Get the brainstorming that is best, researching, writing, and editing tools
Whether you are trying to weave together a jumble of ideas, fix split infinitives, or nail down that hard-to-think-of word, there are lots of writing apps to assist you. But vetting those tools and determining which fit best with your writing style takes some time.
That’s why we’ve done the heavy lifting for you. The next 15 writing tools allow you to brainstorm, research, write, and edit better and faster—and they truly are all able to use.
Tools for Brainstorming and Organizing Your Thoughts
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing is figuring out what you want to write about. In other cases, you realize exactly what you need to talk about, but your opinions are way too disorganized to move forward. If you’re struggling with either issue, these tools will 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 several types of writing projects. Whether you’re capturing thoughts for a phrase paper or thesis, putting together an outline for a long blog post or ebook, or coming up with ideas for an innovative new novel or book series, mind mapping can help you capture your ideas and brainstorm new ones by triggering associations.
Even though you can create a mind map written down or a whiteboard, MindMeister offers more flexibility. MindMeister is a tool designed specifically to make mind mapping easier, giving writers a way that is simple capture their ideas, organize them, and share all of them with others.
It doesn’t matter what size the mind map gets, MindMeister expands to offer the maximum amount of room as you need. Capture all of your ideas in a single file, rearrange and organize your thinking by dragging and dropping them, and connect ideas no matter what far apart they’ve been in your concerns map. With a premium plan, you can also attach related files and images to reference later.
MindMeister Pricing: Free for up to three mind maps; from $4.99/month for the Personal plan that includes unlimited mind maps and file attachments.
Want to find out more about mind mapping? Check out our mind mapping tutorial, or discover nine ways 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 lets you quickly create Look At This an organized summary of every writing project and all sorts of of their 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 tagging that is hashtag-based search features, so that you do not have to be worried about creating too many lists or letting bullet points run wild.
It is possible 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 solution to tick off sections 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 approximately 250 list items per month; from $4.99/month for the WorkFlowy Pro plan that includes unlimited lists and items and customization options.
If WorkFlowy is not right for you, check out our guide towards the best outlining tools—many of that have free plans—to find the best app for 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. When you have lots of ideas but have to organize them, outlining helps. But what about when you really need to create something but don’t have any idea things to write on?
In that scenario, HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator helps. Enter as much as five nouns to the generator, and it also produces titles for five blog posts (or 250 if you should be prepared to provide email address). Whilst the titles it suggests are somewhat formulaic, it can provide ideas for unique angles you can easily take with your piece.
For example, say you are known by you wish to come up with conferences but they aren’t sure what you want to express about them. Enter conferences into the Blog Ideas Generator, and you should get suggestions like “Conferences: Expectations vs. Reality,” “The second Big Thing in Conferences,” and “This Week’s Top Stories About Conferences.”
It is possible to take those suggestions and run with them, or go through them in an attempt to trigger other ideas for topics and angles you have in mind writing about.
HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator Pricing: Free
If you attempt these tools and are still looking at a page that is blank have a look at some of our favorite writing methods for generating ideas and overcoming writer’s block.
Once you have a topic at heart, it is the right time to conduct your quest and compile your notes. Whether you will need to transcribe a job interview, access paywalled research papers, or see what else has been published online, these tools can help.
Evernote (Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android)
Best free writing software for compiling research
You could compile notes for your content by firmly taking screenshots associated with extensive research you need to include and pasting those screenshots in a Google Doc, scribbling down handwritten notes in a notebook, or creating a custom directory of bookmarks. But a few of these choices are hard and time-consuming to search. Evernote provides a less complicated option.
Using Evernote’s web clipper, you can capture articles that are full in a few clicks. The articles are then added to Evernote where you are able to organize collected research into different notebooks, see the full-text of articles you have saved, search all 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 mobile app to scan in handwritten notes, pages of books, and business cards. Scanned documents may also be searchable, making it easy to find what you are to locate no matter its format. This will make it a good destination to keep things you may need to reference within the future.
Evernote Pricing: Free for up to 60MB uploads monthly, 25MB maximum note size, and Evernote apps on as much as two devices; from $7.99/month when it comes to app that is mobile, searchable PDFs, higher upload and note-size limits, and Evernote apps on unlimited devices.
If Evernote isn’t right for your requirements, find an alternate within our help guide to the note that is best taking apps.
Unpaywall (Chrome, Firefox)
Best free writing software for finding free copies of paywalled research
You conducted a Google search and discovered a result for a research paper or article that seems you need to cite like it has exactly the data. Unfortunately, you can’t see clearly considering that the site you landed on wants you to pay a fee to access the version that is full-text.
In the place of ponying up to read through a paper which could or may not have the data you may need, use Unpaywall’s Chrome and Firefox extensions to see if there is a free copy associated with paper available anywhere online. Whenever you land on an effect for a paywalled paper or article that can be found at no cost elsewhere, a green unlocked icon displays; click it to start a free copy of this paper.
Unpaywall harvests data from sources like journals’ open-access repositories and university and government databases, ensuring you’re 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 after dark paywall on your own favorite news site—but yourself some time and money if you need to reference paywalled scholarly articles from time to time, it’s absolutely worth installing to save.
Unpaywall Pricing: Free
oTranscribe (Web)
Best free writing software for transcribing video and interview 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 areas of the process 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 onto the page that is blank.
This removes all of the back-and-forth of playing audio within one app and typing in another. Plus, keyboard controls allow you to play and pause the audio easily by tapping the Esc key. Other controls allow you to
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