Writing Essays/Papers

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Subpage 3: WRITING ESSAYS/PAPERS

For help with getting started, and with structure:

WriteWell Gives Students and Professionals Templates to Jumpstart Research Papers | Lifehacker UK (can only do three documents – perhaps save it for a piece of coursework/dissertation/something particularly discombobulating!)

For finding the words:

Academic Phrasebank (this website is amazing if you need to write essays but struggle with finding the right words – particularly helpful if you’re also dyspraxic

For getting the gist of the reading material:

Free Summarizer (this will summarise any online text for you, saving you vital reading time)

IF REFERENCING IS A NIGHTMARE FOR YOU, USE ZOTERO

Why Zotero is magical, as explained by Diversity and Ability (awesome assistive technology experts who can tell you what things you’ll find helpful and how to use them, and are free to call):

Zotero is a free (!) program that lets you gather references and insert them into your documents. Instead of typing out your citations and bibliography you can add them with the click of your mouse. This program takes all the stress out of citations and bibliographies, with a couple of clicks it’s all done for you. The notes section is really useful for keeping track of why you are using that particular text and what, if any, direct quotes you’re using. The ability to add tags to your source material also makes it really easy to find the texts that you want by using a few key words. In addition to all that, by signing up to Zotero your library is saved to a cloud server so you can access it from any machine.

The program works in:

Your web browser, so you can collect references
Your desktop, where you can organise your library of references
Your word processor, so you can insert your citations and a bibliography

Best Features

Insert citations and bibliographies in just a few clicks
Zotero style repository has hundreds of referencing styles to choose from
Books can be saved using either the ISBN number or the toolbar button in Amazon and Google Books
Works in your web browser so you can save web pages, e-journals and PDFs to your reference library
Organize your library or references with notes, tags and attachments
Create specific reference collections for each essay or module
Zotero synchronises with a cloud server so you can access your library from any machine (sign up required)