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.
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,
Features of Mendeley:
- 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.
How to use Mendeley?
- 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.
How to cite the work?
- 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.
Evernote
“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.
Features of Evernote?
- 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.
How to use Evernote?
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.
Features of BibMe are:
- 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.
How to use BibMe?
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.
How to use Thesaurus?
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.
How to use Dissertationauthers?
- 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
Features of Grammarly:
- 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,
Features of Hemingway Editor:
- 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.
Wrapping up:
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.
