how to write an essay on a macbook

macOS User Guide

• What’s in the menu bar?
• Work on the desktop
• Search with Spotlight
• Quickly change settings
• Get notifications
• Open apps from the Dock
• Organize your files in the Finder
• Connect to the internet
• Browse the web
• Preview a file
• Take a screenshot
• Change your display’s brightness
• Adjust the volume
• Use trackpad and mouse gestures
• Use Touch ID
• Print documents
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Apps on your Mac
• Work with app windows
• Use apps in full screen
• Use apps in Split View
• Use Stage Manager
• Get apps from the App Store
• Install and reinstall apps from the App Store
• Install and uninstall other apps
• Create and work with documents
• Open documents
• Mark up files
• Combine files into a PDF
• Organize files on your desktop
• Organize files with folders
• Tag files and folders
• Back up files
• Restore files
• Change System Settings
• Choose your desktop wallpaper
• Add and customize widgets
• Use a screen saver
• Add a user or group
• Add your email and other accounts
• Automate tasks with Shortcuts
• Create Memoji
• Change your login picture
• Change the system language
• Make text and other items on the screen bigger
• Set up a Focus to stay on task
• Set up Screen Time for yourself
• Use Dictation
• Send emails
• Send text messages
• Make a FaceTime video call
• Edit photos and videos
• Use Live Text to interact with text in a photo
• Start a Quick Note
• Get directions
• Work across devices using Continuity
• Use iPhone as a webcam
• Use iPhone with Desk View
• Stream audio and video with AirPlay
• Use one keyboard and mouse to control Mac and iPad
• Hand off between devices
• Unlock your Mac with Apple Watch
• Make and receive phone calls on your Mac
• Sync music, books, and more between devices
• Manage Apple ID settings
• Set your Apple ID picture
• What is iCloud?
• What is iCloud+?
• Store files in iCloud Drive
• Share and collaborate on files and folders
• Manage iCloud storage
• Use iCloud Photos
• What is Family Sharing?
• Set up Family Sharing
• Set up Screen Time for a child
• Share purchases with your family
• Watch and listen together with SharePlay
• Share a Photo Library
• Collaborate on projects
• Find content shared with you
• Find your family and friends
• Play games with your friends
• Listen to podcasts
• Watch TV shows and movies
• Read and listen to books
• Read the news
• Track stocks and the market
• Apple Music
• Apple Arcade
• Apple News+
• Podcast shows and channels
• Manage subscriptions in the App Store
• View Apple family subscriptions
• Guard your privacy
• Use Mail Privacy Protection
• Control access to your camera
• Use Sign in with Apple for apps and websites
• Set up your Mac to be secure
• Keep your data safe
• Create a passkey
• Understand passwords
• Keep your Apple ID secure
• Find a missing device
• Get started with accessibility features
• Connect an external display
• Use the built-in camera
• Connect a Bluetooth device
• Use AirPods with your Mac
• Optimize your Mac battery life
• Optimize storage space
• Burn CDs and DVDs
• Control accessories in your home
• Use Windows on your Mac
• Resources for your Mac
• Resources for your Apple devices

Create and work with documents on Mac

You can use macOS apps—such as Pages or TextEdit—or apps from the Mac App Store to create reports, essays, spreadsheets, financial charts, presentations, slideshows, and more.

Tip: If you have questions about how to use an app like Pages or TextEdit, choose Help in the menu bar while working in the app, then look for answers in the app’s user guide .

Create documents

On your Mac, open an app that lets you create documents.

For example, open TextEdit to create a plain text, rich text, or HTML document.

Click New Document in the Open dialog, or choose File > New.

Many Mac computers come with these Apple apps that you can use to create reports, spreadsheets, presentations, and more:

Pages: Create letters, reports, flyers, posters, and more. Pages includes many templates that make it easy to create beautiful documents. See the Pages User Guide .

Numbers: Create spreadsheets to organize and present your data. Start with a template, then modify it however you like—add formulas, charts, images, and more. See the Numbers User Guide .

Keynote: Create compelling presentations with images, media, charts, slide animations, and more. See the Keynote User Guide .

If you don’t have Pages, Numbers, or Keynote on your Mac, you can get them from the App Store.

Open App Store for me

They’re also available for your iOS and iPadOS devices (from the App Store) and on iCloud.com .

Format documents

There are several ways to format and work with text in documents on your Mac:

Change fonts and styles: In a document, choose Format > Show Fonts, Format > Font > Show Fonts, or Format > Style. See Format text in documents with fonts .

Change colors: In a document, choose Format > Show Colors, or Format > Font > Show Colors. See Use colors in documents .

Enter different types of characters: You can enter characters with accent marks or diacritic marks.

Check spelling: In most apps, spelling is checked while you type, and mistakes are automatically corrected. You can turn off these features or use other options. See Check spelling and grammar .

Check definitions: In a document, select the text you want to check, Control-click it, then choose Look Up. See Look up words .

Translate text: In a document, select the text you want to translate, Control-click it, then choose Translate. See Translate text .

Save documents

Many apps on your Mac save your documents automatically while you work. You can save a document at any time.

When you save your document, you can add tags to it so it’s easier to find later. You may be able to save your document in iCloud Drive so it’s available on your computers and iOS and iPadOS devices set up with iCloud Drive.

Save a document with another name: In a document, choose File > Save As, then enter a new name. If Save As isn’t shown, press and hold the Option key, then open the File menu again.

Save a document as a copy: In a document, choose File > Duplicate or File > Save As.

You can also save a document as a PDF and combine multiple files into a single PDF .

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The best Mac apps for writers and authors

Best writing apps for the Mac

You do already have Pages on your Mac — and on your iPhone and iPad too — and it is a world-class word processor. Pages tends to hide its features away, preferring to make it look simple and basic, but it is powerful.

Then, too, if you had to bet on which other word processor was on a given Mac, the smart money would be on Microsoft Word. It's still a titan in the industry, though it's fallen a long way since it was both ubiquitous with, and essential for, all writers.

Pages is free and Word is now a subscription app that costs from $70 per year . It is still possible to buy Word outright, and that starts with what's called a Home edition for $150.

Before you spend that, though, take a look at the specialist writing tools which make the Mac extraordinarily useful for writers.

OmniOutliner

OmniOutliner is, as the name stresses, an outlining tool. It's also very good at outlining everything from novels to non-fiction tomes. However, it's really rather more than that, as its core strength is in expanding ideas.

Whether your idea is for a story, or your boss has thrown five events at you to create, OmniOutliner lets you jot down any thought. Dump every idea you've got into it and then you can arrange, massage, grow it all until you've got a complete, working project.

OmniOutliner is available on both Mac and iOS, beginning with an Essentials version that costs $20 on either platform.

On the surface, Drafts 5 is as basic a notetaking app as you can get — but that's specifically to make using it quick. Whether you're just learning the app or have used it for years, you can get starting writing fast.

Then while that could be all you need from Drafts 5, you also get the ability to decide what to do with text once you've written it. Get it written in Drafts, then you can tell the app to send it as an email, to post as a blog, or any of countless actions that are available.

Drafts 5 is free to download and use, but those actions require a Drafts Pro subscription, which costs $20 per year .

Ulysses is also an apparently simple text editor that hides a lot of power. In this case, the strength is in how it's as much a writing environment as a basic word processor.

Rather than having documents that you create and then have to manage yourself, Ulysses treats everything you write as one document. It's all divided into books and chapters and topics as you need, but open Ulysses and you have immediate access to everything you're writing.

Ulysses is a subscription app that costs $50 per year for use across Mac, iPhone and iPad.

As a word processor, Scrivener is simply enjoyable to write in. Then as you write more, its ability to organize your work — and let you rearrange whole chapters — is far better than that of Pages or Word.

You're able to see, for instance, just chapters 17 and 33 of your novel. You can see those side by side, or one after another. You can set writing targets for the book, or just for this session.

Then it's ability to take all of your writing and output it ready for book printing, ready for sending to publishers, is famous. And so is how you can store any research — notes, drafts, weblinks, PDFs, audio, video, and more — in your book.

Have quick access to everything you need to refer to, yet also have none of that be shown to your readers.

Scrivener costs $49 for the Mac .

Long before the Mac introduced Focus Mode, iA Writer had its own version. In iA Writer, if you choose, you can have all of your writing fade to grey — except the sentence you're working on right now.

Then, again optionally, iA Writer can highlight adjectives, verbs and so on, surfacing your use or over-use of them. It's about giving you the ability to see the wood for the trees, except when it's trees you want to see.

The iA Writer app is built around Markdown, meaning that formatting and styles are done with text commands right in the text.

It costs $29 for Mac .

Final Draft

Screenwriting app Final Draft has more competitors now, but it remains a leading choice for film and television writers. It's a word processing app, and can be used for letters and prose, but its strength is in how it automates screenwriting formats.

Scripts are blueprints for a dozen or more different departments in a film's production, and to serve all their needs, very particular formats and page layouts have been developed over decades. Final Draft automatically formats as you write and it means you can concentrate on your story, characters, and dialog.

Final Draft normally costs $249.99, direct from the developer . Note, though, that there are regularly sales throughout the year.

Buying a range of writing tools

No one writing app covers everything that a writer will need. As well as major apps like Final Draft, and Pages, there are also many utilities that writers can benefit from.

Check out the subscription service Setapp which includes some major titles such as Ulysses, but then also utilities such as Mars Edit for blogging.

A subscription to Setapp usually costs from $9.99 per month, but for a limited time an annual license can be had for 36% off through the AppleInsider store .

A good list. I’ll have to check out some of these. One thing though; don’t say “Buy for $XX/yr”. If you pay a yearly fee you aren’t buying it, it’s a subscription. You are renting the software. And I don’t rent software. 

Slugline 2 is awesome 

You left Highland 2, which in my opinion is the  most powerful and flexible screenwriting software for Mac. Also great for novels and other types of writing. 

is still a great app too.

Good sampling but I would have included Textastic in this review as well. I use both iAWriter and Textastic on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Textastic has some extra bells and whistles that are particularly appealing to code developers. I really feel that Pages is undervalued. I’m as guilty as anyone for discounting Pages for heavy duty document development, e.g., multiple contributors collaborating on a single multi-chapter document, managing comments, table of contents, index, dynamic caption links, etc. Whenever I’ve tried to use Numbers to replicate what I’ve done in Excel I found that it was entirely possible with minor differences so I expect Pages is comparable to Word in a similar manner. There are obviously things that Excel and Word can do that Numbers and Pages cannot, but I think Microsoft is benefiting in a very large way from the long term momentum it enjoys in the marketplace.

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5 Mac Word Processors To Help You Write That College Paper

Finding sources to cite is easy. Planning a paper is easy. Sitting down and writing the thing? Much harder — do yourself a favour and get the right tool for the job.

Finding sources to cite is easy . Planning a paper is easy. Sitting down and writing the thing? Much harder, and though there's no shortage of word processors, not all are well-suited to academic writing.

As someone currently working on my dissertation, I know this problem all too well. So I found five popular Mac applications commonly used for academic writing and  reviewed each in order  to see which excelled the most when it comes to writing college papers and dissertations.

Here's what I found.

Ulysses  ($45)

At just short of $45, Ulysses is one of the more expensive applications in this rundown. I reviewed version 2.0, which runs exclusively on 64-bit Macs running Yosemite. There's also an iPad version  ($19.99), which Bakari reviewed recently .

Ulysses is, like Desk and iA Writer, a markdown-oriented text editor. Markdown allows you to format text using a special syntax, rather than pressing a button in an application. The advantage of this is that it doesn't break your workflow, and text written in MarkDown can be copied between applications without losing formatting.

Another advantage of Markdown is that it's incredibly easy to learn, not just because we published a guide to it last year. Ulysses is different from other markdown editors in a number of ways that distinguish it from the pack.

Firstly, it allows you to separate texts into individual sections, each within their own writing space. This is handy if your university project is effectively an anthology of texts, as most dissertations are.

Secondly, Ulysses allows you to change the theme from a bright one, to a more subdued night-mode version which looks great when working in the dark. It also comes with a command palette that feels oddly reminiscent of Sublime Text 2 , which allows you to navigate your document without endlessly scrolling,  just like Vim .

Ulysses also makes it easy to set goals, which is handy when you're unmotivated and trudging through the tedium of a literature review. Unfortunately it doesn't natively support any major reference managers, such as EndNote and Zotero , and it doesn't allow you to embed images or graphics.

Despite these limitations, it's a perfectly adequate markdown editor, and one that lends itself favorably to academic applications.

iA Writer Pro ($20)

I'm a fan of iA Writer. We  reviewed the non-pro version of it back in 2013 and it immediately became my writing application of choice. Why?

The app is markdown-based, so you can add formatting as you write without getting distracted or having your writing pane filled with superfluous toolbars and ribbons. It also allows you to focus on the writing, as it puts the text in the center of your screen and a simple, readable typeface contrasts with the austere, white background.

That's the cheaper, non-pro version. I've since moved on to the professional version, and I'm convinced it too is an excellent choice for markdown aficionados tasked with academic writing.

iA Writer Pro comes all the same features of the cheaper version that allow you to focus on the writing, but brings with it a 'night mode' theme, which is great for late night work.

It also allows you to drill-down on your text and identify parts of your writing you can remove and refactor, such as adverbs, verbs, and prepositions. Given academic writing strongly emphasizes conciseness and precision, this is really helpful.

But iA Writer Pro is lacking some features that are helpful when it comes to academic writing. It doesn't support third-party plugins, which makes it hard to import your citations in from Zotero, or any other reference manager. It also only lets you to work one document at a time, unlike Ulysses's multi-sheet approach to document editing.

Despite those drawbacks, it's only $20  and makes it easy to be focused and productive, and is therefore worth a consider.

Scrivener 2 ($45)

Scrivener is an inexpensive application with an excruciatingly steep learning curve. It's commonly used by people working in the creative industries, and has found a niche as a tool for writing screenplays and scripts. But despite this pedigree, it is also worth considering for your next academic paper.

Scrivener, like Ulysses, lets you break your document into manageable chunks, and tackle them one at a time. Editing is done through a graphical interface, with formatting added through the application, rather than using Markdown syntax.

But perhaps the killer feature of Scrivener is its 'cork board'. This allows you to manage, collect, and collate resources you might want to use in your paper, such as images, notes and references.

Scrivener supports a handful of popular third-party bibliography applications, which means you don't have to adjust your system of managing citations and references. It also allows you to create snapshots - or versions - of your text, and revert back to them when you want to return to an earlier form of your work. This is similar to how Git works , which is a version control system used by programmers.

However, Scrivener lacks the sleek, distraction-free aesthetics of iA Writer and Ulysses, which makes it less than ideal for long writing sprints where your focus might wander. It's also rather expensive, and takes a few hours (and a lot of reading) to fully get to grips with.

Microsoft Word 2016 Preview Edition (Free)

It's hard not to talk about word processors, and not mention Microsoft Word. It's the incumbent, and has been for a couple of decades now. Go to any university, and you'll find Microsoft Word is the de-facto word processor. This due to that fact that it's well understood, supported by Microsoft, and works well with other the packages in the Microsoft Office family.

Microsoft recently released the preview version of Word 2016 , and is currently available as a free download before being publicly released.

This latest version represents the biggest change to Microsoft Word on OS X for almost 5 years. It comes with a sleek new aesthetic that makes it feel like the modern, premium word processor it is. For once, you're going to want to write with Word.

But as a tool for writing Academic papers, how does it stand up? Well, it's not a distraction-free editor like iA Writer is, but that's fine. It makes up for that by being well-rounded and complete, boasting all the features any university student or academic could possibly need.

One of the most compelling features for any student is its built-in citation manager, which offers many of the features of Zotero, and can produce references in APA, MLM and Chicago style.

Unlike iA Writer Pro and Ulysses, Word allows you to insert and embed figures and graphics, and create charts that underscore the points you make.

This makes it one of the more compelling packages for academic writing. The only problem is that when it exits the beta phase, it will ultimately cost a good chunk of change. This free version will eventually cease to work, so you'll have to purchase Word as part of the Office 2016 release if you want to keep the functionality you've gotten used to. In the Apple Store, Office 2011 costs $139.95, so expect Office 2016 to cost something approaching that.

It's also worth noting that beta applications can ship with bugs that might end up destroying all your hard work. With that in mind, it's a good idea to make regular backups if you decide to use it.

Pages (Free/$19.99)

Pages is part of iWork , Apple's flagship productivity suite. Apple made it available free of charge to anyone who purchased Mac on or after October 1, 2013. Everyone else can purchase it for $19.99 on the Mac App Store, which is pretty good for a fully-fledged word processor.

As a tool for getting words on a page, it's solid. It comes with a number of templates for academic writing. However, these overwhelmingly are geared towards a style of academic writing that's more common in the American university system, than in the British and Antipodean ones. That said, it's easy enough to tweak a template, and formatting text in Pages is simple enough for this not to be too much of a barrier.

Pages also supports academic citations through EndNote , a perfectly competent though expensive reference manager, with a license costing around $250. The closest free alternative, Zotero, hasn't released a plugin for iWork and given the niche status of Apple's iWork when it comes to productivity software, I doubt they ever will.

Pages can also produce incredible graphics and charts with a button's press. This makes it ideal for those writing papers with a somewhat data-driven emphasis.

For those on a tight budget, it remains the best option, and poses a serious challenge to the likes of Scrivener and Ulysses.

No Surprises Here

It should come as absolutely no surprise that the two packages I'm ultimately going to recommend are ones made by Microsoft and Apple; both giants in what they do. Pages and Word are just too complete and functional to not recommend, and offer the most value for money (at least while Word is free).

As a close second, I'd also recommend iA Writer Pro, which despite lacking a number of killer features like EndNote integration and bibliography management, offers the best writing experience of any application listed in my opinion.

What do you use to write your academic papers? Leave me a comment below and we'll chat.

Image Credits: student with laptop Via Shutterstock

Best writing apps for the Mac 2024

Scrivener 3

Writing is a magical journey that involves research, creativity, and skill. Long are the days when writing meant using a pencil and paper or old-school typewriter. Today, writing involves sitting down at a computer and letting the mental juices flow.

Whether you're looking to type a term paper or plan on crafting the next great novel, these writing apps for Mac will get the job done. They work on the best Macs, including the latest MacBook Pro.

Ulysses offers a full array of tools for writers of any kind. This app is easy to pick up and start using but offers a wide array of customization options for everything from writing to exporting. Choose to work in Markdown or create your own markup style. With Ulysses, you can also create your own writing environment with background colors and fonts. Then, when it comes time to publish, you can export your work in various formats, including plain text, DOCX, and ePub. You can also publish your work to WordPress sites and Medium.

Your projects sync with iCloud between Mac, iPhone, and iPad, with Dropbox support also available. The app also recently added support for Touch ID to keep your documents safe.

This app is available for $5.99 per month or $29.99 per year. In addition, there are discounts for students. All packages come with a seven-day free trial.

Write, note, and journal with this popular app that's been a best seller for many years.

Apple's own writing app, Pages, lets you create different types of documents on all of your favorite Macs, like the 2021 MacBook Pro . There are more than 60 templates in Pages, covering just about every kind of writing, from short essays to research papers. There are even templates for items like business cards and flyers. In addition, you can add images and shapes, lay out your documents in different styles, and more. You can also secure documents with Touch ID if you have one of Apple's MacBook Pros with a Touch Bar.

The Pages app also makes it easy to collaborate with other people. Multiple people, whether they're on macOS, iOS, or even Windows, thanks to iCloud, can collaborate on a document simultaneously. You can share collaborative documents publicly or with specific users, see who is in the document at any time, and follow their cursors as they edit the project.

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A relatively new app compared to the rest of the list, Bear might seem simple, but it offers a great deal of flexibility for handling text. Bear is good for both notes and to-do checklists, but its support for Markdown, a variety of themes, and simple organization make it a great tool for many different kinds of writing. Add images, files, code blocks, and more to spice up your work and give it more context.

In terms of options, you've got few. First, choose how to sort your documents, pick a theme, pick your font, and even control fine-grain details such as font size, line height and width, and paragraph spacing. Then, subscribe to Bear Pro for $1.49 per month to sync your documents between Bear for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. A yearly subscription is $19.99.

Beautiful and powerful, Bear is a terrific app worth your consideration.

iA Writer's gone through quite a few changes over the years. Where the previous Pro app tried to break down your writing into a flow between notes and writing and editing, the modern iA Writer focuses on having you write in plain text, with full Markdown support. However, that's not to say that there aren't advanced features, as there are quite a few. For example, Syntax Control breaks down your writing to show you the structure, highlighting adjectives, nouns, conjunctions, etc. Link to other documents in iA Writer to combine them into a single project, or link to images or spreadsheet files to see them in iA Writer's Preview screen in several different templates.

Like other apps on this list, iA Writer lets you publish to blogs, in this case, WordPress and Medium. You can also export your work in Markdown, PDF, HTML, and Microsoft Word.

Modern and powerful, iA Writer is a terrific app that requires a one-time purchase only.

Scrivener is nothing short of a full-featured suite of tools for writers. Novels, scripts, essays, research papers, it doesn't matter because Scrivener supports all of them. Organize your ideas on digital notecards and lay them out on the corkboard to see how your work fits together. Import images, PDFs, and other media you've used as research to refer to it later. Keep your work segmented for easier organization and edition while maintaining its structure with the Binder. And each part of the app can be customized to create the exact writing environment you need. It's actually hard to encapsulate just how many options Scrivener gives you.

When you're done, compile your project into a single document and export in formats like DOC, rich text, PDF, ePub, Kindle, and even export for other apps like Final Draft. Away from your Mac? You can also check out Scrivener for iPhone and iPad, which lets you work on your Scrivener projects no matter where you are.

Although Scrivener is pricey, it offers the perfect tools for anyone looking to write and publish a masterpiece. This is a one-time purchase, unlike other options on this list.

Going to Hollywood by plane or in mind? This is the writing app to consider.

"Simple but effective" is the best way to describe Byword. With this Markdown-focused writing app, you start with a blank document and just write. It's a minimalist app with only a few settings to fuss with, and Byword really only cares about getting you writing. Your documents sync between Mac, iPhone, and iPad using iCloud Drive, though you can also store them in Dropbox.

When it comes to publishing, you've got options for PDF and HTML. You can also post what you've written to blogging services such as Medium, WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger; or you could send your document to Evernote.

Bloggers will want to consider this terrific app available for a relatively low price.

Which app is best?

Ulysses is your best bet if you want a jack-of-all-trades writing app with WordPress, Medium, and iCloud support. Try the similar Bear first if you're not willing to shell out $29.99 per year. You may not ever need its advanced features, which would give you a terrific writing app for free.

But if you're serious about creative writing and you want a stalwart companion on your best Mac to help drag stories out of your brain, Scrivener's your best bet. Its learning curve is steeper, but its powerful features make that climb worthwhile.

Updated April 2022: Updated for macOS Monterey with new picks: Byword and Pages.

Bryan M. Wolfe has written about technology for over a decade on various websites, including TechRadar, AppAdvice, and many more. Before this, he worked in the technology field across different industries, including healthcare and education. He’s currently iMore’s lead on all things Mac and macOS, although he also loves covering iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Bryan enjoys watching his favorite sports teams, traveling, and driving around his teenage daughter to her latest stage show, audition, or school event in his spare time. He also keeps busy walking his black and white cocker spaniel, Izzy, and trying new coffees and liquid grapes.

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How to Write an Essay

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Essay Writing Fundamentals

How to prepare to write an essay, how to edit an essay, how to share and publish your essays, how to get essay writing help, how to find essay writing inspiration, resources for teaching essay writing.

Essays, short prose compositions on a particular theme or topic, are the bread and butter of academic life. You write them in class, for homework, and on standardized tests to show what you know. Unlike other kinds of academic writing (like the research paper) and creative writing (like short stories and poems), essays allow you to develop your original thoughts on a prompt or question. Essays come in many varieties: they can be expository (fleshing out an idea or claim), descriptive, (explaining a person, place, or thing), narrative (relating a personal experience), or persuasive (attempting to win over a reader). This guide is a collection of dozens of links about academic essay writing that we have researched, categorized, and annotated in order to help you improve your essay writing. 

Essays are different from other forms of writing; in turn, there are different kinds of essays. This section contains general resources for getting to know the essay and its variants. These resources introduce and define the essay as a genre, and will teach you what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab

One of the most trusted academic writing sites, Purdue OWL provides a concise introduction to the four most common types of academic essays.

"The Essay: History and Definition" (ThoughtCo)

This snappy article from ThoughtCo talks about the origins of the essay and different kinds of essays you might be asked to write. 

"What Is An Essay?" Video Lecture (Coursera)

The University of California at Irvine's free video lecture, available on Coursera, tells  you everything you need to know about the essay.

Wikipedia Article on the "Essay"

Wikipedia's article on the essay is comprehensive, providing both English-language and global perspectives on the essay form. Learn about the essay's history, forms, and styles.

"Understanding College and Academic Writing" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This list of common academic writing assignments (including types of essay prompts) will help you know what to expect from essay-based assessments.

Before you start writing your essay, you need to figure out who you're writing for (audience), what you're writing about (topic/theme), and what you're going to say (argument and thesis). This section contains links to handouts, chapters, videos and more to help you prepare to write an essay.

How to Identify Your Audience

"Audience" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This handout provides questions you can ask yourself to determine the audience for an academic writing assignment. It also suggests strategies for fitting your paper to your intended audience.

"Purpose, Audience, Tone, and Content" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

This extensive book chapter from Writing for Success , available online through Minnesota Libraries Publishing, is followed by exercises to try out your new pre-writing skills.

"Determining Audience" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This guide from a community college's writing center shows you how to know your audience, and how to incorporate that knowledge in your thesis statement.

"Know Your Audience" ( Paper Rater Blog)

This short blog post uses examples to show how implied audiences for essays differ. It reminds you to think of your instructor as an observer, who will know only the information you pass along.

How to Choose a Theme or Topic

"Research Tutorial: Developing Your Topic" (YouTube)

Take a look at this short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to understand the basics of developing a writing topic.

"How to Choose a Paper Topic" (WikiHow)

This simple, step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through choosing a paper topic. It starts with a detailed description of brainstorming and ends with strategies to refine your broad topic.

"How to Read an Assignment: Moving From Assignment to Topic" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Did your teacher give you a prompt or other instructions? This guide helps you understand the relationship between an essay assignment and your essay's topic.

"Guidelines for Choosing a Topic" (CliffsNotes)

This study guide from CliffsNotes both discusses how to choose a topic and makes a useful distinction between "topic" and "thesis."

How to Come Up with an Argument

"Argument" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

Not sure what "argument" means in the context of academic writing? This page from the University of North Carolina is a good place to start.

"The Essay Guide: Finding an Argument" (Study Hub)

This handout explains why it's important to have an argument when beginning your essay, and provides tools to help you choose a viable argument.

"Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument" (University of Iowa)

This page from the University of Iowa's Writing Center contains exercises through which you can develop and refine your argument and thesis statement.

"Developing a Thesis" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page from Harvard's Writing Center collates some helpful dos and don'ts of argumentative writing, from steps in constructing a thesis to avoiding vague and confrontational thesis statements.

"Suggestions for Developing Argumentative Essays" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

This page offers concrete suggestions for each stage of the essay writing process, from topic selection to drafting and editing. 

How to Outline your Essay

"Outlines" (Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill via YouTube)

This short video tutorial from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how to group your ideas into paragraphs or sections to begin the outlining process.

"Essay Outline" (Univ. of Washington Tacoma)

This two-page handout by a university professor simply defines the parts of an essay and then organizes them into an example outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL gives examples of diverse outline strategies on this page, including the alphanumeric, full sentence, and decimal styles. 

"Outlining" (Harvard College Writing Center)

Once you have an argument, according to this handout, there are only three steps in the outline process: generalizing, ordering, and putting it all together. Then you're ready to write!

"Writing Essays" (Plymouth Univ.)

This packet, part of Plymouth University's Learning Development series, contains descriptions and diagrams relating to the outlining process.

"How to Write A Good Argumentative Essay: Logical Structure" (Criticalthinkingtutorials.com via YouTube)

This longer video tutorial gives an overview of how to structure your essay in order to support your argument or thesis. It is part of a longer course on academic writing hosted on Udemy.

Now that you've chosen and refined your topic and created an outline, use these resources to complete the writing process. Most essays contain introductions (which articulate your thesis statement), body paragraphs, and conclusions. Transitions facilitate the flow from one paragraph to the next so that support for your thesis builds throughout the essay. Sources and citations show where you got the evidence to support your thesis, which ensures that you avoid plagiarism. 

How to Write an Introduction

"Introductions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page identifies the role of the introduction in any successful paper, suggests strategies for writing introductions, and warns against less effective introductions.

"How to Write A Good Introduction" (Michigan State Writing Center)

Beginning with the most common missteps in writing introductions, this guide condenses the essentials of introduction composition into seven points.

"The Introductory Paragraph" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming focuses on ways to grab your reader's attention at the beginning of your essay.

"Introductions and Conclusions" (Univ. of Toronto)

This guide from the University of Toronto gives advice that applies to writing both introductions and conclusions, including dos and don'ts.

"How to Write Better Essays: No One Does Introductions Properly" ( The Guardian )

This news article interviews UK professors on student essay writing; they point to introductions as the area that needs the most improvement.

How to Write a Thesis Statement

"Writing an Effective Thesis Statement" (YouTube)

This short, simple video tutorial from a college composition instructor at Tulsa Community College explains what a thesis statement is and what it does. 

"Thesis Statement: Four Steps to a Great Essay" (YouTube)

This fantastic tutorial walks you through drafting a thesis, using an essay prompt on Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as an example.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) walks you through coming up with, writing, and editing a thesis statement. It invites you think of your statement as a "working thesis" that can change.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement" (Univ. of Indiana Bloomington)

Ask yourself the questions on this page, part of Indiana Bloomington's Writing Tutorial Services, when you're writing and refining your thesis statement.

"Writing Tips: Thesis Statements" (Univ. of Illinois Center for Writing Studies)

This page gives plentiful examples of good to great thesis statements, and offers questions to ask yourself when formulating a thesis statement.

How to Write Body Paragraphs

"Body Paragraph" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course introduces you to the components of a body paragraph. These include the topic sentence, information, evidence, and analysis.

"Strong Body Paragraphs" (Washington Univ.)

This handout from Washington's Writing and Research Center offers in-depth descriptions of the parts of a successful body paragraph.

"Guide to Paragraph Structure" (Deakin Univ.)

This handout is notable for color-coding example body paragraphs to help you identify the functions various sentences perform.

"Writing Body Paragraphs" (Univ. of Minnesota Libraries)

The exercises in this section of Writing for Success  will help you practice writing good body paragraphs. It includes guidance on selecting primary support for your thesis.

"The Writing Process—Body Paragraphs" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

The information and exercises on this page will familiarize you with outlining and writing body paragraphs, and includes links to more information on topic sentences and transitions.

"The Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post discusses body paragraphs in the context of one of the most common academic essay types in secondary schools.

How to Use Transitions

"Transitions" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explains what a transition is, and how to know if you need to improve your transitions.

"Using Transitions Effectively" (Washington Univ.)

This handout defines transitions, offers tips for using them, and contains a useful list of common transitional words and phrases grouped by function.

"Transitions" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

This page compares paragraphs without transitions to paragraphs with transitions, and in doing so shows how important these connective words and phrases are.

"Transitions in Academic Essays" (Scribbr)

This page lists four techniques that will help you make sure your reader follows your train of thought, including grouping similar information and using transition words.

"Transitions" (El Paso Community College)

This handout shows example transitions within paragraphs for context, and explains how transitions improve your essay's flow and voice.

"Make Your Paragraphs Flow to Improve Writing" (ThoughtCo)

This blog post, another from academic advisor and college enrollment counselor Grace Fleming, talks about transitions and other strategies to improve your essay's overall flow.

"Transition Words" (smartwords.org)

This handy word bank will help you find transition words when you're feeling stuck. It's grouped by the transition's function, whether that is to show agreement, opposition, condition, or consequence.

How to Write a Conclusion

"Parts of An Essay: Conclusions" (Brightstorm)

This module of a free online course explains how to conclude an academic essay. It suggests thinking about the "3Rs": return to hook, restate your thesis, and relate to the reader.

"Essay Conclusions" (Univ. of Maryland University College)

This overview of the academic essay conclusion contains helpful examples and links to further resources for writing good conclusions.

"How to End An Essay" (WikiHow)

This step-by-step guide (with pictures!) by an English Ph.D. walks you through writing a conclusion, from brainstorming to ending with a flourish.

"Ending the Essay: Conclusions" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This page collates useful strategies for writing an effective conclusion, and reminds you to "close the discussion without closing it off" to further conversation.

How to Include Sources and Citations

"Research and Citation Resources" (Purdue OWL Online Writing Lab)

Purdue OWL streamlines information about the three most common referencing styles (MLA, Chicago, and APA) and provides examples of how to cite different resources in each system.

EasyBib: Free Bibliography Generator

This online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. Be sure to select your resource type before clicking the "cite it" button.

CitationMachine

Like EasyBib, this online tool allows you to input information about your source and automatically generate citations in any style. 

Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA)

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of MLA referencing rules. Order through the link above, or check to see if your library has a copy.

Chicago Manual of Style

Here, you'll find the definitive and up-to-date record of Chicago referencing rules. You can take a look at the table of contents, then choose to subscribe or start a free trial.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

"What is Plagiarism?" (plagiarism.org)

This nonprofit website contains numerous resources for identifying and avoiding plagiarism, and reminds you that even common activities like copying images from another website to your own site may constitute plagiarism.

"Plagiarism" (University of Oxford)

This interactive page from the University of Oxford helps you check for plagiarism in your work, making it clear how to avoid citing another person's work without full acknowledgement.

"Avoiding Plagiarism" (MIT Comparative Media Studies)

This quick guide explains what plagiarism is, what its consequences are, and how to avoid it. It starts by defining three words—quotation, paraphrase, and summary—that all constitute citation.

"Harvard Guide to Using Sources" (Harvard Extension School)

This comprehensive website from Harvard brings together articles, videos, and handouts about referencing, citation, and plagiarism. 

Grammarly contains tons of helpful grammar and writing resources, including a free tool to automatically scan your essay to check for close affinities to published work. 

Noplag is another popular online tool that automatically scans your essay to check for signs of plagiarism. Simply copy and paste your essay into the box and click "start checking."

Once you've written your essay, you'll want to edit (improve content), proofread (check for spelling and grammar mistakes), and finalize your work until you're ready to hand it in. This section brings together tips and resources for navigating the editing process. 

"Writing a First Draft" (Academic Help)

This is an introduction to the drafting process from the site Academic Help, with tips for getting your ideas on paper before editing begins.

"Editing and Proofreading" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page provides general strategies for revising your writing. They've intentionally left seven errors in the handout, to give you practice in spotting them.

"How to Proofread Effectively" (ThoughtCo)

This article from ThoughtCo, along with those linked at the bottom, help describe common mistakes to check for when proofreading.

"7 Simple Edits That Make Your Writing 100% More Powerful" (SmartBlogger)

This blog post emphasizes the importance of powerful, concise language, and reminds you that even your personal writing heroes create clunky first drafts.

"Editing Tips for Effective Writing" (Univ. of Pennsylvania)

On this page from Penn's International Relations department, you'll find tips for effective prose, errors to watch out for, and reminders about formatting.

"Editing the Essay" (Harvard College Writing Center)

This article, the first of two parts, gives you applicable strategies for the editing process. It suggests reading your essay aloud, removing any jargon, and being unafraid to remove even "dazzling" sentences that don't belong.

"Guide to Editing and Proofreading" (Oxford Learning Institute)

This handout from Oxford covers the basics of editing and proofreading, and reminds you that neither task should be rushed. 

In addition to plagiarism-checkers, Grammarly has a plug-in for your web browser that checks your writing for common mistakes.

After you've prepared, written, and edited your essay, you might want to share it outside the classroom. This section alerts you to print and web opportunities to share your essays with the wider world, from online writing communities and blogs to published journals geared toward young writers.

Sharing Your Essays Online

Go Teen Writers

Go Teen Writers is an online community for writers aged 13 - 19. It was founded by Stephanie Morrill, an author of contemporary young adult novels. 

Tumblr is a blogging website where you can share your writing and interact with other writers online. It's easy to add photos, links, audio, and video components.

Writersky provides an online platform for publishing and reading other youth writers' work. Its current content is mostly devoted to fiction.

Publishing Your Essays Online

This teen literary journal publishes in print, on the web, and (more frequently), on a blog. It is committed to ensuring that "teens see their authentic experience reflected on its pages."

The Matador Review

This youth writing platform celebrates "alternative," unconventional writing. The link above will take you directly to the site's "submissions" page.

Teen Ink has a website, monthly newsprint magazine, and quarterly poetry magazine promoting the work of young writers.

The largest online reading platform, Wattpad enables you to publish your work and read others' work. Its inline commenting feature allows you to share thoughts as you read along.

Publishing Your Essays in Print

Canvas Teen Literary Journal

This quarterly literary magazine is published for young writers by young writers. They accept many kinds of writing, including essays.

The Claremont Review

This biannual international magazine, first published in 1992, publishes poetry, essays, and short stories from writers aged 13 - 19.

Skipping Stones

This young writers magazine, founded in 1988, celebrates themes relating to ecological and cultural diversity. It publishes poems, photos, articles, and stories.

The Telling Room

This nonprofit writing center based in Maine publishes children's work on their website and in book form. The link above directs you to the site's submissions page.

Essay Contests

Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards

This prestigious international writing contest for students in grades 7 - 12 has been committed to "supporting the future of creativity since 1923."

Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest

An annual essay contest on the theme of journalism and media, the Society of Professional Journalists High School Essay Contest awards scholarships up to $1,000.

National YoungArts Foundation

Here, you'll find information on a government-sponsored writing competition for writers aged 15 - 18. The foundation welcomes submissions of creative nonfiction, novels, scripts, poetry, short story and spoken word.

Signet Classics Student Scholarship Essay Contest

With prompts on a different literary work each year, this competition from Signet Classics awards college scholarships up to $1,000.

"The Ultimate Guide to High School Essay Contests" (CollegeVine)

See this handy guide from CollegeVine for a list of more competitions you can enter with your academic essay, from the National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Awards to the National High School Essay Contest by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Whether you're struggling to write academic essays or you think you're a pro, there are workshops and online tools that can help you become an even better writer. Even the most seasoned writers encounter writer's block, so be proactive and look through our curated list of resources to combat this common frustration.

Online Essay-writing Classes and Workshops

"Getting Started with Essay Writing" (Coursera)

Coursera offers lots of free, high-quality online classes taught by college professors. Here's one example, taught by instructors from the University of California Irvine.

"Writing and English" (Brightstorm)

Brightstorm's free video lectures are easy to navigate by topic. This unit on the parts of an essay features content on the essay hook, thesis, supporting evidence, and more.

"How to Write an Essay" (EdX)

EdX is another open online university course website with several two- to five-week courses on the essay. This one is geared toward English language learners.

Writer's Digest University

This renowned writers' website offers online workshops and interactive tutorials. The courses offered cover everything from how to get started through how to get published.

Writing.com

Signing up for this online writer's community gives you access to helpful resources as well as an international community of writers.

How to Overcome Writer's Block

"Symptoms and Cures for Writer's Block" (Purdue OWL)

Purdue OWL offers a list of signs you might have writer's block, along with ways to overcome it. Consider trying out some "invention strategies" or ways to curb writing anxiety.

"Overcoming Writer's Block: Three Tips" ( The Guardian )

These tips, geared toward academic writing specifically, are practical and effective. The authors advocate setting realistic goals, creating dedicated writing time, and participating in social writing.

"Writing Tips: Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block" (Univ. of Illinois)

This page from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Center for Writing Studies acquaints you with strategies that do and do not work to overcome writer's block.

"Writer's Block" (Univ. of Toronto)

Ask yourself the questions on this page; if the answer is "yes," try out some of the article's strategies. Each question is accompanied by at least two possible solutions.

If you have essays to write but are short on ideas, this section's links to prompts, example student essays, and celebrated essays by professional writers might help. You'll find writing prompts from a variety of sources, student essays to inspire you, and a number of essay writing collections.

Essay Writing Prompts

"50 Argumentative Essay Topics" (ThoughtCo)

Take a look at this list and the others ThoughtCo has curated for different kinds of essays. As the author notes, "a number of these topics are controversial and that's the point."

"401 Prompts for Argumentative Writing" ( New York Times )

This list (and the linked lists to persuasive and narrative writing prompts), besides being impressive in length, is put together by actual high school English teachers.

"SAT Sample Essay Prompts" (College Board)

If you're a student in the U.S., your classroom essay prompts are likely modeled on the prompts in U.S. college entrance exams. Take a look at these official examples from the SAT.

"Popular College Application Essay Topics" (Princeton Review)

This page from the Princeton Review dissects recent Common Application essay topics and discusses strategies for answering them.

Example Student Essays

"501 Writing Prompts" (DePaul Univ.)

This nearly 200-page packet, compiled by the LearningExpress Skill Builder in Focus Writing Team, is stuffed with writing prompts, example essays, and commentary.

"Topics in English" (Kibin)

Kibin is a for-pay essay help website, but its example essays (organized by topic) are available for free. You'll find essays on everything from  A Christmas Carol  to perseverance.

"Student Writing Models" (Thoughtful Learning)

Thoughtful Learning, a website that offers a variety of teaching materials, provides sample student essays on various topics and organizes them by grade level.

"Five-Paragraph Essay" (ThoughtCo)

In this blog post by a former professor of English and rhetoric, ThoughtCo brings together examples of five-paragraph essays and commentary on the form.

The Best Essay Writing Collections

The Best American Essays of the Century by Joyce Carol Oates (Amazon)

This collection of American essays spanning the twentieth century was compiled by award winning author and Princeton professor Joyce Carol Oates.

The Best American Essays 2017 by Leslie Jamison (Amazon)

Leslie Jamison, the celebrated author of essay collection  The Empathy Exams , collects recent, high-profile essays into a single volume.

The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate (Amazon)

Documentary writer Phillip Lopate curates this historical overview of the personal essay's development, from the classical era to the present.

The White Album by Joan Didion (Amazon)

This seminal essay collection was authored by one of the most acclaimed personal essayists of all time, American journalist Joan Didion.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (Amazon)

Read this famous essay collection by David Foster Wallace, who is known for his experimentation with the essay form. He pushed the boundaries of personal essay, reportage, and political polemic.

"50 Successful Harvard Application Essays" (Staff of the The Harvard Crimson )

If you're looking for examples of exceptional college application essays, this volume from Harvard's daily student newspaper is one of the best collections on the market.

Are you an instructor looking for the best resources for teaching essay writing? This section contains resources for developing in-class activities and student homework assignments. You'll find content from both well-known university writing centers and online writing labs.

Essay Writing Classroom Activities for Students

"In-class Writing Exercises" (Univ. of North Carolina Writing Center)

This page lists exercises related to brainstorming, organizing, drafting, and revising. It also contains suggestions for how to implement the suggested exercises.

"Teaching with Writing" (Univ. of Minnesota Center for Writing)

Instructions and encouragement for using "freewriting," one-minute papers, logbooks, and other write-to-learn activities in the classroom can be found here.

"Writing Worksheets" (Berkeley Student Learning Center)

Berkeley offers this bank of writing worksheets to use in class. They are nested under headings for "Prewriting," "Revision," "Research Papers" and more.

"Using Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism" (DePaul University)

Use these activities and worksheets from DePaul's Teaching Commons when instructing students on proper academic citation practices.

Essay Writing Homework Activities for Students

"Grammar and Punctuation Exercises" (Aims Online Writing Lab)

These five interactive online activities allow students to practice editing and proofreading. They'll hone their skills in correcting comma splices and run-ons, identifying fragments, using correct pronoun agreement, and comma usage.

"Student Interactives" (Read Write Think)

Read Write Think hosts interactive tools, games, and videos for developing writing skills. They can practice organizing and summarizing, writing poetry, and developing lines of inquiry and analysis.

This free website offers writing and grammar activities for all grade levels. The lessons are designed to be used both for large classes and smaller groups.

"Writing Activities and Lessons for Every Grade" (Education World)

Education World's page on writing activities and lessons links you to more free, online resources for learning how to "W.R.I.T.E.": write, revise, inform, think, and edit.

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Best essay writing apps for iPhone & Mac

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Composing with a pen and paper is rapidly becoming outdated, which is reasonable. Why put yourself through such stress when using your device to compose better quicker? 

Tons of writing apps make writing a more stress-free experience. Ideally, excellent essay writing apps should help you with grammar, proofreading, and more. For example, you can write a profile essay about   any topic expertly using good writing apps which can help you understand the definition and outline of an essay. A good writing app will help you execute your task effectively and give you a great writing experience. If you use an iPhone or Mac, or use both, here are the top apps to choose from. 

This brilliant writing application has been named the best essay writing app for Apple devices such as Mac, iPad, and iPhone. It doesn’t work with some other OS like Android or Windows. What makes Ulysses unique is that it can back up your documents to the iCloud so that regardless of whether you lose the first record, your work is still securely put away in the cloud.

Ulysses uses markdown language to help you apply styles to your writing without worrying about using a formatting menu. This app also features a “focus mode” that helps streamline your writing to a single line and minimize on-screen distractions. Ulysses lets you export your files in various formats to make it easier to finalize your work. 

Focus Writer

Focus Writer is a simple-to-use free word processor, and it is accessible across all major working operating systems, including your iOS and Mac gadgets. With Focus Writer, you can make text and save it in RTF design. It features live document statistics to assist you and eliminates the need to run word counts and character counts. It features:

• Hide-away interface
• Live statistics
• Spells checking
• Document tabs

Evernote is another spectacular writing application that helps with essay writing. The program is a cross-platform note-taking application.  It would work with iOS gadgets and other working frameworks like Android and Windows. Evernote is great for handling written by hand notes. It additionally assists with making the outline of an exposition or article, which can be helpful for an essay write-up. Evernote can store anything you want to remember for your papers, be it a straightforward composing note or an article you viewed on the net. Like that, you can have all your paper thoughts organized and compact.

Grammarly is one of the most well-known article writing tools available on the market today. Grammarly is notable for aiding the adjustment of spelling issues, grammatical errors, and styling mistakes.

Grammarly is open in both a free and a paid version. It has a web-based editor that really looks at your sentence structure, spelling, grammar, word choice, readability, and style mistakes. Grammarly can detect plagiarism by contrasting your paper with billions of other web pages on the net. It’s an awesome program for composing impeccable papers, theses, research papers, and different sorts of compositions.

Pro Writing Aid

ProWritingAid is a cloud-based editing tool for article writing, copywriting, and blogs. This program is planned to help you recognize editing issues, eliminate mistakes, and correct grammatical problems in your essays.

It has a brilliant and valuable free version, while its premium version contains amazing features like upgrading word choice, wiping out cliches, and amending sentence length issues. ProWritingAid further develops your readability and style while additionally recognizing grammatical mistakes.

Hemingway is best known as a tool that can help you improve the readability of your writing,  but it is also an effective, comprehensive proofreading tool.

Hemingway detects sentences that are too complex for readers, helping you simplify your thoughts.  Its top-notch proofreading features can help make your sentences clear, concise, and bold.

As you keep writing your essay, the editor will mark too complex sentences. Hemingway helps you hold the reader’s attention by keeping your sentences short, simple, and sound.

Manuscripts

The Manuscripts is a terrific program for creating short stories, essays, and novels that are pleasant and powerful. This software discovers items like digits in the middle of phrases, layout, compound words, and abbreviations that exist in many formats and detects faults in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Overall, it is free to download and use, with no restrictions on what you may do with it. 

It makes no difference how difficult or frustrating writing may appear. However, using the Manuscripts, you can effortlessly kick-start your career in the writing domain. Use it as a starting point for self-editing before submitting to clients. 

Scrivener is a full-featured writing tool. Are you writing a novel? A script? An essay? A research paper about fashion * ? *Brazilian Portuguese website linked

Scrivener can handle them all! The “binder” view in Scrivener allows you to divide your book into chapters and parts and reorder it using a drag-and-drop interface to understand how your work fits together.

Scrivener provides too many customization options to count, and each feature of the program may be changed to your preference to help you create the ideal writing environment. 

With the Binder, you may keep your work divided for easy organizing and editing while maintaining its structure. Scrivener is one of the best book writing apps for writers; writers created it for writers. 

After writing down your ideas, Scrivener lets you combine your project into a single document and export it in formats including DOC, rich text, PDF, ePub, and Kindle. Scrivener works on popular operating systems.  So whether you’re on your computer, laptop, tablet, or phone, you can write awesome essays anytime and anywhere with Scrivener.

Byword is straightforward and powerful writing software. A Byword is an uncomplicated software with a user-friendly interface and only a few settings to fiddle with; it just wants you to get to writing.

You’ll get a blank document in this Markdown-focused writing tool and write. Byword lets the iCloud Drive sync your papers between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and you can also save them to Dropbox.

Byword supports Markdown, which is a distraction-free writing language. Markdown is a means to format text without using menus or options, which keeps the user experience simple and clutter and distraction-free. 

Pages, Apple’s very own writing program, allows you to create many different documents. Pages have over 60 templates that include almost every type of writing, from short essays to research papers, novels, and theses. Pages app also includes templates for business cards and flyers to give you more variety. 

You can insert photos, text boxes, and shapes, and you can change the layout of your documents and do much more. If your computer is one of Apple’s 2016 MacBook Pros with Touch Bar, you can also use Touch ID to keep your documents safe. 

You can easily collaborate with other writers that are using Pages. Multiple individuals can work on a document simultaneously, whether they’re using macOS, iOS, or even Windows, thanks to iCloud.com. You can also share collaborative documents with the entire community or with select individuals, and you can see who is in the group.

You can share collaborative papers with particular users publicly, see who is working on the document at any one time, and track their cursors as they update the page. It’s fascinating writing software that gives you the variety you seek.

Google Docs

Google Docs is one exciting piece of writing software. It’s free, straightforward to use, and requires no backups since everything is in the cloud.  Best of all is its collaboration features, which allow you to invite your editor to the document and then watch as they make changes, which you can view in the comment mode. 

Freedom lets you temporarily disable applications, websites, and social media on all of your devices so you can concentrate on writing. This is great for those seeking an immersive writing experience with no distractions. Not to worry, in case of emergencies, you can still be contacted. You can even set the program to function automatically when you need it the most. 

The freedom from online diversions is beneficial; sometimes, “just a few seconds” may stretch into hours of wasted time. Freedom might assist you in concentrating and increasing your productivity. It works on any device. 

Our takeaway

Whether you are in high school, college, or working on your Ph.D., there are essay writing apps that can help you along the way. If you sift through the benefits of each tool and consider their peculiarities, you can find the proper application to help you with your essays and research papers. Any of these apps will transform your writing experience from frustrating hard work to a pleasant experience.

News content on AppleMagazine.com is produced by our editorial team and complements more in-depth editorials which you’ll find as part of our weekly publication. AppleMagazine.com provides a comprehensive daily reading experience, offering a wide view of the consumer technology landscape to ensure you're always in the know. Check back every weekday for more.

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MacBook for College: Why Apple’s Laptop is Ideal for Essay Writing 

For success in your essay writing efforts, you need a powerful computer. A MacBook provides you with multiple features that make your writing efforts productive. It has one of the fastest speeds and a battery that lasts for many hours. Mac has ample storage space and resilient hardware. 

At times, you might want to download or upload images and videos to support your work. MacBook’s power allows you to download it in seconds and store them on your local disk. You can download a wide range of tools for writing and research from the Apple store. 

Access to a wide range of writing tools and resources

Writing tools and resources help you write faster and maintain quality. They help you edit your content to create grammatically correct papers. Through the tools, you can build detailed arguments and meet campus expectations.  Your MacBook allows you access to a wide range of writing tools and resources. You can download tools for taking notes, researching, and writing from Apple store. You can also access research resources such as books, and journals. MacBook can be connected to other Apple devices such as iPhones. It makes your research process experience better. 

One of the resources that can help write your essay is expert writers. Students use them when they want to get well-researched papers. They are useful when you lack the time or deal with complex titles. A do my essay expert writer submits a plagiarism-free paper.  The expert writers use the latest writing tools for research and editing. You can access them anytime you need help regardless of your location. 

Strong data protection features

One of the greatest losses you can get is to lose your essay due to viruses. Apple designs some of the best MacBook OS security features. It has built-in antivirus software, firewall, and lock screen features. You can activate encryption and firmware passwords to protect your college essays. You still need to observe the best online security practices for online safety. 

Powerful speed

MacBook is one of the Apple gadgets with a powerful speed. It can run at 3.49GHZ or more which is fast compared to other types of laptops. This speed is good enough for writing essays, playing games, and streaming videos.  Computer speed determines how fast you can retrieve information. It also determines how fast your laptop interprets instructions. Speed allows you to do research fast, and upload, or download data. 

Long-lasting battery power

When you are writing an essay, you might want to go outdoors and work from there. If your battery power cannot last, you cannot get the best experience. The battery power of your MacBook cannot disappoint you. Depending on the model, it can last you from 6 hours to 11 hours. This allows you to spend an entire day outdoors doing your research. 

Resilient hardware

Most other types of laptops last for a few years and demand replacement. Some start hardware challenges within a year. Maintaining them can be costly because you need to replace parts now and then. You cannot experience such challenges with a MacBook. It is a worthwhile investment when you are in college or planning to join. Once you buy a new MacBook, you don’t need to budget again soon. You can use the same laptop for close to a decade. 

Best storage and backup options

When doing research, you need to download a lot of information. You might download videos, images, text, adios, and memes. This type of content needs a lot of storage space. Modern Apple laptops come with storage ranging from 500GB to 8TB. This is ample storage for all your content. You can even add your movies and music and still have extra space. 

You need a backup for your literary work to avoid losses. Apple devices contain a Time Machine feature for backups. You can also backup your data in the cloud using your laptop. The computer is light enough to carry with ease no matter where you want to go. Many writers choose MacBook due to its large storage and backup options. 

In college, it is common to write an essay after every topic. Many writers use MacBook from Apple due to the friendly feature it offers. The laptop has strong security features and resilient hardware. Its battery lasts for many hours and it is compatible with a wide range of writing tools. It has one of the fastest speeds which is useful for the best experience in research. 

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Overcoming Writer’s Block: Strategies To Keep Your Essay Flowing

11 May 2024 By Markus Reily Leave a Comment

Writer’s block is a common issue where the flow of words gets disrupted. It makes the pressure to write even more overwhelming.

It is often called the “desert seasons” of writing. During this period, ideas and words dry up. Moreover, this block grows as we focus more on it, even when we know we must write.

The longer we sit frustrated, the more likely we will not write. Strong writers need strategies to cope with writer’s block and be productive. It is essential to balance the pressure to write and the desire to be fruitful.

This post will help you understand writer’s block more deeply and find solutions to fight these situations.

Understand The Root Of Your Writer’s Block

Writer’s block is a common issue among scientific writers, often stemming from various factors.

It can be attributed to difficulties in starting the writing process due to factors like the following:

• Lack of focus due to digital distractions.
• Fear of failure or criticism.
• Lack of interest or confidence in one’s research.

Therefore, students are often advised to pause and pace before starting.

Moreover, fear of rejection and criticism can contribute to writer’s block, while perfectionism can lead to procrastination or a cycle of editing and revising.

Also, uncertainty is another common issue among scientists, who may need more training in scientific writing and help finding convincing arguments.

However, to overcome writer’s block, it is important to pinpoint and address your specific problem head-on.

Break Through Mental Blocks

Given below are some of the most effective solutions that can help you break a writer’s block and write an essay with an easy flow—

Take Breaks

It’s important to take breaks from writing to avoid writer’s block. Giving yourself distance can provide a fresh perspective and boost your mental health and creativity.

Establishing boundaries and practicing self-care can help prevent burnout, procrastination, and writer’s block.

However, if you experience a lack of creativity, it’s normal to feel insecure about your writing. Therefore, remember that writer’s block and burnout are different and can be overcome.

Try Brainstorming

This chapter provides four brainstorming methods for identifying the focus of a personal statement and crafting supporting points.

It stresses the significance of comprehending the prompt, which may be open-ended but requires detailed information about one’s interests and experiences in the field.

Additionally, it emphasizes the need to present oneself as an exceptional candidate for the program being applied to.

Brainstorming entails analyzing the prompt and gathering memories or experiences to create a persuasive personal statement.

For instance, a candidate for a master’s degree in education could begin with an anecdote about overcoming a school fight and discussing challenges that helped develop their teaching skills and passion.

Freewriting techniques, such as jotting down every idea, encourage imaginative thinking and help identify the most effective topics for a personal statement.

Set Realistic Goals

When experiencing writer’s block, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by exaggerated expectations. However, creating attainable goals may provide a sense of accomplishment and inspiration throughout the writing process.

Realistic objectives give direction, attention, and motivation, boost success chances, foster a good self-image, and break down dreams into attainable stages. They encourage resilience, adaptation, and learning from failures.

Setting goals helps to express the links between present writing projects and professional skills, overcome concerns, and gain confidence in one’s writing ability.

Moreover, it decreases organizational stress by clearly defining success and ensuring people understand their position and expectations.

Finally, goal planning is critical in both personal and professional life. It allows progress toward desired results and increases performance.

Eliminate Distractions

Distractions can impair concentration, productivity, and project beginning. To reduce distractions, disconnect electronics, tidy your desk, and set aside time for undisturbed writing.

Request respect from coworkers and family members, and set aside at least three uninterrupted hours to write.

Background noise, such as what you hear at a coffee shop, might improve concentration and creativity.

Moreover, experiments were conducted with popular TV shows, music with no words, and white noise devices.

Also, you may discover that different sorts of background noise are better suited to other jobs, such as listening to conversational podcasts while writing essays and switching to music while writing fiction. Remember to respect your time and avoid distractions when writing.

Surround Yourself With Inspiration

Creative ideas and writing activities can help you activate your imagination and overcome creative blocks.

Explore writing prompt books online groups, or create prompts to experiment with different genres, styles, and views.

Character interviews, story twists, and writing from different perspectives all help to spark your creativity and inspire you to step beyond your comfort zone.

Writer’s block can be addressed by embracing many sources of inspiration, such as books, art exhibitions, films, music, and nature.

Connecting with other authors through writing groups, workshops, conferences, and project partnerships may enhance motivation and accountability. This group reduces isolation and offers possibilities for learning and growth, resulting in a rich and real writing experience.

Use Writing Prompts

Writer’s block is a mental paralysis where one struggles to find words to write about a topic. Therefore, to break this, one can talk to a friend and write down everything they say.

In that light, writing prompts encourage interest and creative writing. They should introduce and limit the topic while providing clear instructions. You can find subject-specific writing prompts on professional essay writing platforms like IvoryResearch .

The more you write from prompts, the more ideas will come to mind, and easier words will flow.

However, don’t stress over the process, as any prompt may or may not spark an idea once you’ve gained experience.

Seek Feedback And Collaboration

Collaborating with others can be a valuable tool for students’ writing journey. It can help them analyze their writing more effectively, as it is often easier to spot flaws in a classmate’s work than to explore one’s own.

Seeking feedback from others can also improve one’s understanding of assignments and personal growth.

Collaborating with others is beneficial at every stage of the writing process, from brainstorming ideas to improving organization, style, and design of drafts. Additionally, it is a constructive step towards personal and professional development.

Criticizing student writing is often easier than analyzing published writing, and collaboration can help students improve their writing skills in a supportive and encouraging environment

Markus Reily

Markus lives in San Francisco, California and is the video game and audio expert on Good e-Reader! He has a huge interest in new e-readers and tablets, and gaming.

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How to Write an Essay – Best Method Explained

B efore we dive into this article, we highly recommend you check out bestessaywriter.net if you are looking to get your essay written by highly qualified writers with over 30 years of experience. 

Are you passionate about a topic and eager to share it? Write an essay! Do you disagree with a common viewpoint and want to persuade others to see it your way? Write an essay! Are you required to submit a piece of writing to get into your dream college? Write an essay! 

Writing essays is a powerful way to express your thoughts, challenge prevailing opinions, and fulfill academic requirements. Whether you're driven by passion or necessity, crafting a well-thought-out essay can make a significant impact. 

The term "essay" broadly describes any written piece where the author presents their viewpoint on a topic. This can be academic, editorial, or even humorous in nature. Despite the vast number of approaches and topics available, successful essay writing generally adheres to a consistent framework. 

Good essays are structured effectively to guide the reader through the author's arguments and insights. Whether you're exploring complex theories or sharing personal experiences, a clear, logical structure is key to making your essay compelling and coherent. 

In the following sections, we'll dive into that framework and explain how you can apply it to your essays, regardless of their type. But first, let's begin with a basic overview of essay writing. 

How to Write an Essay 

If you are having trouble writing an essay, you can hire an essay writer from BestEssayWriter.net but if you want to learn how to write an essay on your own, we will lay down the exact steps in this guide.  

Steps to write an essay: 

• Generate Ideas and Choose a Type of Essay : Start by brainstorming potential topics and deciding on the type of essay you want to write, whether it's persuasive, descriptive, expository, or another style. 
• Outline Your Essay : Plan your essay by outlining each paragraph. This helps organize your thoughts and ensures a logical flow of information. 
• Write a Rough Draft : Begin with a rough draft, focusing on getting your ideas down on paper. Don't worry about perfect word choice or grammar at this stage. 
• Edit and Revise : After completing your rough draft, go back and refine it. Pay attention to details like word choice, sentence structure, and overall coherence. 
• Proofread : Finally, review your essay for any typos, errors, or other issues that might detract from your message. 

We'll explore each of these steps in more detail below, but first, let's focus on a crucial element of any effective essay: choosing the right topic. 

Crafting Your Essay's Thesis Statement 

Before you start writing your essay, there are three critical aspects to consider: 

• Thesis  
• Type  
• Audience  

Among these, the thesis is the most crucial. It represents the core argument or main point of your essay. For instance, Bertrand Russell's thesis in "In Praise of Idleness" argues that society overly prioritizes work, neglecting the value of leisure. 

Your thesis statement should encapsulate this central idea. It's what you want your readers to remember most when they finish reading. If you're struggling to define your thesis, ask yourself: "What's the one thing I want my readers to remember?" 

It's best to state your thesis early, ideally in the first few sentences, and to reiterate it throughout your essay, particularly in the conclusion. This repetition ensures that your central idea is clear and resonant. 

The rest of your essay should support this thesis. You can use various forms of evidence to bolster your argument, including empirical data, testimonials, logical reasoning, or persuasive language. The key is to consistently build upon your initial thesis without veering off into unrelated topics. 

The Essay-Writing Process 

Writing encompasses a range of formats, from essays and research papers to novels, poems, screenplays, and blog articles. No matter the format, following an efficient writing process is essential. Even if you begin with a stream-of-consciousness style for your rough draft, a structured system is crucial for revision and refinement. 

Here’s a five-step writing process recommended for essay writing:  

• Brainstorming : Start by gathering your thoughts. Based on your prompt or thesis, generate as many ideas as you can. This is your chance to think freely and note down everything that comes to mind, knowing you can later discard what doesn’t fit. 
• Preparing : In this stage, you filter and organize your ideas. Select those that best support your thesis and arrange them logically. This phase also involves outlining your essay’s structure and gathering resources for evidence. If your essay requires citations, now is the time to collect these, following the appropriate style guide (MLA, APA, or Chicago) depending on your academic or publication requirements. 
• Drafting : Now, you write your first draft. Don’t aim for perfection. The goal is to get your ideas down on paper. Focusing too much on perfecting each word can detract from the overall flow of your essay. 
• Revising : This involves multiple drafts. Here, refine your essay by enhancing word choice, clarity, and overall flow. Avoid common pitfalls like passive voice and run-on sentences. Tools like Grammarly can be particularly helpful in this stage, offering suggestions for sentence structure and clarity to ensure your writing is concise and readable. 
• Proofreading : After revising, the final step is proofreading. This is your chance to catch any misspellings, grammatical errors, or formatting issues. Using a tool like Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant can be beneficial for catching these common mistakes, providing instant feedback to refine your essay further. 

This structured approach helps maintain focus throughout the writing process, ensuring that each part of your essay contributes effectively to the whole. 

Essay Structure: An Overview 

The structure of an essay typically adheres to a simple format of introduction, body, and conclusion. However, the content within these sections is what truly makes an essay effective. 

Introduction : The introduction sets the stage for your essay. It follows general writing guidelines but places extra emphasis on presenting the thesis statement prominently, ideally within the first few sentences. By the end of your introductory paragraph, the reader should clearly understand the topic of your essay. Following conventional best practices for writing an introduction will ensure a strong start. 

Body Paragraphs : The body forms the bulk of your essay. Here, each paragraph supports your thesis with evidence. How you organize these paragraphs is crucial. In cases where arguments build on each other, a logical progression ensures clarity and enhances the reader's understanding. It's important to remember that the reader may not be as familiar with the subject as you are, so the structure should aid their comprehension. 

When writing an argumentative essay, the organization of points can vary. You might start with your own argument, presenting evidence before introducing opposing views, or you might begin by addressing the opposition's views and then refute them. The arrangement depends on the strategy you choose: 

• Aristotelian (Classical) : Focuses on establishing the validity of your position. 
• Rogerian : Acknowledges the opposing perspectives before presenting a middle ground. 
• Toulmin : Breaks down arguments into their fundamental parts, including counter-arguments and supporting evidence. 

For simpler essays, a straightforward approach can be effective: 

• Your Point : Clearly state your argument. 
• Counterpoint : Introduce opposing viewpoints. 
• Evidence : Provide evidence that supports your point and/or refutes the counterpoint. 

This basic framework ensures that your essay is not only structured and coherent but also persuasive and comprehensive. 

Conclusion: Wrapping Up Your Essay 

The conclusion of an essay serves to effectively summarize and reinforce your thesis, making it digestible and memorable for the reader. It's the final opportunity to solidify your arguments and leave a lasting impression. 

A good conclusion will: 

• Restate the Thesis : Reiterate your main argument to remind the reader of its importance and relevance. 
• Summarize Key Points : Briefly recap the major arguments or evidence presented in the body paragraphs to reinforce the thesis. 
• Offer Closure : Provide a final statement that signals the essay is coming to an end, often linking back to the broader implications of your argument. 

While it's tempting to introduce new ideas or fresh perspectives in the conclusion, it's important to avoid presenting new evidence or arguments that weren't previously discussed. Instead, you can: 

• Provide Context : Expand on the implications of your thesis in a broader context, suggesting areas for further exploration or the potential impact of your findings. 
• Reflect on the Journey : Acknowledge any changes in perspective or insights gained through the process of writing the essay. 

The conclusion should leave the reader with a clear understanding of your central thesis and the confidence that the essay has fully explored and supported that thesis. By effectively wrapping up your essay, you ensure that your ideas resonate with the reader long after they finish reading. 

The Five-Paragraph Essay: A Simple Structure 

The five-paragraph essay is a straightforward and efficient structure ideal for short, time-constrained writing tasks. This format is especially useful during exams or when a quick response is required. Here’s how it breaks down: 

• Introduction Paragraph : This is where you introduce the topic and present your thesis statement. The introduction sets the stage for the discussion and aims to grab the reader's interest. 
• Three Body Paragraphs : Each paragraph should focus on a single main idea that supports your thesis, elaborated with examples, facts, or arguments. This is the core section where you develop your thesis and make your case to the reader. 
• Conclusion Paragraph : The conclusion summarizes the main points and restates the thesis in light of the evidence presented. It should bring a sense of closure and completeness to the essay, reinforcing your initial argument and perhaps suggesting broader implications or future considerations. 

While the five-paragraph essay structure may not accommodate more complex or nuanced topics, its simplicity and clarity make it highly effective for straightforward subjects and settings where clarity and brevity are essential. This structure ensures that your essay is organized and coherent, making it easier for the reader to follow and understand your points quickly. 

Understanding Your Essay's Audience 

Knowing who will read your essay is crucial—it influences everything from the tone to the complexity of your language. Your audience can range from a teacher or admissions counselor to your peers or a broader internet audience. Each group has different expectations and preferences that should guide how you write. 

Formality : The level of formality required often depends on your readers. Academic and professional settings typically demand a formal tone, precise word choice, and a structured approach. In contrast, a blog post or a piece for your peers might allow for a more relaxed style. 

Language and Style : Consider the familiarity of your audience with the subject matter. This understanding will determine how much background information you need to provide and how complex your vocabulary should be. For example, technical jargon might be appropriate for a specialist audience but confusing for general readers. 

Use of Language Devices : Devices like emojis can enhance a casual piece by adding personality and aiding emotional expression. However, they are generally inappropriate in formal essays where they can seem unprofessional and out of place. 

Tailoring your essay to your audience not only makes your writing more effective but also ensures that it is received and understood as intended. Whether you’re drafting a formal research paper or a casual blog post, considering your audience’s expectations will lead to clearer, more effective communication. 

Exploring the Six Common Types of Essays 

Essays can vary significantly in style and purpose, often dictated by the assignment or the writer's intent. Understanding the different types of essays can enhance your ability to choose the most effective approach for your writing. Here are six common types of essays that you might encounter: 

Argumentative Essay 

Argumentative essays are foundational in academic settings, primarily aiming to assert and defend a position. These essays require you to present a strong case for your viewpoint, making them a staple in many school assignments, especially in college. 

Admissions Essay 

Used in college applications, admissions essays ask you to explain why you are interested in a particular school. This type of essay is your opportunity to communicate your passion, goals, and suitability for a college program. 

Persuasive Essay 

Similar to argumentative essays, persuasive essays aim to convince the reader of a specific viewpoint. However, the key difference lies in the intent; persuasive essays not only present an argument but also seek to persuade the reader to adopt this perspective, often through emotional appeal and logical reasoning. 

Compare-and-Contrast Essay 

This format is ideal for discussing two opposing viewpoints or different aspects of a topic, giving equal attention to each. Compare-and-contrast essays are excellent for exploring the similarities and differences between two subjects, providing a balanced view without bias toward one side. 

Personal Essay 

Personal essays are narrative in nature, often relaying anecdotes or personal experiences. Writers like David Sedaris excel in this form, offering stories that resonate on a personal level. While these essays may have a thesis, it is often more interpretive, reflecting personal growth or insights. 

Expository Essay 

Expository essays are informative, explaining a topic in detail to enhance the reader's understanding. Unlike argumentative or persuasive essays, they maintain an objective tone, presenting facts without personal bias. 

Each type of essay serves a different purpose and requires a specific approach. Whether you're arguing a point, sharing a personal story, or providing an objective explanation, understanding these distinctions can help you craft more effective, tailored content. 

Enhancing Your Essay Writing Skills 

Mastering the fundamentals .

To excel in essay writing, especially in academic settings, mastering the fundamentals is crucial. Understanding essay structure and the writing process is essential, but your ability to apply these concepts is what will truly make your essays stand out. Focus on developing your thesis logically and coherently, using an appropriate language style, and ensuring that your references and citations are reliable. For advanced tips that build on these basics, consider exploring more detailed guides on improving your essay skills. 

Getting Feedback 

One of the best ways to improve your writing is to seek feedback. Having someone else review your work can provide new insights and catch errors that you might have missed. This is because working on the same piece can lead to tunnel vision. If possible, exchange essays with a friend for mutual editing, utilize writing centers, or join online writing communities. If these options aren't available, taking a break and revisiting your work with fresh eyes can also be very beneficial. 

The Importance of Grammar and Form 

How you present your ideas can be as important as the ideas themselves. Even a strong, clear thesis can be undermined by poor grammar, confusing structure, or unclear writing. For essays that need to make a strong impact, consider tools like Grammarly Premium, which offers sentence restructuring for clarity, grammar corrections, and readability enhancements. These tools are also invaluable for non-native English speakers looking to refine their language skills. 

Focusing on these elements will not only improve the clarity and persuasiveness of your essays but also enhance your overall writing skills, making your arguments more compelling and your points clearer to your reader. 

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An easy way to read and edit PDFs on Mac

Whatever happened to the paperless office?

Of all technology’s promised benefits, the paperless office has proved to be one of the most elusive. By now we were supposed to have converted to completely digital workflows, consuming fewer environmental resources and reducing waste, easing collaboration with remote colleagues, and minimizing the weight of documents we have to send to work contacts or carry around with us.

Look around the next time you’re at work or in your home office and you will probably concede that the paperless office hasn’t fully materialized. Despite the advantages of going digital, workers are reluctant to leave paper behind completely. Why is this? Digital documents can be more eye-straining to read, harder to properly organize, and painful to sign; depending on the format (which is another headache!), they can also be difficult to edit, and the ease with which they can be shared over email raises concerns over security.

Fortunately, these problems are straightforward to solve. Kit yourself out with a high-quality PDF reader software package and the difficulties vanish, leaving all the benefits of a paperless office with none of the downsides.

How the right PDF reader can enhance productivity

KDAN PDF Reader is an affordable option that will deliver all the benefits we’re looking for. It’s a versatile PDF reader that lets you view, edit, convert, and sign PDF documents on a range of platforms, but for Mac users it’s the perfect choice at the perfect price.

In the best Mac tradition, the software is intuitive and user-friendly, making it a cinch to get things done. There are three main function categories: editing, managing/sharing, and viewing.

KDAN PDF Reader’s edit capabilities make filling forms a breeze, including tax declarations and other official forms, and you can add an electronic signature when you’re done. You can edit the text on PDFs, including size and font.

On the management/sharing side, digital documents can easily be split and merged, while you can protect their security by adding a watermark or password protection. This means you can share files in the confidence that the information they contain won’t fall into the wrong hands.

Just as importantly, the software is easy on the eyes, delivering a comfortable viewing experience, It’s compatible across devices, and formats needn’t be a headache, either. KDAN PDF Reader can convert PDF documents into Microsoft Office, Text, HTML, RTF, ePUB or MOBI format, while preserving tables and other formatting exactly as you want it.

Most excitingly, KDAN PDF Reader will soon enhance AI functionality by integrating KDAN AI, placing it among the leading solutions on the market. A powerful Auto Redact feature will detect and automatically redact personal and sensitive information, preventing this from being abused and enhancing your document security. These AI features are expected to come to Mac some time between May and June 2024.

KDAN PDF Reader offers flexible solutions. Users can choose the most suitable and cost-effective option according to personal, educational, or business needs. The potential savings are significant: you’ll slash your costs by 65%, for example, if you switch from Adobe Acrobat. Best of all, there’s a free trial so you can see for yourself if this is the right choice for you.

Visit the company’s website to read more about KDAN PDF Reader. You can also download the software from Apple’s Mac App Store . You won’t regret it.

AI Text Generation Write This 17+

Message generator essay writer, wordless llc, designed for ipad.

• 4.5 • 2.3K Ratings
• Offers In-App Purchases

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Description.

Write This is an A.I. writing assistant. APIs to provide text completions given your prompts. Write This not only helps with your writing by utilizing chat, but it also suggests ideas and topics for you. Whether you're stuck on a homework assignment or just need some extra help getting your thoughts down on paper, chat ai is for you! Choose one of the many chat ai templates or start from a new task. Press Play and watch the app make the magic happen! Text is generated free on the fly to complete your sentences for you! FREE your inner chat creativity! - Choose from a selection of templates or start from a new task - Watch the magic happen as your text is generated for you - Get suggestions for ideas and topics - Get extra help with your writing assignments Write This requires a subscription to use. Payment will be charged to the account associated with your Apple ID when you confirm your purchase. Your subscription will automatically renew unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. If you don’t cancel within that time, your account will be charged for renewal. You can manage your subscription by going to your account settings in the App Store after purchase. Privacy Policy: https://www.termsfeed.com/live/3c2ab964-94d4-44d6-8d67-5b5d2ae8c35d Terms: https://www.termsfeed.com/live/96395866-0a6a-48da-a6b2-438de26c2c65 Standard EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Version 2.0.3

We rebuilt the whole app to be more fluid and responsive. Along with tons of tiny bug fixes and improvements, we recently added new templates, full chat history and AI generated text followups.

Ratings and Reviews

2.3K Ratings

My AI now has a name. It’s pretty impressive the conversations we’ve had. I must say, my intellectual thirst is satisfied. I love co-creating content together. I love conversational style. And I love that it understands what I have in mind and can connect ideas from hours before to now. Well worth the $$. I gave it one star before because I couldn’t save or copy conversion on my laptop. After that, I found how to do it. It’s not intuitive and doesn’t work the same way as it usually works with your computer. It was frustrating that there is no tutorial for this. But now I know how to use the feature, and I am very happy. AI taught me how to use Google Keep for saving our conversations. And it’s an awesome tool I wasn’t aware of before. I know, I am like a tech dinosaur, lol. Anyway, I love this app! 5 stars, hands down!

This should be pulled for lack of functionality

With the recent explosion of apps looking to quickly latch onto the wave of this new tech to make a quick buck (or $30) need to pump their brakes. This is not the GPT 3.5 you may be thinking. This has NO memory of previous conversations, or any of my most basic information disclosed in previous conversations. Worse, it flat out LIES and gives totally fabricated answers rather than admit that it is not able to recall that information at this time. It lied when it said I could communicate with the same program on my computer and it would know what wI spoke about with it on the phone app. There is not a website to eve access some type of online portal so this is limited to your smartphone. My last two conversations were so bad I wanted to be able to export the entire session to forward to the dev team, but of course, that isn’t something that can be easily exported. What would ever compel someone to pay $30 for a product that has free and low/cost alternatives that actually work? This is seriously a half-executed idea that misses all the marks. Avoid this disappointment.

Amazing app

This app is truly amazing! It provides users with a wide range of creative tools to help them accomplish their goals. From the ability to literally write you anything, 2,000 word essays, to editing your writing, it’s hard not to be impressed by what this app has to offer. Not only that, but these tools are easy and intuitive enough that even people who have never used an app before can figure out how they work quickly. This app has become incredibly popular because of its powerful features, but also because of its affordability; many apps with similar capabilities would cost significantly more. With all these factors combined, it’s no wonder why so many people choose this one for their creative needs.

App Privacy

The developer, Wordless LLC , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Used to Track You

The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies:

• Identifiers

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

• Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

• Write This $4.99
• Write This Pro | Tier 1 $29.99
• Write This Pro $14.99
• WriteThis Unlimited Messaging $59.99
• App Support
• Privacy Policy

Family Sharing

Some in‑app purchases, including subscriptions, may be shareable with your family group when family sharing is enabled., more by this developer.

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Russell Baker on Technological Sustainability and Doing Good-er Talking Writing

TW Creative Director John Vogel interviews Russell Baker, the creator of the sustainability platform A Modern Remedy (AMR), a company helping purpose-led organizations deliver value for people and the planet. On his website, Russell writes long-form essays about various topics and their role in sustainability, including artificial intelligence, social media, fashion, and weather, among other subjects.

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Critic’s Notebook

The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV

It’s got a great cast. It looks cinematic. It’s, um … fine. And it’s everywhere.

Credit... Alex Merto

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By James Poniewozik

• April 27, 2024

A few years ago, “Atlanta” and “PEN15” were teaching TV new tricks.

In “Atlanta,” Donald Glover sketched a funhouse-mirror image of Black experience in America (and outside it), telling stories set in and around the hip-hop business with an unsettling, comic-surreal language. In “PEN15,” Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle created a minutely observed, universal-yet-specific picture of adolescent awkwardness.

In February, Glover and Erskine returned in the action thriller “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” on Amazon Prime Video. It’s … fine? A takeoff on the 2005 film , it updates the story of a married duo of spies by imagining the espionage business as gig work. The stars have chemistry and charisma; the series avails itself of an impressive cast of guest stars and delectable Italian shooting locations. It’s breezy and goes down easy. I watched several episodes on a recent long-haul flight and they helped the hours pass.

But I would never have wasted an episode of “Atlanta” or “PEN15” on in-flight entertainment. The work was too good, the nuances too fine, to lose a line of dialogue to engine noise.

I do not mean to single out Glover and Erskine here. They are not alone — far from it. Keri Russell, a ruthless and complicated Russian spy in “The Americans,” is now in “The Diplomat,” a forgettably fun dramedy. Natasha Lyonne, of the provocative “Orange Is the New Black” and the psychotropic “Russian Doll,” now plays a retro-revamped Columbo figure in “Poker Face.” Idris Elba, once the macroeconomics-student gangster Stringer Bell in “The Wire,” more recently starred in “Hijack,” a by-the-numbers airplane thriller.

I’ve watched all of these shows. They’re not bad. They’re simply … mid. Which is what makes them, frustratingly, as emblematic of the current moment in TV as their stars’ previous shows were of the ambitions of the past.

What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones.

We have entered the golden age of Mid TV.

LET ME SAY UP FRONT: This is not an essay about how bad TV is today. Just the opposite. There is little truly bad high-profile television made anymore. As I wrote last year , these days it takes a special confluence of celebrity pull and network resources to make a dud like HBO’s “The Idol.” When we encounter a majestic prize turkey like this in the wild, we almost don’t know what to think. Who did this? How did this get past quality control?

What we have today instead is something less awful but in a way more sad: The willingness to retreat, to settle, to trade the ambitious for the dependable.

People who grew up in the three-broadcast-network era — we knew from bad TV. We watched it and sometimes even loved it. (ABC’s 1977 comedy “The San Pedro Beach Bums” was one of TV’s biggest punchlines, and its cancellation was one of the first heartbreaks of my young life.) But the rise of cable transformed both the business and the art of television, as the likes of HBO, FX and AMC took risks and offered creators freedom in order to stand out.

It worked — so well, in fact, that eventually the truism that TV was garbage was replaced by the truism that TV was the new literature, or cinema, or maybe even religion. A New York Times critic heralded “The Sopranos” as possibly the greatest work of pop culture in a quarter century. “Deadwood” was likened to Shakespeare, “The Wire” to Dickens, “Mad Men” to Cheever. People deconstructed “Lost” and argued over “Girls.” TV’s auteurs bestrode the cultural conversation like the easy riders and raging bulls of film in the 1970s.

For a good two decades now, it’s been bien-pensant wisdom that TV could be good — no, not just good. Original. Provocative. Important.

TV was so highly acclaimed for so long that we were like the frog in boiling water, but in reverse. The medium became lukewarm so gradually that you might not even have noticed.

The streaming era at first promised more innovation, supercharged and superfunded, and for a while that’s what we got. Eager to establish a catalog of original programming, Netflix underwrote experiments like “Orange Is the New Black,” “BoJack Horseman” and “Sense8.” Not everything worked, and what did work could be inconsistent, but there was a sense of opportunity and possibility.

But another thing happened as well. The conferral of status (and money) on TV meant that there was a lot more talent available. Doing TV was no longer a demotion, and you could buy an instant sense of importance by hiring stars. Netflix’s early hit “House of Cards” was a harbinger, a pot of boiling ham given the aura of prestige with the casting of a pre-scandal Kevin Spacey.

Also, more streamers — Netflix was joined by Amazon, Hulu and sundry Maxes and Pluses — simply meant more TV. More TV was better in some ways: It meant room for new voices and untold stories, more dice to roll. But it also created a sense of overload. In a seemingly infinite sea of story, how would viewers find shows, and shows get found?

More and more often, they’d get found through the algorithm, whose purpose is to serve up new versions of the last thing you watched. Increasingly, the best way to get noticed was with something people already recognized: A familiar title, formula or franchise.

Disney+’s Marvel Cinematic Universe series are too polished to be awful or tacky — just compare them to the threadbare comic-book dramas of the ’70s and ’80s — but they are too bound by the rules and needs of the larger megaproperty to take creative leaps. (It’s noteworthy that the first of these series, “WandaVision,” remains the one significant exception.) Meanwhile, Netflix’s “Ozark” showed that you could ask, “What if ChatGPT rewrote ‘Breaking Bad’?” and enough people would embrace the result as if it were “Breaking Bad.”

Put these two forces together — a rising level of talent and production competence on the one hand, the pressure to deliver versions of something viewers already like on the other hand — and what do you get? You get a whole lot of Mid.

MID IS NOT the mediocre TV of the past. It’s more upscale. It is the aesthetic equivalent of an Airbnb “modern farmhouse” renovation, or the identical hipster cafe found in medium-sized cities all over the planet. It’s nice! The furniture is tasteful, they’re playing Khruangbin on the speakers, the shade-grown coffee is an improvement on the steaming mug of motor oil you’d have settled for a few decades ago.

If comparing TV to fast-casual dining is an insulting analogy, in my defense I only borrowed it. A New Yorker profile last year quoted a Netflix executive describing the platform’s ideal show as a “gourmet cheeseburger.”

I’m not going to lie, I enjoy a gourmet cheeseburger. Caramelize some onions, lay on a slice of artisanal American cheese and I’m happy. But at heart, the sales pitch for that cheeseburger is no different from that for a Big Mac: You know what you’re going to get.

And it’s not only Netflix plating this up. Look at the star-packed algorithm bait we’ve seen over the past year or so. There’s “Masters of the Air,” a well-credentialed, superfluous expansion to the World War II-verse of “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” (Liked those? Watch this next!) “Apples Never Fall,” a room-temperature adaptation of another Liane Moriarty novel. (Liked “Big Little Lies”? Watch this next!) “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” a fall-from-grace biopic cast to the hilt and padded to the limit. (Liked “Fosse/Verdon”? Watch this next!).

These shows don’t have what it takes to be truly bad. Making honestly bad TV requires a mercenary, Barnumesque disregard for taste, or a hellbent willingness to take the kind of gamble that can turn into disaster.

Mid TV, on the other hand, almost can’t be bad for some of the same reasons that keep it from being great. It’s often an echo of the last generation of breakthrough TV (so the highs and lows of “Game of Thrones” are succeeded by the faithful adequacy of “House of the Dragon” ). Or it’s made by professionals who know how to make TV too well, and therefore miss a prerequisite of making great art, which is training yourself to forget how the thing was ever done and thus coming up with your own way of doing it.

Mid is not a strict genre with a universal definition. But it’s what you get when you raise TV’s production values and lower its ambitions. It reminds you a little of something you once liked a lot. It substitutes great casting for great ideas. (You really liked the star in that other thing! You can’t believe they got Meryl Streep !)

Mid is based on a well-known book or movie or murder. Mid looks great on a big screen. (Though for some reason everything looks blue .) Mid was shot on location in multiple countries. Mid probably could have been a couple episodes shorter. Mid is fine, though. It’s good enough.

Above all, Mid is easy. It’s not dumb easy — it shows evidence that its writers have read books. But the story beats are familiar. Plot points and themes are repeated. You don’t have to immerse yourself single-mindedly the way you might have with, say, “The Wire.” It is prestige TV that you can fold laundry to.

And let’s be fair, it makes plenty of people happy. Any honest critic has to recognize that people for whom TV-watching is not work do not always want to work at watching TV. (See, for instance, the unlikely resurgence on Netflix of “Suits,” that watchable avatar of 2010s basic-cable Mid.) I get it. TV critics have laundry to fold, too.

There may also be economic reasons to prefer good-enough TV. As more people drop cable TV for streaming, their incentives change. With cable you bought a package of channels, many of which you would never watch, but any of which you might .

Each streaming platform, on the other hand, requires a separate purchase decision , and they add up. You might well choose a service that has plenty of shows you’d be willing to watch rather than one with a single show that you must watch.

So where HBO used to boast that it was “not TV,” modern streamers send the message, “We’ll give you a whole lot of TV.” It can seem like their chief goal is less to produce standout shows than to produce a lot of good-looking thumbnails.

There even is a growing idea that a new Golden Age is emerging, with a new Midas. Apple TV+, the home of “Ted Lasso” and “The Morning Show,” has been deemed, by more than one commentator, “the new HBO.”

Apple TV+ is not HBO. At least not in the sense of what made HBO HBO in the 2000s, when it was revolutionizing TV and challenging viewers. (And HBO wasn’t alone in being “HBO” in this sense: It had company in FX, AMC, Showtime and occasionally Syfy and others.)

But Apple TV+ just might be the HBO of Mid.

Broadly generalizing, Apple’s strategy has been to open its checkbook and sign up A-list names — Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, M. Night Shyamalan — to make broadly palatable, uncontroversial shows. (This did not work out too well with Jon Stewart .) According to reports around its founding, the Apple chief Tim Cook was concerned that the service not go overboard with violence, profanity and nudity — not exactly the mission statement of somebody looking to reopen the Bada Bing.

Apple’s investment bought something. Its shows feel professional. They look like premium products that no one skimped on. “Palm Royale” has a loaded cast (Kristen Wiig, Laura Dern, Carol Burnett[!]) and an attention to period detail that recalls “Mad Men.” But its class farce is toothless, its atmosphere of ’60s cultural ferment warmed over. Comedies like “Shrinking” and “Platonic” and “Loot” are more nice than funny, dramas like “Constellation,” “The New Look” and “Manhunt” classy but inert.

These are shows built like iPhones — sleek, rounded, with no edges you can cut yourself on.

THERE IS, OF COURSE, great and innovative TV on Apple as well. I’m dying to see another season of the brain-bending sci-fi thriller “Severance,” and its first crop of shows included the alternative space-race history “For All Mankind” and the screwball literary history “Dickinson.”

It is exceptions like these series that make me an optimist about TV long-term. Even in the face of pressures and incentives to aim for the middle, creativity wants to find a way. Just a year ago, I was writing about wild, adventurous series like “Beef,” “Reservation Dogs,” “Mrs. Davis” and “I’m a Virgo.” (This year, two of the best new dramas so far are a remake of “Shogun” and a re-adaptation of “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”)

But the bulk of TV right now — the packing peanuts that fill up the space between “The Bear” and “FBoy Island” — feels flattened out in the broad middle. No, not flattened: Smoothed. That may be the biggest but most intangible defining feature of Mid. It’s friction-free. It has an A.I.-like, uncanny luster, like the too-sharp motion-smoothing effect that you have to turn off when you buy a new flat-screen.

TV is far from broken, but it does feel like someone needs to go in and tweak the settings. The price of reliability, competence and algorithm-friendliness is losing the sense of surprise — the unmoored feeling you get, from innovations like “Fleabag” and “Watchmen” and “I May Destroy You,” of being thrown into an unpredictable alien universe.

I don’t think it’s only critics and TV snobs who want this, either. “The Sopranos” and “Twin Peaks” were revolutionary and rewarded close viewing, but they were also popular. Even if you watch TV as escapism, how much of an escape is a show that you can, and probably will, half-watch while also doomscrolling on your phone?

We lose something when we become willing to settle. Reliability is a fine quality in a hybrid sedan. But in art, it has a cost. A show that can’t disappoint you can’t surprise you. A show that can’t enrage you can’t engage you.

The good news is, there is still TV willing to take chances, if you look for it. You may have loved or hated “The Curse,” but I would be surprised if anyone who watched an hour of it ended up indifferent to it. This month, HBO premiered “The Sympathizer,” Park Chan-wook’s frenetic adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s satire of the Vietnam War and its aftermath, a raucous, disorienting rush down the back alleys of memory.

With risk, of course, comes the possibility of disappointment — you might get another “The Idol.” I’m willing to accept the trade-off. The price of making TV that’s failure-proof, after all, is getting TV that can never really succeed. Come back, bad TV: All is forgiven.

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times. He writes reviews and essays with an emphasis on television as it reflects a changing culture and politics. More about James Poniewozik

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