Discover 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 that will help you. But vetting those tools and determining which fit best along with your writing style takes time.
That’s why we’ve done the lifting that is heavy you. The next 15 writing tools assist you to brainstorm, research, write, and edit better and faster—and they truly are all absolve to use.
Tools for Brainstorming and Organizing Your Thoughts
Sometimes, the part that is hardest of writing is finding out what you need to write about. In other cases, you know precisely what you want to write about, but your ideas are way too disorganized to go forward. If you’re struggling with either issue, these tools will help you brainstorm and organize your ideas, getting them out of your 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 term paper or thesis, putting together an overview for a long blog post or ebook, or picking out ideas for a brand new novel or book series, mind mapping can help you capture your ideas and brainstorm new ones by triggering associations.
Even though a mind could be created by you map on paper or a whiteboard, MindMeister offers more flexibility. MindMeister is a tool designed specifically to make mind mapping easier, giving writers a simple solution to capture their ideas, organize them, and share them with others.
It doesn’t matter how big your thoughts map gets, MindMeister expands to give you the maximum amount of room as you need. Capture your entire ideas in a single file, rearrange and organize your thinking by dragging and dropping them, and connect ideas in spite of how far apart these are generally on your mind map. With reasonably limited plan, you can even attach related files and images to reference later.
MindMeister Pricing: Free for approximately three mind maps; from $4.99/month when it comes to Personal plan that includes unlimited mind maps and file attachments.
Would you like 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 outlines that are content
Well-structured writing starts with a well-structured outline. WorkFlowy makes outlining straightforward: the app allows you to quickly create an organized summary of any writing project and all sorts of of their parts using bullet points and nested lists.
Focus on the broad strokes—section names, big ideas, themes—and nest related details and research beneath those bullets. WorkFlowy also offers hashtag-based tagging and search features, and that means you need not concern yourself with 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, in the event that you hover over a bullet point, you’ll see choices to complete, add a note to, share, export, duplicate, or delete that item. Use the Complete solution to tick off chapters 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 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 to your best outlining tools—many of that have free plans—to find the best app for your requirements.
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 if you want to write something but have no basic idea what to write about?
In that scenario, HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator helps. Enter as much as five nouns into the generator, and it also produces titles for five blog posts (or 250 if you’re ready to provide email address). As the titles it suggests are somewhat formulaic, it does provide recommendations for unique angles you can easily take together with your piece.
As an example, say you are known by you want to talk about conferences but aren’t sure what you would like to express about them. Enter conferences to the Blog Ideas Generator, and you’ll get suggestions like “Conferences: Expectations vs. Reality,” “the Big that is next Thing Conferences,” and “This Week’s Top Stories About Conferences.”
You are able to take those suggestions and run through them to try and trigger other ideas for topics and angles you’re interested in writing about with them, or read.
HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator Pricing: Free
If you attempt these tools and they are still staring at a page that is blank check out several of our favorite writing tips for generating ideas and overcoming writer’s block.
Once a topic is had by you in your mind, it is time to conduct your research and compile your notes. Whether you will need to transcribe an interview, access paywalled research papers, or see just what else happens to be published online, these tools can help.
Evernote (Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android)
Best free writing software for compiling research
You might compile notes for your content by firmly taking screenshots of the extensive research you want to include and pasting those screenshots in a Google Doc, scribbling down handwritten notes in a notebook, or creating a custom range of bookmarks. But most of these choices are time-consuming and hard to locate. Evernote provides an easier option.
Using Evernote’s web clipper, you can capture full articles online 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 essay writer of articles you’ve saved, search all of your collected research at once, and share your collected research with others. Plus, you are able to 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 are also searchable, rendering it easy to find what you’re in search of irrespective of its format. This makes it a good place to keep things you may need to reference in 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 mobile app scanner, searchable PDFs, higher upload and note-size limits, and Evernote apps on unlimited devices.
If Evernote isn’t right for your preferences, find an alternative solution in our help 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 found an effect for a study paper or article that seems like it has exactly the data you ought to cite. Unfortunately, you cannot see clearly since the site you landed on wants you to pay a fee to access the full-text version.
In place of ponying up to see a paper which could or may not have the information you may need, use Unpaywall’s Chrome and Firefox extensions to see if there is a free copy regarding the paper available anywhere online. Whenever you land on an effect for a paywalled paper or article that can be found for free elsewhere, a green unlocked icon displays; click it to start a totally free copy regarding the paper.
Unpaywall harvests data from sources like journals’ open-access repositories and university and government databases, ensuring you are never copyright that is infringing you access a paywalled article free of charge.
Unpaywall does not work properly on everything—for example, it’s not going to enable you to get past the paywall in your favorite news site—but if you want to reference paywalled scholarly articles every so often, 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 some 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 commence typing your transcription on the page that is blank.
This removes most of the back-and-forth of playing audio in a single typing and app in another. Plus, keyboard controls enable you to play and easily pause the audio by tapping the Esc key. Other controls let you