The Ask a Tech Teacher International team has ideas on how digital writing tools help students plan, edit, cite, and...
The Ask a Tech Teacher International team has ideas on how digital writing tools help students plan, edit, cite, and polish essays without losing their own voice or thinking skills.
From Messy Drafts To Better Essays: How Digital Writing Tools Help Students Write Smarter
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/person-typing-on-laptop-computer-3GZNPBLImWc
Once upon a time, essay writing was a lonely business. You opened a word processor, stared into the abyss, typed a sentence, erased it, and tried to make sense of your argument. Today’s students are certainly under the same pressures, yet the writing tools available to them have become very different.
Digital writing tools today offer outlining services, grammatical assistance, citation generators, clarification services, note-taking apps, and much more. This does not mean that students should entrust everything to the software. The smartest applications will function more like a partner in studying, pointing out weaknesses in the argument, suggesting ways to structure your ideas, and helping you improve your drafts without taking away your critical decision-making.
This is important because, under stress, students will compare sample essays, seek help in editing their work, or even try their luck looking for write my essay for me online services. One such service, called WriteMyEssay, could easily pop up among the results of your search; give it a try.
Digital Tools Assist Students To Overcome The Dreaded Blank Page
A blank page is typically considered to be the hardest part of essay writing. Although students have already gained enough knowledge about the theme, they do not know how to begin writing the assignment. Various technological instruments help turn general ideas into workable ones.
By means of using a tool to generate the outline, notes, or mind mapping instrument, the students will be able to break their essays into a number of different parts, such as introducing the problem, presenting some background information, supplying evidence, analyzing results, and making conclusions.
This way, they are helped to avoid any kind of drama related to essay writing because students are aware of the tasks that need to be fulfilled.
Some examples of technology that can come in handy at the initial stages of essay writing include:
- Narrowing down a broad topic.
- Organizing notes according to certain themes.
- Planning paragraph order before drafting the paper.
- Collecting relevant quotes along with bibliographic references.
- Identifying logical gaps in the paper prior to starting work.
One of the best academic writing specialists, Martin Buckley, often emphasizes that students need simple tools rather than sophisticated writing techniques. Indeed, they need to understand what they should do next, and this is exactly what digital tools assist in achieving.
Grammar Checkers See What Students Don’t See Anymore
After spending several hours on an essay, you start to miss glaring problems. A forgotten comma, unnecessary repetition, odd sentence structure, and even incorrect verb forms become hard to notice. A grammar checker can come in handy since it will give your eyes another look.
Grammar tools will be useful in detecting such issues as:
- Subject-verb agreement
- Word repetitions
- Missing articles
- Awkward punctuation
- Sentences that need condensing
- Typographical mistakes
However, it’s important to keep in mind that grammar checkers can be misleading. In certain cases, the program will make suggestions that ruin sentence structure. Never use them without reading first. Don’t implement anything that changes meaning, but improve clarity instead.
The aim is to make your writing clear, not robotic.
Citation Tools Save You Both Stress And Time
Even when it’s completed successfully, a citation can create a lot of trouble for a student. There are always too many styles to follow, too many sources to organize, and too little time to finish the assignment properly. With citation management software, this chaos can be avoided.
Plagiarism Checkers Can Save Students From Accidents
Plagiarism doesn’t happen on purpose all the time. Some cases can be related to poor writing style. For example, it can involve quoting without quotation marks or copying notes literally. Plagiarism checker software can help students avoid such accidents.
It isn’t something magical but requires analysis of plagiarism checker results. High similarity can indicate using correctly quoted sources. Low similarity won’t assure academic quality either. Students should treat plagiarism checking as a warning rather than an ultimate result.
What really matters is paraphrasing properly. It starts with reading a source, closing it, and saying what was understood in other words. Then it needs to be checked for keeping the same meaning. It’s a valuable ability.
The Best Tool Is The Writing Process Itself
Digital tools can really help when students have a process down. If not, though, digital tools will just be another obstacle in their way. After all, a student could spend hours evaluating different apps and wind up with nothing but an unfinished essay.
A very basic process is ideal:
- Understand the requirements.
- Pick a question.
- Locate your sources.
- Create an outline.
- Write a first draft.
- Use technology to analyze structure, readability, grammar, and citations.
- Revisit your essay.
Digital essay tools are not here to create an effortless essay for students. Instead, they allow students to see things in their work that they may not see otherwise. For example, they help pinpoint weak argumentation, convoluted language, poor citations, and so on.
This is what makes them powerful. These tools do not take away the burden of writing from students; they simply help students realize how much better they can write. When used wisely, these tools allow students to develop a much better writing process.
–image credit Deposit Photos (where not attributed)
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“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”
Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.
