Get the best brainstorming, researching, writing, and editing tools
Whether you’re wanting 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 does take time.
That’s why we have done the lifting that is heavy you. Listed here 15 writing tools allow you to brainstorm, research, write, and edit better and faster—and they’re all free to use.
Tools for Brainstorming and Organizing Your Thoughts
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing is finding out what you need to write about. In other cases, you understand just what you wish to write on, but your opinions are way too disorganized to maneuver forward. If you should be struggling with either issue, these tools can help you brainstorm and organize your thinking, 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 kinds of writing projects. Whether you’re capturing thoughts for a term paper or thesis, putting together an overview for a blog that is long or ebook, or coming up with ideas for an innovative new novel or book series, mind mapping will allow you to capture your ideas and brainstorm new ones by triggering associations.
Even though a mind could be created by you map in writing or a whiteboard, MindMeister offers more flexibility. MindMeister is an instrument designed specifically in order to make mind mapping easier, giving writers a simple way to capture their ideas, organize them, and share all of them with others.
It does not matter how big your mind map gets, MindMeister expands to offer as much room as you need. Capture all of your ideas in a single file, rearrange and organize your opinions by dragging and dropping them, and connect ideas regardless of how far apart these are typically in your thoughts map. With a premium plan, you can also attach files that are related 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.
Like to learn more about mind mapping? Check our mind mapping tutorial out, 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 outline that is well-structured. WorkFlowy makes outlining straightforward: the app enables you to quickly create an organized summary of every writing project and all of its parts bullet that is using and nested lists.
Focus on the strokes—section that is broad, big ideas, themes—and nest related details and research beneath those bullets. WorkFlowy also provides hashtag-based tagging and search features, which means you don’t have to concern yourself with creating a lot of lists or letting bullet points run wild.
It is possible to zoom in on any list by clicking on the bullet point that is corresponding. Plus, if you hover over a bullet point, you will see options to complete, add a note to, share, export, duplicate, or delete that item. Use the Complete solution to tick off chapters of your outline as you finish writing them, or drag and drop bulleted lists to prepare your outline into logical sections.
WorkFlowy Pricing: Free for approximately 250 list items every month; from $4.99/month when it comes to Pro that is workFlowy plan 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 which may 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. When you have plenty of ideas but have to organize them, outlining helps. Exactly what about if you want to create something but haven’t any idea things to come up with?
For the reason 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’re prepared to provide email address). Although the titles it suggests are somewhat formulaic, it can provide suggestions for unique angles you are able to take along with your piece.
For example, say you are known by you want to come up with conferences but they aren’t sure what you need to express about them. Enter conferences in to the Blog Ideas Generator, and you will get suggestions like “Conferences: Expectations vs. Reality,” “the Big that is next Thing Conferences,” and “This Week’s Top Stories About Conferences.”
You can easily take those suggestions and run using them, or go through them to try to trigger other ideas for topics and angles you have in mind writing about.
HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator Pricing: Free
If you try these tools as they are still staring at a blank page, take a look at a few of our favorite writing write my essay methods for generating ideas and overcoming writer’s block.
Once a topic is had by you in your mind, it’s time to conduct your research and compile your notes. Whether you need to transcribe an interview, access paywalled research papers, or see just what else has been published online, these tools might help.
Evernote (Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome, iOS, Android)
Best free writing software for compiling research
You can compile notes for your content if you take screenshots associated with the research you need to include and pasting those screenshots in a Google Doc, scribbling down handwritten notes in a notebook, or creating a custom list of bookmarks. But most of these choices are time-consuming and hard to find. Evernote provides an easier 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 can organize collected research into different notebooks, see the full-text of articles you have saved, search all your collected research at once, and share your collected research with others. Plus, you can easily automate your note taking with Evernote’s Zapier integrations.
With Evernote’s premium plan, you can make use of its mobile app to scan in handwritten notes, pages of books, and business cards. Scanned documents are also searchable, rendering it easy to find what you are searching for regardless 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 for the app that is mobile, searchable PDFs, higher upload and note-size limits, and Evernote apps on unlimited devices.
If Evernote is not suitable for your preferences, find an alternative in our 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 found a result for a study paper or article that seems you need to cite like it has exactly the data. Unfortunately, you can’t read it due to the fact site you landed on wants you to pay a fee to access the full-text version.
In place of shelling out to read through a paper that will or may not have the details you will need, use Unpaywall’s Chrome and Firefox extensions to see if there’s a copy that is free of paper available anywhere online. Whenever you land on a result for a paywalled paper or article that’s available at no cost elsewhere, a green unlocked icon displays; click it to open a free copy of 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 for free.
Unpaywall does not work properly on everything—for example, it won’t enable you to get at night paywall in your favorite news site—but if you want to reference paywalled scholarly articles every so often, it’s absolutely worth installing to save lots of yourself some time and cash.
Unpaywall Pricing: Free
oTranscribe (Web)
Best free writing software for transcribing video and interview content
If element of your writing process consists of transcribing audio or video interviews or content, oTranscribe removes a number of the more time-consuming areas of the method by putting your audio controls and word processor on a single screen. Simply upload your audio or video file, press play, and commence typing your transcription on the page that is blank.
This removes all the back-and-forth of playing audio in a single typing and app in another. Plus, keyboard controls let you play and pause the audio easily by tapping the Esc key. Other controls enable you to