As the world becomes more digital and online learning becomes increasingly common, essay writing has become an integral part of academic life.Â
However, writing a quality essay can be challenging, requiring research, critical thinking, and excellent writing skills.Â
Fortunately, there are various essay-writing tools available that can help streamline the writing process and improve the quality of your work.Â
But which one to choose?
That’s where we step in.Â
We’ve handpicked the best essay-writing tools you should consider trying out.
Whether you're a student, a professional writer, or someone who simply wants to improve their writing skills, these tools can help you write better essays more efficiently.
Let’s get started!
What is Academic Writing?
Before we dig deeper into the best essay-writing tools, it’s important to see what academic writing is and how much it differs from non-academic writing.
We use academic writing in academic settings like universities, colleges, and research institutions.Â
The most common types of academic writing are:
- essays,Â
- papers,Â
- white papers,
- and dissertations.
Furthermore, it is a specific type of writing whose main aim is to communicate ideas and research findings in a clear, concise, and objective manner.Â
Essays are also characterized by the use of evidence, citation of sources, and critical analysis.
Therefore, it is in stark contrast to non-academic types of writing, such are blogs, magazines, websites, text messages, etc.
Being a teacher for many years, I’ve noticed that students struggle most with the transition from non-academic to academic writing.Â
And let’s be honest, we speak in a non-academic way and use a non-academic language more often.Â
So, for example, students weren’t struggling that much with grammar but more with the appropriate style and register, as well as essay structure.
So what should a quality essay contain?
Let’s find out.
What are The Main Elements of an Essay?
Regardless of the topic, every essay should consist of:
✨ Introduction with a thesis statement - one or two sentences that introduce the topic and state the essay's purpose.
✨ Body
✨ Conclusion
Quickly getting back shortly to a thesis statement.
Check two examples of thesis statements below.
Can you see why the first one is considered weak?
The weak thesis statement is too vague, it doesn’t specify which negative and positive aspects the essay will be about.Â
On the other hand, the strong one shows the writer’s stance and is more precise.
The Register of an Essay
Apart from the thesis statement and structure, the register seems one of the most impeding factors to essay writing.
Do’s
✨ Use formal and impersonal language.
✨ Use the relevant and specialized register.
✨ Use the third-person when narrating - it will make your essay sound more objective and less biased.Â
✨ Use the passive voice - it also makes your essay less biased and more impersonal. For example: It is estimated, it is evaluated it, It has been thought, etc.
✨ Use declarative sentences.
✨ Use a variety of linking expressions (for comparison, contrast, emphasis, additional info, consequences, and results, etc.).
Don’ts
❌ Avoid using interrogative sentences.
❌ Avoid exaggerations or hyperboles.
❌ Avoid generalizations.
❌ Don’t use contractions.Â
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s move on to our main topic:5 best essay-writing tools.
5 Best Essay Writing ToolsÂ
1. TextCortex: All-in-One Writing Tool
TextCortex is an AI writing tool that represents a virtual Swiss Army Knife for writers.
In the spirit of today’s trends, it has created cutting-edge writing solutions that appeal to everyone from students to professors.
In other words, TextCortex has features for writing, rewriting and AI-generating that will enable you to generate all types of content: from blog posts, over ads to eCommerce copy.
Furthermore it is available as a web app and Chrome extension.
The Key Features
TextCortex provides a wide range of paraphrasing features, but let’s focus on those relevant to essay writing.
✨Rewriting Feature – Helps you tweak and improve your content for better context.
✨Summarizing feature – Enables you to highlight a paragraph and summarize it without losing the original meaning.Â
✨Long-form content feature – Creates up to a 300-word text in one go.
✨Tone changer - Helps you change and adjust the tone of voice. It’s a useful essay-writing feature that can help you stay concise and clear.
✨Zeno Mode – Generates full paragraphs based on your first drafts.
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✨Zeno Chat  – Lets you have a natural chitchat with AI writers.
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✨Readability Checker – Assists you in improving the readability score as well as providing the reading time and word count.
How Can TextCortex Help You with an Essay Writing?
TextCortex goes beyond just providing the content for you, it also assists you in polishing your essay with a set of robust features, and checking it for plagiarism.Â
More than 2,000 of the most used websites allow you to make changes to your content without ever having to leave the site.
Simply highlight the sentence that you want to modify and choose the features from the rewriting menu.
To access AI templates or Zeno Chat, click on the purple bubble at the right corner of your text box to access a sidebar with extra features.
Furthermore, let’s not forget to mention the TextCortex’s voice over abilities, that can help you proofread your content much more efficiently.
Pricing
TextCortex offers three plans – freemium and 2 premium ones.
Which tool comes next?
2. Coggle: Essay Outline Tool
Coggle is an AI tool that helps you create flowcharts, mindmaps, and diagrams and is quite handy when it comes to taking notes, brainstorming, planning, etc.
Furthermore, it is useful for creating essay outlines.
The Key Features
Coggle has a real-time collaboration feature so you can work on projects and papers together with your teammates or colleagues.
Furthermore, you can:
- Drag-and-drop an unlimited number of images from your device and add them to your diagram.
- Add floating texts.
- Create loops and branches for more flexible diagrams.
- Add multiple starting points to map related topics.
How Can Coggle Help You with an Essay Writing?
The structure is at the core of a quality essay, so tools like Coggle can help you gradually build your essay structure.Â
Thus, you can design a mind map or graph with the primary topic of your composition at its center.Â
Afterwards, you can add subsidiary topics and branches with supporting evidence, arguments, and conclusions.Â
Doing this will give you a clear picture of how your essay should be structured and how well all parts are connected.
Pricing
Coggle has one Free and two Premium plans.
Moving on to number 3 on our list of the best essay-writing tools.
3. Grammarly: Grammar and Spelling Checker Tool
Grammarly is one of the most popular grammar and spelling checker tools nowadays.
It can help you polish your writings and make them error-free.
The Key Features
Besides grammar and spelling checking, Grammarly also offers:Â
✨ Proofreading tool - to clear up typos, grammatical mistakes, and misplaced punctuation.
✨ Sentence rewrite tool - provides suggestions on simplifying your sentence structure and getting your message across.Â
✨ Plagiarism DetectionÂ
✨ Tone of voice - helps you pick the right tone to match the type of writing.
✨ Auto-citations - pulls fully formatted citations from online sources.
✨ Readability checker - shows how readable your text is.
How Can Grammarly Help You with Essay Writing?
Grammarly also has a super important feature when speaking about essay writing, and that is an Essay Checker.
It comprises all the above features but also provides suggestions on the proper register and context-specific synonyms.Â
Another practical feature is that you can set goals prior to writing.
As you see above, you can choose:Â
- Domain, such as academic, business, etc.
- Type, such as essay, report, etc.
- Format, such as APA, MLA ( referring to essays).
The domain you choose will affect the categories underneath it.
Once you’ve uploaded your content, you’ll see the suggestions in the right-hand panel.
Naturally, these suggestions are based on the goals you’ve set earlier.Â
You can also get Expert Writing Help, where a real person checks your writing for correctness and clarity.Â
However, you must pay extra even with a Premium subscription.
And speaking of price, let’s check Grammarly’s pricing.
Pricing
Grammarly offers one Free and two Premium plans.
The following essay-writing tool on our list focuses on checking plagiarism.
4. Copyscape: Plagiarism Checker Tool
Copyscape is an online plagiarism checker that prevents you from duplicating text and helps you check if your content is original.
The Key Features
As expected, Copyscape’s features revolve around plagiarism.
✨Copyscape Premium checks the originality of your text. Furthermore, you can also check files and entire websites.
✨Copysentry monitors the web for copies of your content and emails you when they appear.Â
You can also personalize the search and set the number of copied words required for a match. Additionally, you can choose the sites you wish to ignore.
✨Plagiarism Banners enable you to incorporate Copyscape’s banners into your content.
How Can Copyscape Help You with Essay Writing?
Writing an essay that has original content is a must. Copyscape can help you check your content's authenticity and reduce duplicate text.
This way, you’ll be able to rephrase your text if necessary.
Pricing
Copyscape Premium costs 3c per 200-word plus 1c for every 100 words.
Copysentry Professional costs $19.95 per month for up to 10 pages,and the standard subscription is $4.95 per month for up to 10 pages.
And the last on our list of best essay-writing tools is the one that helps you generate content.
5. Jasper.ai: Content Generator Tool
Jasper.ai is a robust AI writing tool that helps you create various types of content, such as blogs, social media posts, landing page copy, etc.
The Key Features
✨Short-form content features in the form of more than 50 templates spanning from text summarizers to ads.
✨Long-form content features to help you create essays, blogs, articles, and longer formats.
The latter feature is accessible via Boss Mode.
In a nutshell, the steps are as follows:
- Write your topic
- Choose a good headlineÂ
- Add keywordsÂ
- Get an outline
- Use templates to expand each subheading into a full paragraph
- Edit the draft.
However, if you think you can just type in the topic and get a full-length essay at once, sorry to burst your bubble.Â
You’ll have to do lots of editing and switching back and forth between the templates.
Nonetheless, Jasper.ai can help you a lot if you do your essay step by step and use individual templates.
✨ Besides the Long-form content feature, you can also use Jasper.ai Chat feature, where you can ask questions, generate ideas, etc., in free-form conversation.
How Can Jasper.ai Help You with Essay Writing?
Jasper.ai caters more to businesses and eCommerce, but its long-form content features with templates can help you write an essay outline and intros, improve the content and write conclusions.Â
Pricing
Unfortunately, Jasper.ai doesn’t have a Free plan, but it has a 5-day free trial and 10k credits for each subscription plan.
Another shortcoming is that if you want to write an essay, the Starter plan won’t cut it for you.
Now that we’ve covered our 5 best essay-writing tools let’s wrap things up.
Final Thoughts
Although we’ve provided our top 5 picks, it is you who needs to make a choice. Regardless of which tool you choose, make sure that it provides what you need and is a good value for money.
We’d go with TextCortex any day because it’s an all-in-one writing tool that not only helps you generate content but also provides robust features to edit and improve your content.
Furthermore, it shows the readability of your essay, checks for plagiarism, etc.
Therefore, you can do everything within one app instead of combining individual tools.
On top of that, youÂ
🔥 Get 10 free daily creations, and
🔥 Enjoy the benefits of our rich reward programs.
Sounds promising?
Download the TextCortex add-on today, and never worry again when an essay is due.
FAQ
1. What are The Three Factors to Consider When Writing an Essay?
The three most important factors to consider are the thesis statement, your audience, and the type of essay.
2. What is The Best Tool to Write an Essay?
Depending on your needs, you can benefit from various writing tools. Some top players are TextCortex, Jasper.ai, Copy.ai, etc.
3. What are The Things to Avoid when Writing an Essay?
You should avoid using first-person narrative, interrogative sentences, and hyperboles when writing an essay. Furthermore, you can’t use contractions.