Everyone needs to boost their writing skills no matter which profession they may belong to. I cannot stress it enough how important it is to express yourself through your writing. If you want to be impactful online, you need to have a solid virtual voice. As I work on improving my writing skills, the internet provides me with pretty neat writing tools helping me not to make a bum out of myself. So without further ado, these are the tools that can be of great help to hone your writing skills.
Evernote:
A note-taking application which lets you jot down ideas on the go and syncs your notes across all devices. It’s easy and clean to use with beautiful fonts. The Evernote web clipper also allows to add bookmarks and collect ideas from the internet at one place and add reminders too. It’s easy to use, clean and green but some people may find it overwhelming to use since there are just so many options! You can also use Google Keep and OneNote as an alternative to Evernote.
Grammarly:
Grammarly is available as a browser plug-in for quick correction of spelling and grammatical errors while you are busy to get your message across. I use Grammarly All. The. Time! I’ve also downloaded their mobile application which provides me with a clean keyboard and lots of customizing options. The desktop application is also available for creating and saving documents. From checking your grammar to proofreading to plagiarism detection, it is a fantastic tool for everyone and I definitely recommend using it.
Hemingway app:
Use it to check the complexity of your writing. It’s fast and simple, just paste your text in the designated area and it’s going to show you a complete analysis of your work. It highlights sentences that are hard to read, alerts you of the phrases that are written in a passive voice, keeps count of your adverbs and tells you the grade reading level of your writing. If you follow the guidelines, you’ll be able to simplify your content and make it easier to read.
Google Docs
Definitely the best online word processor tool at present which allows you to create, share, collaborate on and save documents. Voice typing function is also available although I found it less accurate than Dictation.io one. You need to have a stable internet connection and access to Google ID to edit the documents which automatically get synced to your google drive.
WordHippo
WordHippo is a handy tool that is used to replace words with more relevant ones to avoid sounding repetitive. WordHippo provides synonyms, antonyms, translations, rhyming words, sentences, phrases and so much more! A complete word reference tool packaged with an adorable looking hippo, what more can it offer, right?
Dictation.io
Have you ever wished to just say your thoughts out loud and find them magically written out for you? Forget about speaking in a conversational tone when you can just do that literally! This is what this speech recognition software does. It converts your voice into text which can be edited at the same time. Combine this tool with Grammarly to make your writing more engaging.
Update: So I goofed around a bit and found that it also detects the Urdu language pretty accurately and types it out in Roman Urdu for you!
Vocabulary.com
This website can help you with your vocabulary. To improve your word comprehension, a word appears on the screen with four definitions. If you choose the incorrect one then it is going to ask that word in the middle of the exercises until it gets engraved in your mind. Vocabulary.com then tailors future question based on the answers that you provide.
Sidenote: This site can also help you in the preparation for your standardized tests too.
Noisli Chrome Extension
Noisli provides you with the experience to write in a relaxed, distraction-free environment as soft, ambient sound of rain or thunderstorm, lightning, the rustling of leaves, bonfire, white noise, train tracks plays in the background. You can even mix up the tunes to create the perfect environment for writing and with a built-in text editor that variably changes colour. It gives you a beautiful environment which naturally boosts creativity, especially in this hot season.
Google Scholar
If you want to delve deep into the topic that you write on without reading the generic SEO perfect topics, then this tool is for you. Google Scholar provides you with research papers and citations that are insanely informative for academic purpose and for writing a crazy detailed paper by collecting information through books and research papers to wow your audience.
Duckduckgo
According to their site: DuckDuckGo is an Internet search engine tool that emphasizes protecting searchers’ privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results.
So if you’re a little worried about your privacy on the internet or don’t want personalized results, definitely give DuckDuckGo a try to get different search results as compared to others. It also gives links to download whatever you want on the web which Google normally restricts showing because of copyright and DMCA issues.
iLovePDF.com
Edit, watermark, compress, split, merge, unlock, and convert PDF to any text file using this site. (Not to epub though, which I usually prefer). Convert your writing to Ebook to make it easier for people to read your masterpiece.
P.S. Use pdfscape to password protect your PDF files.
PolishMyWriting
Copy the article which you have written and which you want to proofread and paste it into the PolishMyWriting editor. All the errors will be displayed in three different colours to you.
All the spellings mistakes will be identified by red colour, different writing suggestions are in blue colour and your grammatical mistakes will be displayed in green colour. Apart from telling your spelling and grammatical mistakes, PolishMyWriting will also help you by giving suggestions for active and passive writing.
Medium
A great platform to showcase your work to an amazing community full of empowering people. If you don’t have a website or blog but still want to publish your work online then use Medium. You will find some of the most empowering articles online written by people who believe in self-development and empower people through their writing. It is a free writing platform where you can publish your work and get appreciated for it through claps.
Join Medium even if you’re more of a reader like me and while you’re at it, find me here on medium too!
EndNote
Bookmark this article for future reference and share it with your friends to help them out too. Hope you find this list useful!
2 Comments
Rubina
Good work continue on words. 😊
Freethinker
I use Evernote. And Hemmingway Apps is very helpful.