A Comprehensive Guide on Choosing the Correct Software for your Academic Writing

Writing a journal, dissertation or thesis requires the accumulation of facts and presenting it. Did you know that there are much software apart from MSWord to write your paper? You might take the help of a dissertation proofreading service after your write up. Each software has different features and capabilities and we are required to select them based on our needs. This software has a formal approach and classification that helps us in building our content effectively. Let’s take a plunge into the different software available.

Commonly used Word Processors

A  word processor for creates documents, books, brochures, resume, cover pages etc. It provides enormous functionality like formatting text, cutting, copying, pasting, Inserting pictures/videos/clip art, grammar, thesaurus and Macros.

  • MSWord - It is a paid software by microsoft and widely used by the general mass. Supported file extensions include .doc, .docx, .pdf, .txt, .odt, .html, .rtf, .pdf

  • Googledoc - It is a free online application by google which enables creating, sharing documents. The formats supported are .doc, .docx, .rtf, .txt, .html, .odt.

  • LibreOffice - An open source free office suite from The Document corporation. It runs on Marcos, Windows and Linux. The file extension used is .odt and supports .doc,.docx formats.

  • OpenOffice - Apache’s OpenOffice is free software that supports .sxw,.stw,.doc,.docx, .xml,.rtf,.sdw of the many.

  • TextEditor - It is a software from Macintosh which can create documents in .rtf,.txt, HTML


Scientific/Technical documentation

  • Latex - It is a free software used especially for scientific and technical documentation. It uses Tex programming language for formatting rules and comprises of Tex macros along with LaTex program. It handles mathematical equations, symbols, tables, figures effectively. It has an automatic generation of bibliography references and includes multilingual typesetting. These features distinguish from other word processors and are favourable among engineers and scientific writers. It supports a .tex extension and supports .rtf,.xml and .pdf. The heavy formatting and non-compatibility with other word processors make it difficult. The below screenshot gives an idea of the formatting Tex language used to create a document.

Image courtesy : https://www.latex-project.org/about/

 

  • Lyx - Lyx combines the features of standard word processors and LaTex in a graphical user interface. It supports many graphics formats like EPS, SVG, XFig, Dia and is compatible with formats like LaTex, PDF, ASCII, Postscript, DVI, MSWord and RTF. Below image gives the look and feels of Lyx writing.

 

       

      Image courtesy: https://www.lyx.org/

 

  • Scrivener - Scrivener is a word processing software used by novelists, authors, journalists and students. It lets you store your ideas as separate manuscripts and enables to organize them at ease. The text is stored in separate .rtf files and bound by .scriv. It has ample templates to start your work and the tool lets you perform background research. The below screenshot shows different manuscripts in the left arranged into a document on the right side.

Image courtesy : https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/features?os=Windows


Automation tool

  • ImageRover - This automation tool extracts information from the research materials and produces an outline document. It is compatible with chrome and is very useful in dissertation and thesis writing and helps to avoid plagiarism. It supports APA and MLA citation styles. However, it is required to reach out to a Miller Editing Center dissertation proofreading service for the same.

Image courtesy : http://www.idearover.com/#

 

  • Mendeley - Mendeley allows you to retrieve information from various sources and enables to share your research articles across the network. So your work can be accessed from anywhere. Below is an image which shows extracting information

Image courtesy : https://blog.mendeley.com/tag/mendeley-features/


While your ideas are scattered you can organize your information with the help of this software. More than one software is used to complete your purpose. There are many online websites to write your journal like LiveJournal.com, Penzu.com, Diary.com, MONKEE, Journal, Fitday.com to support your writing interest. It depends on what kind of writing and research is carried out. Writing undergoes several stages to get a fine script and you have to be smart enough in choosing the right software and proper timeline for each stage.

 
Category : Formatting
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