off. If I teach students to use spellcheck as they draft, the lines and notifications interrupt the thinking process that writing coherent texts requires . However, if I discourage students from using spellcheck, they continue to misspell words, adding to the neurological confusion that happens when the brain sees and processes a variety of spelling options for the same word; the brain is likely to register that the word is tricky and difficult, but not the correct spelling. My personal example is the word embarrassment. I know it’s tricky, but I do not spell it with automaticity-- perhaps because I’ve spelled it in different ways. Word prediction lets students see, experience, and process the correct spelling of words more frequently, facilitating the internalization of correct spelling. Furthermore, reduced focus on mechanics allows writers to brainstorm and express ideas more creatively. It can help learners to focus on the writing task rather than worry about making spelling mistakes.

There are times when all writers struggle with finding the right words. Word prediction software does not do the writing, but it does provide suggestions for words that make sense in the context of sentences and paragraphs. When I use it, the program guesses what I’m going to write; sometimes it’s not exactly what I’m trying to say, and I ignore it. But sometimes it’s better than what I’m trying to say, and I accept the suggestion. In this way, word prediction acts as a quiet coach that provides gentle nudging without becoming distracting and derailing the concentration I need to write. For students, the program has the power to build vocabulary and empower writers to use new words effectively and correctly.

In addition to all the cognitive work involved with writing, there’s also the component of motor skills. For some students, the physical act of typing is a potential place in the straw for gum to stick. Not everyone learns keyboarding skills as easily as others; finding letters, managing shift keys, seeking punctuation tools, and maintaining the finger dexterity while doing all that is brainwork in and of itself, setting aside the additional challenges of what you’re trying to say, how to spell words, and how to structure sentences and paragraphs.

Writing prediction software minimizes the amount of letters writers have to find on the keyboard because if the words are correct, then all the writer has to do is select them from the list. There’s no need to hunt for the rest of the letters in order to spell the word. While this feature may not seem to be a big deal to a skilled typist, for a writer who faces challenges with learning the keyboard, this feature could save a lot of time, frustration, and cognitive energy, allowing cognitive energy to be channeled to other areas involved with writing.

In conclusion, word prediction software offers a comprehensive range of benefits that extend beyond spelling correction. Co-Writer prediction in Read&Write is a feature that will help many children become more confident and effective writers, and I can’t wait to see how it continues to evolve in the months and years ahead.

Melanie Meehan is the Elementary Writing Coordinator in Simsbury, Connecticut, developing curriculum and assessments, coaching teachers, and working with students to send them into the world as confident, competent writers. Melanie has written several books about writing instruction, co-authors the popular blog, Two Writing Teachers, and co-hosts its companion podcast. Additionally, she consults with school districts and educational companies and tutors writers worldwide.

She loves to connect with educators through her website, melaniemeehan.com .

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Ios 17.6.1 new iphone software release: should you upgrade.

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Apple just released a surprise iPhone update: iOS 17.6.1. You can tell from the numbering that this is a minor update and you’d be right if you guessed there were no new features. Here’s what’s in it, and whether you should pop it on your iPhone just yet.

Apple iOS 17.6.1 is ready for download.

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How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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