Writing has come a long way since our ancestors used sharp stones to carve into walls. It has evolved from crushed berries used to paint words on cloth to pen and paper and then the typewriter. Nowadays, although children learn to write by hand in school, the majority of the world’s writing happens on the computer. The creation of word processing tools has helped this shift by making it easier to correct, design, and share writing. Microsoft Word and Google Docs make it possible to collaborate and show editing changes easily, in addition to offering the basics like formatting and spell checking.
But the world of online writing tools has developed far beyond these two tools. Whether you’re an experienced writer or on occasional one, you’ve no doubt come across a large number of tools that claim they will help make your writing great. As technology becomes more intertwined with our daily lives, there are an increasing number of apps and websites that provide services to aspiring writers. From simple grammar checkers to more complex tasks like plagiarism detection and stylistic checks, these tools can perform a wide variety of services and be very helpful to writers. Sorting through them can be overwhelming, which is why we are bringing you a list of the 5 best tools for writers in 2022. This list includes tools for editing, organizing your writing, checking for plagiarism, eliminating distractions, and grammar checkers. Let’s check out the five best tools for writers available in 2022!
Table of Content:
If you need a writing tool for your scholarly pursuits, look no further than Trinka AI. Trinka was designed specifically for academic writers and is specialized in academic writing for various disciplines ranging from medicine and physics to computer science, psychology, and history. Trinka also highlights issues in a manuscript that may negatively affect its acceptance during the journal submission stage, e.g., the presence or absence of compliance statements such as ethical considerations, conflict of interest, funding sources and author contribution. Because of this, Trinka is an indispensable resource for any science writer or researcher. Students can also benefit from Trinka as the traditional grammar and spell checking tools that are built into word processors like Microsoft Word tend to incorrectly flag academic or highly technical words and phrasing.
2. Evernote
Keeping track of sources, notes, and deadlines can get overwhelming when you’re writing a research paper. Evernote is great for this, but its uses aren’t limited to research and academics. It’s great for anyone who has multiple projects or ideas to manage. You can store links, notes, and get reminders about upcoming tasks. You can even sync your notes to your calendar, so that when you have meetings or presentations all of the information is available immediately. It’s a great way to organize your ideas and your writing.
3. PerfectIt
PerfectIt is a convenient tool for writers and editors alike. Earning its name from its ability to pick up seemingly minor but quite important details, PerfectIt works with Microsoft Word to analyze documents for consistency. PerfectIt is good at catching spelling errors that are real words but incorrect within the context (manger vs. manager, for example). It also picks up inconsistent capitalization, spelling, hyphenation, and more. One of the most appealing parts of PerfectIt is the ability to customize the style guide. It can be used with the EU or UN style guides as well as the Chicago Manual of Style. You can customize it for the specific style guide of your class, institution, organization, or academic journal to pick up on the errors that matter most.
While the internet has made it easier than ever to perform research, it has also increased the ease to plagiarize content. Many writers commit plagiarism without even realizing it. This is why it is important to use an online plagiarism checker before submitting your work for class or to a journal. Enago Academy offers one of the best online plagiarism checkers out there. Made in partnership with Turnitin, the Enago plagiarism checker has access to a huge database of over 91 million articles on the web. Most importantly for scholars, the Enago Academy plagiarism checker also checks your work against paywalled scholarly articles. If you are planning to submit your writing for academic publishing, a pre-check for plagiarism against these databases is a must. This will ensure that you haven’t committed accidental plagiarism and that your work won’t be flagged by the publishers.
5. Freedom
If you’re like most people, you struggle to stay focused on your work with all of the available distractions online. It can be very challenging to carve out a solid time to work when you’re receiving texts, emails, and news alerts on your phone and computer! Fortunately, there’s an app for that. Freedom is productivity software that works across multiple devices to block distractions. You can choose particular times during the day and select the sites to be blocked to make sure you still have access to sites you need for your work. You can also simply start up a session with Freedom whenever you feel like it. You can even block the internet entirely on your devices only so you don’t inconvenience anyone else in your household.
Honorable Mentions
While the tools above are our favorites for 2022, they definitely aren’t the only great writing tools around. Some additional tools that we think are worth mentioning include Living Writer and Hemingway. Living Writer is great for anyone writing a book as it helps you organize sections and provides you with a simple way to organize notes and ideas while you write. The Hemingway app is a unique tool that helps writers identify problematic sections of their writing. It highlights sentences using a color-coded system, identifying phrases that could use reorganization, synonyms that might be preferable substitutes, and passive voice sentences.
No matter what tools you prefer, it’s worth trying different ones to check the kind of writing help that best suits your writing. Increase the ease of your writing process by trying the tools listed above today!