Writing is a skill used in just about every industry. Whether you’re producing content for a program, writing for the company blog, or just sending an email, putting words together in a cohesive manner is an important ability to have. And few of us got English degrees. For some of us, the last time we attended a writing class was in high school—and if we were being honest, we didn’t pay much attention.
Fortunately for us, the internet is rife with tools to help us communicate at our best.
Here are a few of the ones we like and recommend:
Grammar and Style:
- For those who write published content frequently, a style guide is a must to have on hand. The AP Stylebook, used by the journalism industry, is a good choice for most blogs and websites, and is available online as a subscription or in spiral-bound printed form.
- If you don’t write very often and just need a quick reference guide, find a free style guide such as Tameri, which is based off the AP Stylebook and gives general tips and examples—including a word usage list—without a subscription fee.
- If you’re in a position where you can’t get a second pair of eyes on your work, Hemingway App can give you a general idea of its readability. It will highlight basic grammatical errors, overly long or complex sentences, and any place where passive voice is used. It also gives you word, sentence, character, letter and paragraph counts, and an estimated amount of time it would take to read what you’ve written.
- If you need to self-check your writing often enough and have the budget, Grammarly is a popular resource that checks your work for punctuation, grammar, context, and sentence structure, specific to the genre you’re writing for. For any suggestions it provides, it gives a detailed explanation of the grammar rule in question. It also gives vocabulary suggestions and checks for plagiarism. It’s available for $12 a month for an annual subscription.
Word Tools:
- Every writer needs a go-to thesaurus, such as Power Thesaurus. This one lists synonyms that have been voted on by users to rate their relevance and usefulness. You can also narrow it down to parts of speech or search for antonyms, definitions, and examples.
- While looking up the definition to a word is usually as simple as a quick internet search, check out OneLook’s reverse dictionary feature for those times when that one word is eluding you. Enter the definition or description of the word, and it tries to find it for you by pulling up a list of related items.
- The Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule is a free tool that does just what it says. It provides an analysis and breakdown of your blog title or email subject, including structure, readability, and types of words used, and explains the various facets of what makes a successful headline based on market research.
Productivity Tools:
- If you are easily distracted when you write, try a software like Q10. It’s a program that allows your writing to take up the entire screen, so you can focus more easily on your project. This one is free, and comes with other features like customizable fonts, colors, and formatting, a timer, an auto-save feature, and typing sound effects.
- Try boosting your productivity on any project with the Marinara Timer. Based on the concept that working in set increments of time with short breaks in between helps you get more done, it provides several types of timers. Just choose your timer, your alarm sound type, and you’re ready to go. It can also be used across multiple computers for team projects.
That’s quite a list—perhaps select one or two of these tools to use starting right now!
