5 best software for academic writing
Posted on 15th Feb 2019
Article By: MADELEINE DEAN
If you’re looking for a really good academic writing software to boost your productivity, you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’re going to list the best tools for academic writing that you can use to write faster and better organize your notes and ideas.
Software for academic writing
Scrivener
Scrivener is one of the most popular tools for academic writing out there and for a very good reason. If you regularly work with long and complex documents, then this is the perfect choice for you.
Whether you’re writing a novel, research paper, script or other type of text, Scrivener helps you collect research information, take notes, view research alongside your writing and order fragmented ideas so that you can create a cohesive paper. Basically, the software brings all the tools that you need into one place.
You no longer need to switch between multiple programs to research files: you can keep all of your materials, PDF files, movies and web pages inside Scrivener. Simply split the editor to view your research materials in one pane while composing your text in the second one. This is a very useful feature especially if you need to transcribe an interview or conversation: just keep the audio file playing in one pane, and transcribe the interview in the second one all leaving the document you’re working on.
Don’t worry about making any mistakes. You can always take a “snapshot” of the document you’re working on and restore an earlier revision at any time if you’re not satisfied with the end result.
Scrivener is available for a 30 day free trial. You can buy the software for $40.00 from Literature and Latte.
LaTex
LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting tool designed for writing technical and scientific documents. Although initially created for creating medium to large technical and scientific documents, you can use it for basically any publishing tasks.
It is worth mentioning from the very beginning that LaTeX is not a word processor. Your document’s appearance is not important, content is what really matters. This is actually an interesting approach. Oftentimes, authors waste precious time trying to perfect the design of their documents, instead of focusing on putting together their best ideas. Of course, you can always format your document using a text processor once you’re done writing it.
Some may argue that using LaTex to write academic papers is too complicated. Indeed, you need to use a series of codes to actually establish the layout of your page. But we’re sure that if you’re a programmer or work in an IT-related industry, you’ll definitely love this tool.
You can download LaTex for free from The LaTex Project.
Citavi
Citavi is a versatile tool that you can use for academic purposes (for students and researchers), as well as for business purposes. Since this article focuses on academic writing software, we’ll highlight its use in the academic world.
If you’re a student, you can use Citavi to manage your sources, including those from your university’s library catalog. If can also save interesting text passages along with the source and page numbers.
If you’re having problems structuring your ideas, you can categorize your entries to outline your paper. Once you’ve decided on the structure of you paper, you can simply insert your saved quotations. Moreover, when you insert a quote, the tool automatically adds it to your bibliography.
If you’re a researcher, you’ll definitely love this tool. You can use it to search resources from around the world, create tasks, analyze texts, save quotations and ideas, create drafts and write reports, articles, books, etc. The software also supports team work, allowing you to collaborate with your peers.
You can buy Citavi from the tool’s official website. For more information, you can check out the Citavi’s YouTube Channel.
Ref-N-Write
Ref-N-Write is a complex academic writing tool that will help you finish your assignments or research in no time. You can use this software to perform a full text search and navigate through all your documents, make sure that you use an appropriate tone for the field, look up for specific vocabulary, and more.
Ref-N-Write is perfect for non-native English speakers. The tool offers an impressive academic phrase bank of 20,000 frequently used phrases in academic writing. This will help non-native English speakers paraphrase their text and improve their academic writing skills.
You can buy Ref-N-Write for $38.00.
TypeSet
TypeSet is an incredible tool that simplifies the way academic and research writing is done. This software allows you to efficiently focus on finding the right information for your paper and then note down your ideas.
With TypeSet, you can now get your content into thousands of formats. In this way, you’ll no longer waste precious time on formating your paper.
Citing your references is easier with TypeSet. All you need to do is click the “Cite” option in the tool bar, select your reference and you’re done. The same is valid for bibliographies.
The software also checks the format of your paper, making sure that you didn’t miss any mandatory sections. Typeset’s version control feature lets you track progress on your document, restore an older version and even compare different versions of your paper. In this manner, it’s easier for you to undo changes.
Most importantly, the tool’s math editor offers a wide library of expressions in mathematics, statistics, physics, biology etc. This will come in handy if you’re doing research in those fields.
You can download TypeSet for free. A premium set of paid feature should soon be available.