Find the brainstorming that is best, researching, writing, and editing tools
Whether you are attempting to weave together a jumble of ideas, fix split infinitives, or nail down that hard-to-think-of word, there are plenty of writing apps to help you. But vetting those tools and determining which fit best along with your writing style takes time.
That’s why we have done the heavy lifting for you. The following 15 writing tools assist you to brainstorm, research, write, and edit better and faster—and they are all liberated to use.
Tools for Brainstorming and Organizing Your Thoughts
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing is figuring out what you need to create about. Other times, you realize exactly what you want to come up with, but your thinking are way too disorganized to move forward. If you should be struggling with either issue, these tools shall help you brainstorm and organize your thinking, getting them from the head and onto the screen.
MindMeister (Web, iOS, Android)
Best free writing software for expanding your opinions
Mind mapping is a great brainstorming exercise for many kinds of writing projects. Whether you are capturing thoughts for a term paper or thesis, putting together an outline for a blog that is long or ebook, or coming up with ideas for a new novel or book series, mind mapping makes it possible to capture your ideas and brainstorm new ones by triggering associations.
And even though you can create a mind map on paper or a whiteboard, MindMeister offers more flexibility. MindMeister is a tool designed specifically to create mind mapping easier, giving writers a way that is simple capture their ideas, organize them, and share these with others.
It does not matter what size your thoughts map gets, MindMeister expands to give you just as much room since you need. Capture all of your ideas in a single file, rearrange and organize your opinions by dragging and dropping them, and connect ideas in spite of how far apart they’ve been in your thoughts map. With reasonably limited plan, you can also attach related files and images to reference later.
MindMeister Pricing: Free for approximately three mind maps; from $4.99/month for the Personal plan that includes unlimited mind maps and file attachments.
Would you like to find out about mind mapping? Check out our mind mapping tutorial, or discover nine how to use mind maps to jumpstart your projects.
WorkFlowy (Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android)
Best free writing software for creating content outlines
Well-structured writing starts with a well-structured outline. WorkFlowy makes outlining straightforward: the app enables you to quickly create an organized summary of every writing project and all of the parts bullet that is using and nested lists.
Start with the strokes—section that is broad, big ideas, themes—and nest related details and research beneath those bullets. WorkFlowy now offers hashtag-based tagging and search features, and that means you need not be concerned about creating too many lists or letting bullet points run wild.
You are able to zoom in on any list by simply clicking the bullet point that is corresponding. Plus, if you hover over a bullet point, you’ll see choices to complete, add an email to, share, export, duplicate, or delete that item. Use the Complete option to tick off parts of your outline them, or drag and drop bulleted lists to organize your outline into logical sections as you finish writing.
WorkFlowy Pricing: Free for up to 250 list items each month; from $4.99/month for the Pro that is workFlowy plan includes unlimited lists and items and customization options.
If WorkFlowy isn’t best for your needs, check out our guide to the best outlining tools—many of which have free plans—to find a very good app to meet your needs.
HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator (Web)
Best free writing software for brainstorming ideas
You want to write about but need to expand your ideas, mind mapping helps if you have a general idea of what. Them, outlining helps if you have lots of ideas but need to organize. But what about when you really need to create something but do not have basic idea what things to write about?
In that scenario, HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator helps. Enter up to five nouns in to the generator, and it also produces titles for five blog posts (or 250 if you should be ready to provide contact information). Although the titles it suggests are somewhat formulaic, it can provide suggestions for unique angles you can easily take together with your piece.
For instance, say you know you need to come up with conferences but aren’t sure what you want to state about them. Enter conferences to the Blog Ideas Generator, and you should get suggestions like “Conferences: Expectations vs. Reality,” “The Next Big Thing in Conferences,” and “This Week’s Top Stories About Conferences.”
You can easily take those suggestions and run using them, or read through them in an attempt to trigger other ideas for topics and angles you’re interested in writing about.
HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator Pricing: Free
If you try these tools as they are still staring at a page that is blank check out a number of the most popular writing methods for generating ideas and overcoming writer’s block.
Once a topic is had by you at heart, it is the right time to conduct your research and compile your notes. Whether you’ll want to transcribe an interview, access paywalled research papers, or see just what else happens to be published online, these tools might help.
Evernote (Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android)
Best free writing software for compiling research
You might compile notes for the content if you take screenshots regarding the extensive research you wish to include and pasting those screenshots in a Google Doc, scribbling down handwritten notes in a notebook, or creating a custom set of bookmarks. But each one of these options are time-consuming and hard to look. Evernote provides a simpler option.
Using Evernote’s web clipper, you can capture articles that are full in a couple of clicks. The articles are then added to Evernote where you are able to organize collected research into different notebooks, browse the full-text of articles you’ve saved, search all of your collected research at a time, and share your collected research with other people. Plus, you can easily automate your note taking with Evernote’s Zapier integrations.
With Evernote’s premium plan, you should use its app that is mobile to in handwritten notes, pages of books, and business cards. Scanned documents will also be searchable, making it easy to find what you’re interested in no matter its format. This makes it a good place to keep things you may need to reference into the
Evernote Pricing: Free for up to 60MB uploads monthly, 25MB maximum note size, and Evernote apps on up to two devices; from $7.99/month for the app that is mobile, searchable PDFs, higher upload and note-size limits, and Evernote apps on unlimited devices.
If Evernote is not right for your preferences, find an alternate in our guide to the best note taking apps.
Unpaywall (Chrome, Firefox)
Best free writing software for finding free copies of paywalled research
You conducted a Google search and discovered an outcome for an investigation paper or article that seems you need to cite like it has exactly the data. Unfortunately, you cannot see clearly since the site you landed on wants you to definitely pay a fee to gain access to the version that is full-text.
Rather than shelling out to read through a paper that could or might not have the information you need, use Unpaywall’s Chrome and Firefox extensions to see if there is a free copy for the paper available anywhere online. It to open a free copy of the paper when you land on a result for a paywalled paper or article that’s available for free elsewhere, a green unlocked icon displays; click.
Unpaywall harvests data from sources like journals’ open-access repositories and university and government databases, ensuring you are never infringing copyright when you access a paywalled article at no cost.
Unpaywall doesn’t work on everything—for example, it won’t enable you to get beyond the paywall on your favorite news site—but if you need to reference paywalled scholarly articles every once in awhile, it is absolutely worth installing to truly save yourself a while and cash.
Unpaywall Pricing: Free
oTranscribe (Web)
Best free writing software for transcribing interview and video content
If part of your writing process comes with transcribing audio or video interviews or content, oTranscribe removes a few of the more time-consuming components of the method by putting your audio controls and word processor on a screen that is single. Simply upload your audio or video file, press play, and start typing your transcription on the blank page.
This removes all of the back-and-forth of playing audio in one typing and app in another. Plus, keyboard controls allow you to play and pause the audio easily by tapping the Esc key. Other controls allow you to