essay writing helper app

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Best Essay Writing Software: 16 Apps That Can Help You Write Perfect Essays

Nowadays, we have apps for almost anything. Writing apps though, are really unique and serve several practical purposes, such as essay writing for example.

Writing an essay isn’t as simple as typing a bunch of words and arranging them as paragraphs. Writing a perfect essay entails planning, maintaining structure, writing clear and impactful sentences, and using good grammar.

That’s why we have writing apps. So in this post, I’m going to cover all the best essay writing software tools that are available now.

Okay, let’s get into it!

Our Top 3 Essay Writing Software at a Glance

Prowritingaid, the 16 best essay writing apps.

Best Book Writing Software.

Scrivener is a book-writing software program developed—13 years ago—by an aspiring writer Keith Blount.

Scrivener is what you get when you combine a typewriter, ring binder, and a scrapbook and make a book writing software tool.

It has so many useful features that take your book or any other writing project from the outline to a finished draft. We’re talking of features like corkboards, pre-set formatting, templates, file importing, metatags, automated document listing, and a bunch of other important capabilities.

Scrivener can be used by novelists, scriptwriters, academics, lawyers, translators, journalists, and students.

Pricing: Scrivener for macOS costs $49, iOS is $19.99 , and Scrivener for Windows costs $45.

Best Grammar Checker.

As far as grammar checkers go, there’s no app better than this.

It’s perfect for checking your text for typos, punctuation, and spelling mistakes. 

But it goes further than that; it has several editing features that tackle issues such as passive voice, lengthy or complex sentences, offers broader vocabulary options, et cetera. It also has a plagiarism checker and furnishes you with writing stats and readability scores.

Grammarly has a free version but reserves the best features for its premium plans.

Pricing: Free and Paid. Grammarly Premium starts at $11.66, and Grammarly Business starts at $12.50.

Excellent Tool for Self-editing

ProWritingAid is one of Grammarly’s fiercest competitors and pretty much gives you what Grammarly gives you.

Just itty-bitty shallower, BUT way more affordable.

If you want a proofreading and grammar checker writing app that has the potential of helping you improve the overall quality of your writing, this is it!

ProWritingAid refines your writing by checking important elements of your writing such as ambiguous sentences, grammar, transitions, abstract words, overused words, etc.

Over time, you start to notice improvements in your writing, especially the way it flows.

Pricing: Free and Paid.

• Monthly – $20
• Yearly – $79
• Lifetime – $399 

Best note-taking tool for Students

Evernote is a simple but excellent writing app that uses the idea of virtual notes. The virtual notes can be used in several ways: making book shopping lists, writing down essay ideas, and making notes on researched information.

The notes are backed up on Evernote’s servers, and you get about 60MB of storage space per account.

Pricing :  Free and Paid. The Premium plan costs $7.99 / month, and the Business costs $14.99/person/month.

Focus Writer

Free Alternative to MS Word.

I haven’t used this free word-processing app yet, but I’d seriously consider replacing my beloved MS Word with it.

It’s a very good alternative to MS Word; in fact, not only is it free and sufficient, it is available on almost all major platforms— Windows, Mac, and Android.

If you’re a student, I’d recommend this software, and you won’t have problems using the documents from this app because they’re saved in Rich Text Format so that most word processors can read them.

Pricing: Free.

Excellent for the Creative Stage of Writing

Before you write a good essay, you need to build the idea behind the essay first.

You need to add fresh to the bones before bringing the beast (of an essay) to life.

This tool helps you expand your original ideas into sub-ideas and construct full-fledged essays by using expressive, powerful flowcharts, process maps, and other diagrams.

Pricing: Free and Paid. The Awesome Plan costs $5/month, and the Organisation Plan is at $8/member/month.

Top-Notch Open-Source Tool

Manuskript is a tool perfect for organizing and planning stages of writing. It’s an open-source tool—for writers including novelists, journos, and academicians—that uses the snowflake method of writing to help you build your idea into a finished book; by helping you create the story step by step.

It has features for helping you keep track of notes on characters, plot, event,  and place in your story. Manuskript’s features include:

• The Outliner, which lets you organize your ideas and little pieces of your story hierarchically; 
• The Distraction-free mode gets rid of all distractions; 
• Personal goal-setting features;
• The Novel assistant utilizes the snowflake method to help you develop your basic ideas into a coherent plotline or a full-fledged story.

Pricing: Free

LivingWriter

Fast Developing Tool

This is a different writing app altogether. It has a lot of features that are excellent for both fiction nonfiction writers. It has features that help with story elements, general notes, goals and targets, doc sharing, and stats.

Plus, you can also switch LivingWriter in and out of Dark Mode and focus mode.

One thing I like about LivingWriter is that it started with a single platform (web) but is now expanding rapidly.

It has iOS and Android applications, Full integration with Grammarly, Canva integration, and its desktop apps are 90% complete (according to the Living Writer Roadmap )

Yearly Plan – $96 billed once a year

Monthly Plan – $9.99 per month

Best Writing Tool for Apple Products

I don’t know about now, but Ulysses was big back then (like a dozen years ago or so).

The app is rich with features similar to the other word processing software. It comes with a Markup-Based Text Editor, a library for organizing notes and documents, features for setting writing goals, publishing capabilities, and many others.

Ulysses is perfect for both small essays and large academic ones.

Pricing : Ulysses has different pricing options for different regions but using the US plan, it costs $5.99 per month and $49.99 per year.

Hemingway Editor

An App Most Impactful Writing

The Hemingway Editor AKA Hemingway App is a simple tool for writers who want to write content that is easier to read but bold.

Hemingway does this by looking at elements of your writing such as adverbs, passive voice, phrases and words with simpler alternatives, hard-to-read sentences, very-hard-to-read sentences, and other “lexical atrocities.”

The web-based version is free, but the downloadable version (for Mac and Windows) is a paid tool.

Pricing: $19.99

Excellent Mind Mapping Tool

They used to call this app IMindMap. Ayoa is an essential tool in the planning stages of your essay writing.

You can create mind maps for your essays which help give direction when you start fleshing out your essay.

This mapping tool helps increase productivity because everything you need to write is already outlined. The fact every step is already planned and you know exactly what to write can also increase your daily word count.

Pricing : The Ayoa PRO plan costs $10/month and is billed annually. The Ultimate Plan costs $13/month and is also billed annually.

Best App for Multi-Lingual Essays

This is another incredible alternative to Grammarly.

For non-native English speakers, this is a pot of gold right here. It can check your text for grammar errors and translate Spanish, French, German. And many other languages.

As a grammar checker, the tool mainly looks at aspects such as verbs, adverbs, confused words, commonly misspelled words, etc.

Here’s a funny story about Ginger (Just happened today.) As I was using the web-based editor, I copied some texts on Ginger’s website and pasted them into the editor and the tool found one misspelled word. Their content writers must not have used Ginger.

I felt like Ginger’s content writers were like Drug dealers, you know, they followed rule number one of drug dealing. “ never get high on your own product.”   

• Monthly Plan – $9.99
• Yearly Plan – $74.88
• Two-Year Plan: $119.76

Write Or Die

Best for Productivity Purposes.

This app has a name that sums up life for some of us.

Write or Die!

Write Or Die gives rewards, stimuli, and punishments if users set goals. This is what you need if you are a sloth like myself.

It gives you that needed push because the punishments—which include erasing current texts—can really scare the hell out of you and make you put an extra gear.

Pricing : Free and paid. $10 for macOS and Windows, and $1 for iOS.

Simplest Writing App

IA Writer is a distraction-free writing app that is more than perfect for writing short essays.

It has a very basic interface and uses plain text. As I said, there are no distractions because the IA writer also has a full-screen mode that fades out everything else but the line you are currently typing.

This minimalist writing app is available on Windows, Android, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

Pricing : Paid (offers free trials).

macOS- $29.99. has a 14-day trial

iOS &iPadOS – $29.99. No Free Trial.

Android – $4.99 /year or $29.99 once. Has a 30-day trial.

Windows – $29.99. Has a 14-day trial.

Hubspot Topic Generator

Best for Generating Topic Ideas.

This is a whole different menu right here.

It’s very different from the tools that I’ve listed in this post. This is why… you’re not going to use it to write. Instead, you use it to automatically generate writing ideas.

It’s a very simple tool; you input three words, and it provides you with nouns to generate a topic idea that you can use on your next writing project.

If you’re going to use this tool, it’s going to be during the very first stages of your writing project.

Manuscripts

Best App for Academic Assignments

Manuscript (not to be confused with Manuskript from above) is an app for students and academics. This is a convenient tool that works with popular word processing apps, including Microsoft Word.

The reason why it’s perfect for academic writing is it excels at the referencing aspect of writing—citations, abbreviations, etc.

So, for class writing assignments and larger tasks like dissertations, this is the tool I’d recommend.

Pricing : Free

Simplenote is a note-taking tool that helps you keep all your notes in one place but accessible everywhere.

You can back up your notes, add tags, share the notes with collaborators, and publish your notes in Markdown format.

Supported Systems: Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux.

Guide to the Best Essay Writing Apps in 2021

Things to consider when choosing essay writing software.

A good essay writing software has to do things that make your essay look delectable and sound convincing.

Here are some of the things that an essay writing software need to be able to help you with:

Organization

I already talked about organization at the beginning, so you already know how important it is. The essay writing app has to help you arrange your essay and ensure that it flows nicely. It needs to clear the chaos that would have existed had you not used that specific tool.

Grammatical correctness

This is crucial in any writing project. The essay writing software has to help you correct your grammatical and spelling errors.

Proofreading

The proofreading capabilities of a good essay writing app go beyond checking for grammar and spelling mistakes. It also has to excel at checking other aspects like overuse of adverbs, passive voice, run-on sentences, weak writing , and readability.

Writing software doesn’t have to cost an arm. Most of these apps have similar features and pretty much do the same things. A higher price doesn’t necessarily mean the app is good but in some circumstances, apps are pricey for a good reason.

What Features Should an Essay Writing App Have

So, to achieve the above requirements, what features does a writing software need to have?

Below are the most important features that a good essay writing software program MUST have.

Grammar and Spelling checker

To achieve the overall grammatical correctness of your essay, a writing app needs to have a grammar checking feature. If it doesn’t, being integrable with an efficient grammar checking tool is also convenient.

Sentence structure and flow reports

Again, I cannot overemphasize the importance of structure in essay writing. The structure should start from your sentences to your paragraphs and the whole essay. A good essay writing app needs to have features that check aspects of structure and flow.

Punctuation checker

We can’t have an essay littered with semicolons, commas, and hyphens looking like they’re lost. Punctuation might be one of the most underrated features but make no mistake, it’s essential for professional writing.

Plagiarism checker

A good essay has to be unique and original. Therefore, essay writing software has to make sure that the body of the essay does not contain any plagiarized content.

Writing Metrics

Stats like word count, words per minute, or the number of pages are important for tracking progress. School essays usually have a word or page count requirements, and writing software must be equipped with writing metrics so that the user is kept abreast of the distance covered.

Sentence quality checker

In the writing profession, Quality matters.  It doesn’t matter if you have reached the minimum word count but the essay is of poor quality.

Writing apps must be able to pick out sentences that need improving or deleting due to poor quality writing.

Why Should You Use Writing Software to Write Essays?

Writing software won’t write your essay for you, but the writing process is hard to manage and that’s what these tools do.

Here are the benefits of using writing software:

1. Planning and Outlining

Planning is an important element of a good essay writing process. Writing software tools come with features that help you plan before you start writing.

For example, Scrivener has a feature called corkboard, which is a good planning tool. It’s like a set of digital index cards, and each represents a section of writing.

With writing software, you can plan and outline before the actual writing starts, and you can go back to the outlines and notes while writing.

2. Productivity

Productivity is a big problem for most writers. Writers like myself just write without setting a lot of writing goals, so when we feel like writing, we need to be at our most productive levels.

For those that set daily goals, maintaining a daily word count is not easy.

For both kinds of writers, writing software can help increase productivity.

The software tools come with writing stats to help you keep track of your progress. They also have features for distraction-free writing.

Templates also help increase productivity. The templates make things easier and save you a lot of time (which would have been used setting things up).

3. Editing and Formatting

Writing software tools come with features that can flag spelling & grammar mistakes and other errors. They also offer solutions to these errors.

This is very important for your editing process—it makes the editing stage easier and faster.

This also helps in increasing productivity since editing is less laborious and speedy.

Usually when we write essays (especially academic ones), some formatting requirements come with them. Writing apps are furnished with most of the formatting rules and styles that essays (academic or otherwise) may require.

4. Organizing

Writing can be a messy process.

Most often than not, essays also require a lot of research. And again, we’re not saying that writing software will help you research.

But when you get all the bits of info needed for your essay, the apps will help you keep the researched content organized.

With these writing apps, you can have all of your research organized and easily accessible.

The thing about a disorganized writing process is that it is reflected in the flow and structure of the essay.

How to Effectively Use Essay Writing Software

Let me reiterate, essay writing apps won’t write your essays for you, neither will they be correct all the time.

To get the best out of them, you need to treat them as writing tutors or co-writers. If they suggest something useful, take it on board, and if you feel like the suggestion is a bit off point, disregard it.

What Is a Perfect Essay?

A perfect essay convincingly speaks to the reader. An essay is like an argument or a speech, and it has to have a readable flow or show direction.

Perfect essays must contain arguments, supporting ideas, and most importantly, evidence.  

To write a perfect essay, you need to:

• Thoroughly plan the whole essay before you start writing.
• Start writing your arguments using a clear structure.
• Back up your points and refer to relevant sources if necessary.
• Make sure that you infuse the information with creativity. There’s nothing exciting about a bunch of truths thrown into an essay using bland sentences.
• Before you finish your draft, ensure that you’ve answered the question in your introduction and conclusion.

How can I write an essay on my phone?

Well, most of the apps listed here are available as mobile apps. If you feel it’d be okay to write on your phone, try out a couple of the apps on this list and see which one works better on mobile platforms.

I’d recommend using tablet computers as they have bigger screens than regular smartphones.

Final Words

There are just so many essay writing software tools nowadays that even though Scrivener and Grammarly top the list, stumbling on the best one for you is almost 1/1000 probable.

You have to try out these tools before purchasing them.

Just to say it for the one-thousandth time, essay writing apps won’t write your essays for you; YOU WILL.

Recommended Reading...

Best dictation software in 2024, scrivener vs word: which is the better book writing software, vellum vs scrivener: which is better for writing and formatting your book, write app review 2024: the best distraction-free writing app.

Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you click our links and make purchases. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.

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© 2024 When You Write

7 Best Essay Writing Apps For Students And Academics

In a rush? One of the best essay writing apps is Grammarly . Learn how these apps can help you with research paper writing!

To write a strong essay, you must follow a logical order when you organize your writing . If you omit this feature, your reader will become confused. Fortunately, there are numerous essay writing applications that can help you stay focused and organized. The best essay writing app for students should help you with grammar, proofreading, and writing style.

As you try to ease your writing load, you need to find applications that can help you with analytics, argumentative, narrative, expository, and critical writing. Whether you are looking for an essay writing app for PC, Mac, iPhone, or iPad, there are plenty of options out there. Take a look at the best essay writing apps, and find the right one to meet your needs.

1. ProWritingAid

2. grammarly, 3. hemingway, 4. ulysses, 5. evernote, 6. focus writer , 7. freemind, how we evaluated the applications, why trust our opinions, final word on the best essay writing apps, how does a writer app or writing software compare to a professional essay writing service, is there an automated tool that writes essays for you, can a brainstorming tool really help your writing process, essay writing resources.

Pricing: $79.00 per year or $20.00 per month. 

ProWritingAid  is a cloud-based editing tool for essay writing, copywriting, and blogging. This software can help you identify proofreading issues, eliminate mistakes, and correct punctuation in essays.

You have access to both a free version and a paid version. You can try the premium version for 14 days to decide whether you want access to the premium features. Premium features include optimizing word choice, avoiding cliches, and fixing sentence length issues.

ProWritingAid helps you improve your readability and writing style while also picking up grammar issues You can use ProWritingAid in Microsoft Word, Scrivener, Google Docs, and Chrome. Free users can only run 500 words at a time through the program.

• The interface is easy to use.
• There are numerous integrations available.
• You can access more than two dozen writing analysis reports.
• The free version is limited to only a few hundred words at a time.
• It can also take a long time to get used to the myriad features available.

ProWritingAid is a powerful, accurate grammar checker and style editor. It's suitable for non-fiction and fiction writers and doesn't require a monthly subscription. Save 20% per month or year.

Pricing: $139.95 billed annually or $25 per member per month. You may be able to negotiate a lower rate if you need multiple users for your business.

Grammarly is one of the strongest essay-writing apps available today. Grammarly helps you correct spelling mistakes, fix stylistic issues, and catches punctuation.

Grammarly has a free version and a premium version available. The free version can help you correct basic grammar , spelling, and punctuation issues. It can also help you optimize long sentences. 

The premium version gives you access to word choice issues, stylistic corrections, and even a plagiarism checker. The premium version can also automatically fix many of these mistakes, helping you save time during the editing process. There is no premium trial available. Grammarly is available as a browser extension and as a separate window into which you can upload documents. 

• Free version relatively powerful
• Contains built-in plagiarism checker
• Works everywhere
• Less suitable for longer essays
• Plagiarism checker is premium only

We tested dozens of grammar checkers, and Grammarly is the best tool on the market today. It'll help you write and edit your work much faster. Grammarly provides a powerful AI writing assistant and plagiarism checker.

Pricing: The web application is free, but the desktop version is $20.

Hemingway is known as a tool that can help you improve your readability score, but it is also a comprehensive proofreading tool.

Hemingway can point out sentences that are too complex for readers, helping you streamline your thoughts. As a virtual proofreader, it can make your sentences clear, concise, and bold.

As you write your essay , the editor will mark sentences that are deemed too complex. Then, you can let Hemingway go to work, picking up passive voice , comma splices, and even run-on sentences. By keeping your sentences short, you hold the attention of the reader. 

• Easy to use
• Ideal for copyediting
• No plagiarism checker
• No specific tools or checks for essays

Pricing: $4.99 per month of $39.99 for the year, following a 14-day free trial.

Ulysses  has been dubbed as the top writing app for Apple products such as Mac, iPad, and iPhone; however, the program is not compatible outside of Apple products. What sets Ulysses apart is that it can sync your files directly to the iCloud. Even if the original file is destroyed, you will not lose your work.

Ulysses uses something called markdown language. This helps you apply styles to your writing without having to worry about a formatting menu.

You can also take advantage of “focus mode,” which helps you streamline your writing to a single line and reduces on-screen distractions. Then, when you finish, you can export your files in a variety of formats to make it easier to finalize your work.

• You will store all of your writing in one place, eliminating the annoying back and forth between multiple folders and files.
• You can store older images of your files, reverting to them if you do not like your work.
• You can use the distraction-free interface to improve your productivity.
• The customer support team is exceptional.
• Ulysses is not available for Windows or Android.
• You do not have access to any pre-designed templates.

Pricing:  Evernote has a free tier, a plus tier at $34.99 per year, and a premium tier at $69.99 per year.

Evernote  is another application that can help with essay writing. The program is a cross-platform, note-taking application that is ideal for processing hand-written notes, such as the outline of a potential essay, or articles from the web, which can be helpful for a research paper. 

Evernote can store just about everything you would ever need, ranging from a simple typed note to an article you came across. That way, you never have to worry about losing your essay ideas. 

While Evernote is most popular among Mac users, it works on multiple devices. Evernote is available for Windows and Mac users, giving people offline access. Evernote also has a convenient Android and iPhone app. 

• Great for research
• Powerful note-taking features
• Fast, reliable sync
• Less enjoyable to write with
• Large libraries get clunky
• Not purpose-built for essays

Pricing: Free, but donations to the maker are encouraged.

Focus Writer  is a free word processor that is available across all major operating systems. This word processor is largely seen as an alternative to Microsoft Word.

Because Microsoft products can be expensive, a lot of students cannot afford them. Therefore, Focus Writer is growing in popularity. 

This tool will give you access to a wide variety of statistics including word count and character count. Furthermore, the program stores its files in an RTF format. This is read by most other word processors, so you can open your essays on other platforms when required.

• The tool is compatible with Mac, Windows, and Android products.
• It gives you access to important text statistics as you write.
• It is a strong word processor for students and writers on a tight budget.
• The program does not give you access to advanced proofreading or editing features.

Pricing: Free

FreeMind is a mind-mapping program that helps users create structured diagrams. If you have recently finished conducting your research and need to organize it before you start biting, this is the perfect program to help you.

You can also use this program to keep track of projects, tasks, and time. It is possible for you to brainstorm an essay, using different colors to show which parts of the essay you are referring to. Then, you can use these color-coding features to keep track of your essay as you write. 

Furthermore, the program comes with advanced DES encryption to help you protect your work. You can protect your work from accidental loss as you finish your project.

• The program is completely free to use.
• The diagram process is versatile for those writing essays in a variety of fields.
• There is DES encryption that protects your work from being lost.
• The diagram process can be challenging for people to use for the first time.
• It does not have a very flashy visual appearance, lacking numerous advanced features.

Because there are so many essay writing applications available, we used a variety of criteria to evaluate each program. Our testing criteria include: 

• The availability of each application across multiple platforms
• The ease of use of each individual application
• The variety of features available
• The price of the program in comparison to the features offered
• The security of each program

After testing the individual features of each program, we developed a ranking system designed for students, essayists, and research paper writers. 

There are several reasons why you should trust our opinions regarding essay writing applications. These include:

• We have written essays for a variety of reasons across multiple platforms.
• We have thoroughly tested all of these applications.
• We have paid close attention to the reviews, ratings, criticisms, and features of each individual application.

Even though everyone has slightly different needs when it comes to essay writing applications for academic papers, we are confident that one or more of these applications will meet your needs. 

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 compare the benefits and drawbacks of each tool, you can find the right application to help you with your essays and research papers.

FAQs About The Best Essay Writing Apps

A professional service could be a stronger option than an automatic writing tool, but professional services will be more expensive.

Yes, there are tools that can write custom essays and short stories for you, but these programs often produce incoherent babble that will not improve your writing skills or make a good impression on your reader.

Yes. If you want to write a quality paper, you need to use a high-quality brainstorming process to get all of your ideas on the page. A strong writing software program can help you with that.

What is a Personal Essay?

Essay Writing Tips

Great Essay Writing Topics

The Difference Between Grammar and Punctuation

Using an AI Grammar Checker

PaperRater Vs Grammarly

Transition Words For Essays

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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Best Essay Writing Apps in 2024

Showing 62 writing apps that match your search.

Create beautiful handwritten notes, sketch your ideas, record audio, and organize your notes like never before.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android

Best for: Note-taking, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, and Blog

Website: https://www.noteshelf.net/

Base price:

Premium price:

★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

Also rated 4.4 ★ on the App Store

Lists for Writers

Lists for Writers is a great addition to any writer’s toolbox. Helpful to both novice and expert writers alike, this app delivers list after list of prompts and ideas for your brainstorming sessions: names, character traits, plot lines, occupations, obsessions, action verbs, and much more!

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Drafting, Book, Story, and Essay

Website: https://thinkamingo.com/lists-for-writers/

★★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

Also rated 4.7 ★ on the App Store

WhiteSmoke renders you with the highest quality proofreading abilities available, correcting not only simple spelling mistakes like old fashioned word processors, but everything from grammar, word choices and even style mistakes, all without breaking a sweat.

Platforms: Online, Windows, PC

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, and Essay

Website: https://www.whitesmoke.com/

★★★★ Features

Learn more about Reedsy Studio .

Keep peace of mind knowing your team's content is perfect.

Platforms: Online

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, Blog, Essay, and Free

Website: https://linguix.com/

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

Also rated 4.6 ★ on Capterra

Ever scribbled ideas on a piece of paper and drawn lines between related thoughts? Then you already know what Scapple does. It's a virtual sheet of paper that lets you make notes anywhere and connect them using lines or arrows.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, and Blog

Website: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview

Also rated 5.0 ★ on TechRadar

We’re more than a doc. Or a table. Customize Notion to work the way you do.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, Chrome, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.notion.so/product

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 ★ on TechRadar

Your thoughts in words. Say exactly what you mean through clear, compelling and authentic writing.

Website: https://www.wordtune.com/

Also rated 4.4 ★ on Capterra

Unload your thoughts by creating a personal layout with notes, links and media in a second to visualize your creative process and move forward faster.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Android, Online, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Journal, Blog, Essay, Story, Book, and Free

Website: https://xtiles.app/en

Also rated 4.9 ★ on Capterra

Compose bold, clear, mistake-free writing with Grammarly. Work with an AI writing partner that helps you find the words you need⁠—⁠to write that tricky email, to get your point across, to keep your work moving.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, Online, PC

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, Book, Essay, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.grammarly.com/

Danger Notes

Don’t stop typing. If you do all your work will disappear and be gone forever. Danger Notes is the ultimate writing tool to help fight writer’s block. Whether you are writing a term paper, an essay, a book, your best-man speech, promising rap lyrics or just free writing, Danger Notes will help you fight writer’s block by forcing you to keep writing in order to save your progress from being deleted.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking, Book, Story, Essay, Journal, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: http://swivelapps.com/apps-by-david/dangernotes.html

★★★★★ Performance

Also rated 4.8 ★ on Capterra

Google Docs

Build your best ideas together, in Google Docs. Create, edit, and collaborate with others on documents from your Android phone or tablet with the Google Docs app.

Platforms: Online, Chrome, iPhone, iPad, Android

Best for: Drafting, Book, Essay, Journal, Poetry, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.google.com/docs/about/

WPS Office is a lightweight, feature-rich comprehensive office suite with high compatibility. As a handy and professional office software, WPS Office allows you to edit files in Writer, Presentation, Spreadsheet, and PDF to improve your work efficiency.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, Android, iPad, iPhone, PC

Website: https://www.wps.com/

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• Writing Tips

Six Essay Helper Tools for Students

4-minute read

• 23rd August 2023

Essay writing is a significant aspect of any academic career – regardless of the subject. Creating a research timeline and writing an essay from start to finish can be a daunting task, but luckily, online essay helper tools can assist you throughout the writing process. In this post, we’ve compiled a list of the five popular tools to help you with your essay, from the initial outline to the citations. Keep reading for more.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine provided by Google that focuses specifically on scholarly literature, including academic articles, conference papers, theses, and books. It was created to help researchers and students find authoritative and credible sources for their research and provides links to the full-text versions when available.

One feature of Google Scholar is that it allows you to track citations of academic works. For example, you can see how many times a particular article has been cited by other researchers, which can help gauge its significance.

Scrivener is a popular writing software designed to assist you in drafting, organizing, and editing your work. For example, it allows you to break down your writing into smaller, manageable sections called scrivenings . These can represent different sections or paragraphs of your essay.

You can then view and arrange your scrivenings on a virtual corkboard or in an outline format so you can plan the structure of your work, which is especially helpful if you’re writing a longer essay. Scrivener also provides a research folder where you can store reference materials, images, web links, and notes related to your project, keeping all relevant information in one place for easy access. It also has a customizable full-screen mode that allows you to focus solely on writing without distractions.

Turnitin is a plagiarism checker widely used by educational institutions to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism. It compares submitted work to a vast database of academic content to identify potential matches. After your essay is processed, Turnitin generates an originality report that highlights any text in the submitted document that matches content from other sources. Turnitin can also check citations and references to ensure they are correctly formatted, which helps ensure your sources are credited properly and decreases instances of unintentional plagiarism .

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Thesaurus.Com

Do you ever find yourself reusing the same words over and over when writing an essay? Varying your word choice in your writing helps make your essays more interesting and expressive, but it’s not always easy to come up with the right synonyms . Thesaurus.com is one of the largest and most reliable online thesaurus tools and is a great resource for finding synonyms for commonly used words in essays (such as significantly or additionally ) and expanding your everyday vocabulary. You can even have a synonym of the day sent directly to your email.

Evernote is a note-taking app that provides a platform for students to organize ideas, research materials, and take notes in one place. It syncs across devices and provides a browser extension called the Web Clipper that allows you to save articles, web pages, and images directly to your Evernote account.

Citation Machine

Citation Machine generates citations and references for your essay based on the information you provide, such as the title of the work, the author’s name, and the publication year. It offers a wide range of citation styles commonly used in academic writing, including APA, MLA, and Chicago styles.

Citation Machine can generate reference entries and in-text citations for different types of sources (e.g., books, articles, websites, and videos). In addition, it offers tutorials and tips on proper citation guidelines and avoiding plagiarism .

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Best Essay Writing Apps

Explore some of the best essay-writing apps you should consider trying out to help you write more efficiently.

An essay requires time: to read, take notes, process, evaluate, organise ideas, draft, and actually write. In addition, you will need extra time to edit and cut if your draft is too long.

Fortunately, there are various essay-writing apps available that can help streamline the writing process and improve the quality of your work.

Whether you're a student, a professional writer, or someone who simply wants to improve their writing skills, these apps can help you write better essays more efficiently.

Here is the list of best essay writing apps for iOS and Android in 2024. The rating criteria include the app’s performance, design, the process of ordering and the quality of completed work.

Best Essay Writing Apps For Students

• 1. ProWritingAid
• 2. Grammarly
• 3. Evernote

4. Hemingway Editor

5. simplenote, 7. libreoffice writer, 8. freemind, 1.  prowritingaid.

ProWritingAid is a comprehensive essay writing app that helps you improve your writing style, grammar, and readability. It offers a wide range of features, including grammar and spelling checks, style suggestions, and plagiarism detection. It also gives you reports and explanations to help you learn. You can use this tool in MS Word, Google Docs, Scrivener, Chrome. ProWritingAid free users can check 500 words at a time.

• Smart grammar checker
• Able to change writing styles is helpful
• No iOS or Android support
• Only available in English

Ideal for: Grammar Check

Free Trial: 7-days

Pricing: Costs $30 per month or $120 per year (offers a 14-day money-back guarantee)

Devices: Web, Mac, Windows

2.  Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the best essay writing app that helps you write better. It fixes grammar and spelling errors and gives suggestions for sentences, words, and style. It also checks plagiarism by comparing your writing to the web. Grammarly is good for writers, bloggers, authors, academics, and students. The free version of Grammarly is ideal for writers and bloggers with a low budget.

• Real-time grammar correcting
• Very simple to use
• Free version offers only basic correction suggestions.
• They send perhaps too many newsletters

Ideal for: Grammar Check, Proofreading, Vocabulary enhancement and Plagiarism checks

Pricing: Grammarly Premium costs $30 per month ($12 per month if you pay yearly) and $144 for a year.

Devices: Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android

3.  Evernote

Evernote is a useful essay writing app that helps you organize and save your ideas. Evernote also syncs across devices, allowing you to access your notes from anywhere. You can access your notes from any device and sync them across platforms. You can also use Evernote to take notes, clip articles, make lists, record voice memos, and more. Evernote Basic is free but has a 60MB upload limit per month. You can use it to clip web pages, search for text in images, and share notes with others.

• Syncs across devices
• Scan handwritten notes, whiteboards, receipts, and more
• Search for text in images, handwriting, documents, and PDFs

Ideal for: Taking and editing notes, search notes

Pricing: $8 per month or $69.99 per year

Devices: Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows

Hemingway Editor is a powerful essay writing app that helps you write better. It shows you long, complex sentences and how to make them simpler. It also helps you find passive voice and adverbs. Hemingway Editor gives you a readability score, which tells you how easy your essay is to read.

• Great for assessing the readability and complexity of your work
• Export options are helpful
• Grammar capabilities are limited

Ideal for: Writing and Style analysis

Free Trial: Online version of Hemingway Editor is completely free.

Pricing: Premium - $19.99 (lifetime access)

Simplenote is a light, clean and free note-taking app. The best essays can start from the smallest of ideas, and Simplenote is one of the simplest ways to make sure you’ve got them all jotted down. Plus, all your notes are backed up and the search function means that you can find old notes whenever you want to pull them up again. Simplenote is one of the most popular note taking apps . Simplenote looks modern and minimalistic on all platforms. Simplenote is a great app for writers who never have to add images or to-do lists in their notes.

• Completely free
• Unlimited storage
• Markdown support
• Limited features
• No images or videos can be added

Pricing: Free

Jasper AI is a must-have writing assistant for students who have issues with technical or academic writing. With Creator plan, students can access unlimited content generation, 50+ templates, and a brand voice to enhance their writing potential.

• Can handle various academic writing tasks, such as creating outlines, drafts, poll questions
• Gathers information from all around the Internet and doesn’t really fact-check any of it
• Summarizing and paraphrasing functions can only handle a limited word count

Ideal for: students who requires valuable addition to their writing process, streamlining their work and enhancing their output.

Pricing: Offering both monthly and yearly plans across its pricing tiers (money-back guarantee)

Devices: All web browsers

LibreOffice writer is an essay writing program that helps you create, review, and revise your work easily. It makes your document look neat and organized for any purpose. It is a free and open source software that anyone can use, share, and modify. It is developed by hundreds of developers and preferred by many online assignment experts. It is the best successor of “OpenOffice.org”.

• Completely free and easy to use
• Compatible with various formats
• Limited customer support
• Integration with other softwares is limited

Ideal for: Reviewing and revising your essays at a later stage

Devices: Windows, macOS, Linux

FreeMind is a free mind-mapping software that helps you create diagrams and track projects. You can use it to plan and write essays, using colors and sizes to show the status and length of each essay. It also has DES encryption to protect your map from data loss.

• Useful for brainstorming ideas
• Powerful for mindmapping tool
• Interface is clunky and unintuitive
• Documentation is sparse and unhelpful

Ideal for: Users to quickly track projects, write essays and brainstorm with mind mapping solution

9.  Canva

Canva is a popular graphic design tool that can be used to create a wide variety of visuals, including charts, graphs, infographics, and even dissertation covers. As a student, using Canva can help you create eye-catching graphics to your essays.

You can use one of Canva’s pre-designed templates and customize it to fit your needs. This means that you can focus your time and energy on other important tasks, such as writing essays.

• User friendly interface and very simple to use
• Offers a variety of templates and elements
• Repetitive designs might be found across the web
• UI needs to be a little more responsive

Ideal for: creating infographics, charts, graphs

Pricing: Canva Pro is $119.99 when paid annually or $14.99 paid monthly.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an essay writing app.

An essay writing app is an iOS or Android or online platform that helps students or writers in generating, organizing, and improving their essays.

How can an essay writing app benefit me?

An essay writing app can benefit you by providing various features such as essay topic suggestions, grammar and spelling checks, plagiarism detection, and essay structure guidance. These essay writing apps can save time, enhance writing skills, and improve the overall quality of your essays.

Is there an app that writes essays for you?

Yes, Jasper is an AI writing tool with the power to write essays for you. The Long-Form Assistant template allows you to start typing and let Jasper fill in the rest. In the word processor, you can tell Jasper what tone you want to write in and any keywords you want to include.

When it comes to writing essays, many students find themselves overwhelmed with the task. These essay writing apps offer a range of benefits that can make your academic life easier and more successful.

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I was like "meh" bout tryna use another app but I'm glad I took the leap. The outlining and research features are lit AF for a student like me. And the best part? I can export my work in diff formats, sick! Only downside is the interface can be a bit much at first but once you get the hang of it, it's the bomb for writin essays.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, getting college essay help: important do's and don’ts.

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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About 1 in 5 U.S. teens who’ve heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork

Roughly one-in-five teenagers who have heard of ChatGPT say they have used it to help them do their schoolwork, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17. With a majority of teens having heard of ChatGPT, that amounts to 13% of all U.S. teens who have used the generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot in their schoolwork.

Teens in higher grade levels are particularly likely to have used the chatbot to help them with schoolwork. About one-quarter of 11th and 12th graders who have heard of ChatGPT say they have done this. This share drops to 17% among 9th and 10th graders and 12% among 7th and 8th graders.

There is no significant difference between teen boys and girls who have used ChatGPT in this way.

The introduction of ChatGPT last year has led to much discussion about its role in schools , especially whether schools should integrate the new technology into the classroom or ban it .

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand American teens’ use and understanding of ChatGPT in the school setting.

The Center conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, via Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents, who were part of its KnowledgePanel . The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey was weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories.

This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

Here are the  questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its  methodology .

Teens’ awareness of ChatGPT

Overall, two-thirds of U.S. teens say they have heard of ChatGPT, including 23% who have heard a lot about it. But awareness varies by race and ethnicity, as well as by household income:

• 72% of White teens say they’ve heard at least a little about ChatGPT, compared with 63% of Hispanic teens and 56% of Black teens.
• 75% of teens living in households that make $75,000 or more annually have heard of ChatGPT. Much smaller shares in households with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 (58%) and less than $30,000 (41%) say the same.

Teens who are more aware of ChatGPT are more likely to use it for schoolwork. Roughly a third of teens who have heard a lot about ChatGPT (36%) have used it for schoolwork, far higher than the 10% among those who have heard a little about it.

When do teens think it’s OK for students to use ChatGPT?

For teens, whether it is – or is not – acceptable for students to use ChatGPT depends on what it is being used for.

There is a fair amount of support for using the chatbot to explore a topic. Roughly seven-in-ten teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use when they are researching something new, while 13% say it is not acceptable.

However, there is much less support for using ChatGPT to do the work itself. Just one-in-five teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to write essays, while 57% say it is not acceptable. And 39% say it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT to solve math problems, while a similar share of teens (36%) say it’s not acceptable.

Some teens are uncertain about whether it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT for these tasks. Between 18% and 24% say they aren’t sure whether these are acceptable use cases for ChatGPT.

Those who have heard a lot about ChatGPT are more likely than those who have only heard a little about it to say it’s acceptable to use the chatbot to research topics, solve math problems and write essays. For instance, 54% of teens who have heard a lot about ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to solve math problems, compared with 32% among those who have heard a little about it.

Note: Here are the  questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its  methodology .

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Many Americans think generative AI programs should credit the sources they rely on

Americans’ use of chatgpt is ticking up, but few trust its election information, q&a: how we used large language models to identify guests on popular podcasts, striking findings from 2023, what the data says about americans’ views of artificial intelligence, most popular.

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