7 Best Online Resources for Learning How to Write a College Essay
From elementary to high school, students are taught learning areas that allow them to gain mastery in grammar, vocabulary, syntax, spelling, and punctuation. By entering the tertiary level, they are expected to implement the principles of good essay writing successfully.
However, even with these years of training, not everyone feels confident in expressing themselves using the written word. Although some students are genuinely gifted writers who can string words and create beautiful prose, most college students feel their skills are insufficient. Hence, some resort to a paper writing service to complete their assignments. That’s a smart and affordable way to save time and get a high grade – just a click away.
But with today’s online tools, anyone can write a college essay they can feel proud of. With these tools, they can successfully produce requirements that satisfy professors and help them attain good grades. Check out these seven best online resources that can make writing a college essay easier and more pleasurable for students.
Lucid Chart
Those who need help organizing their ideas will enjoy this website because it provides the use of graphic organizers with a free sign-up. When college professors ask students to write an essay, they feel they need guidance about what to do with all the blank pages. This tool helps brainstorm and outline ideas during the pre-writing stages.
Students can use this free tool to get their ideas in order. Eventually, the notes written here can provide structure during the active writing phase. In the end, the final draft will be more precise and more focused.
Grammarly
This web-based online editor and downloadable app is a favorite among professional writers, so college students will also benefit from it. Grammarly Basic comes with a free sign-up. It’s constructive for proofreading, editing, and polishing college essays because it identifies mistakes. This tool relies on AI to check written documents for the following:
Grammar
Spelling
Conciseness
Clarity
Tone
Students who desire more comprehensive features can pay for Grammarly Premium, which comes with affordable monthly pricing or discounted annual fees. This upgrade provides more profound writing feedback, offers engagement or style enhancements, and checks the essay for plagiarism. It’s an excellent app to ensure students pass unique content using their own words.
Google Docs
Anyone with a Gmail account can have access to Google Docs. It’s a free online tool that’s helpful for college students, especially those collaborating with classmates and working on group assignments. Besides, most university students already know how to use this tool because it’s similar to Microsoft Word.
However, what makes Google Docs special is that people can share a document in real-time. Group mates who collaborate on one paper can easily share documents for adding content or even proofreading. It’s also nice to write using this app because it automatically saves work, so there’s no worry about losing materials if the computer acts up. Google Docs also provides basic spelling and grammar suggestions to polish essays.
Pro Writing Aid
As the name suggests, this online resource is a professional writing aid that will serve as a style editor and grammar checker. The developers market this as having a writing mentor in one online package. The site provides free basic editing if students sign up with their emails. It points out repetitive word mistakes, basic subject-verb errors, and spelling mistakes.
The paid package comes with more extensive features. For starters, it gives users access to the desktop application and a limitless word count when checking essays. It also provides the following features:
Paraphrase
Rewrite report
Style suggestions
Collaboration with editors
Plagiarism check
One Look
This free online tool is an excellent resource for those who have already written the first draft. This lives up to its name by offering one look at the essay to make sure words have been chosen wisely. It ascertains that the words in the piece are not repetitive. Instead, it provides suggestions on unique words to guarantee that the final output is original.
Moreover, this tool has a dictionary to help students find the right words. It also offers a reverse dictionary and a thesaurus to inspire users to use exciting language and more colorful words to improve their essays.
Citation Machine
College students have to make comprehensive essays that are based on facts. Often, they have to reference credible studies on the subject. Besides books, they are expected to cite credible studies, research papers, websites, and journal articles. Experts in the field also write these materials.
Creating in-text citations, as well as creating an appendix for a bibliography, is often part of making a college paper. Typically, each professor ascribes to citation rules, so the Citation Machine tool was crafted to provide correct citations for APA, MLA, Turabian, and Chicago styles. Students encode relevant details and receive a correctly formatted reference.
Word Counter
Students who need to pay attention to word counts and the number of characters, paragraphs, and sentences will benefit from using the free Word Counter website. This easy-to-use online tool will help university students who must always pay attention to writing requirements.
The users can type directly on the site or copy-paste their paper to the empty box from Word to ensure their essays are within the assignment guidelines. This tool also double-checks grammar and spelling and locates repetitive words and phrases.
Final Thoughts
Turning a straightforward college essay into a great one is as simple as selecting the best writing tools. These nifty resources can make writing so much easier and help students receive better scores for writing tasks. Writing an essay already takes a lot of time, concentration, effort, and creativity, and utilizing helpful tools will make the process less overwhelming.
Fortunately, a few simple clicks on the computer already provides a wealth of writing tools that can take writing to the next level. Taking advantage of these tools will take the guesswork out of crafting papers. They can improve and hone writing skills, so students can continuously churn out better-written work and express themselves more confidently.
