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Completing your dissertation or thesis means a lot of time, effort and hard work. There’s no shortcut on the road to research success, but as with anything, there are ways to optimise the process and work smarter.

Evernote is an amazing 'second brain' which allows you to flexibly take notes and capture ideas in a variety of areas. You can do just about everything in Evernote, from creating to-do lists and checklists to drawing out specific notes to capturing receipts for tracking business expenses. Compare Evernote and Grammarly Business head-to-head across pricing, user satisfaction, and features, using data from actual users.

In this post, I’ll share with you a handful of apps, software and services that will make your life a little easier during dissertation time.

• Millions trust Grammarly’s free writing app to make their online writing clear and effective. Getting started is simple — download Grammarly’s extension today.
• Get more info at I am an affiliate for GrammarlyGrammarly is proving to a be a pow.
• Do you use Evernote? This app may be one of the best ways ever invented to keep track of everything in your life, and it automatically syncs between all your devices—desktop, tablet, and mobile. Having Grammarly for mobile helps you keep your notes in great shape, so you won’t have to waste time editing them later.

#1: Grammarly Premium

Let’s face it – the spell checker in Microsoft Word just plain sucks. False positives and negatives abound, missed errors, ridiculous suggestions – you’re often better off spell checking yourself. Thankfully, you don’t need to do that, thanks to Grammarly.

Grammarly is much more than just a spelling and grammar checker – it picks up much more complex issues such as:

• Inconsistent writing style and unclear sentence structure
• Overuse of specific works and ineffective vocabulary
• Impoliteness and insensitive or non-inclusive language
• Inappropriate tone or formality level
• Plagiarism

Simply put, Grammarly is the closest thing you’ll get to having a real-time editor and proof-reader looking at your work. Plus, the plagiarism checking functionality is a huge bonus in the context of writing a dissertation or thesis. Grammarly works in Word, Google Docs and Chrome, so it’s extremely versatile.

Note that there is a free version, but this is very limited (quite similar to Word, and no plagiarism checker), so you’ll need to go for Grammarly Premium. Fortunately, its less than $12/month – well worth it!

#2: Evernote & Penultimate

No doubt, you’ll be taking an endless stream of notes throughout the research process. Some will be written notes, some will be photos, some might even be audio recordings. You’ll need a way to stay on top of it all and keep things organised. Enter Evernote.

Evernote is the ultimate note-taking app, as it allows you to take notes in various formats, including text (typed and handwritten), photos (snap that workshop slide) and audio (record that interview). You can also attach files of any format (for example, an Excel data set), so absolutely everything stays in one place. The text in any note is fully searchable, and all data is synchronised across your phone, laptop, desktop and tablet.

3: Dragon Anywhere

Writing up a good dissertation or thesis requires a lot of, well, writing. Spending hours upon hours hunched over a keyboard can be really draining (and potentially physically harmful). Imagine you could just speak instead of type. Well, now you can, thanks to Dragon Anywhere.

Dragon Anywhere is an app that allows you to simply speak into your smartphone or tablet and it converts that audio into text format. This means you can get your thinking on to paper faster than you usually would and minimise the risk of losing your train of thought. It’s also great for getting work done while you’re sitting in traffic, and it can double as a transcribing aid for your interviews.

4: Dropbox

The number of times I’ve seen students lose hours/days/weeks’ worth of hard work (and even miss the submission deadline) due to corrupted flash drives or hard drives, coffee-soaked laptops, or stolen computers is truly saddening. If you’re not using cloud storage to save your work, you’re running a major risk – and it’s totally unnecessary.

If you take only ONE thing from this post, let it be this point. Go sign up for any of the following cloud services (most offer a free version) and save your work there:

Not only will this ensure your work is always safely stored (remember to hit the Save button, though!), it will make working on multiple devices easier, as your files will be automatically synchronised. No need to have a million versions between your desktop, laptop, tablet, etc. Everything stays in one place. Safe, secure, happy files.

5: Offtime

Research and writing require laser-sharp focus – distraction is the number one enemy of progress. The biggest culprit in the war against distraction is probably in your hand or pocket right now. Thankfully, Offtime helps you block out smartphone distraction and regain control over your time.

Offtime allows you to restrict your phone’s functionality for a set amount of time, whilst still maintaining certain functionality. For example, allowing only calls from certain people. This enables you to disconnect without worrying about emergency situations. Also, the countdown timer acts as a great reminder to stay focused and finish the time period you’ve set.

6: Mendeley

Correctly formatted citations and references are essential to a polished dissertation or thesis. Even the highest quality piece of research will lose credibility (and marks) if the referencing is not on point. It’s such a shame to see students lose marks on this, as its such an easy thing to get right with reference management software like Mendeley.

Mendeley is a free reference management software that takes care of all your citations and references in Word. Simply load up your journal articles in Mendeley and then just drop in your citations as you write up in Word. Mendeley then automatically builds your reference list according to whichever format you choose (e.g. Harvard, APA, etc). Sure, there are many similar pieces of software out there, but personally I find Mendeley to be the most feature-rich. See the video above for a taste of the functionality.

7: Freemind

When you’re undertaking your research, especially your literature review, you’re going to be dealing with a wide-ranging number of theories, models and frameworks, and it can be difficult to see the big picture and connect all the dots. Mind mapping is a highly effective way to visualise (and connect) all the information, but doing it on paper is so old fashioned. Enter Freemind.

Freemind is a mind mappingsoftware that allows you to easily create highly editable, visually rich mindmaps on your computer. It’s simple and intuitive to use, and 100% free.

8: Udemy & Coursera

Okay, so this is not an app or piece of software, but I couldn’t resist including it in this post…

While you’re undertaking your dissertation, chances are that you’re going to need to learn about some niche topic very quickly in order to complete some part of your research. For example, how to use SPSS or NVivo analysis software, how to develop statistically sound survey scales, how to undertake structured interviews, and so on. However, these sorts of skills are typically not included in the university syllabus and will have a major impact on the quality of your research. Enter Udemy and Coursera.

Udemy and Coursera both provide a wide-ranging variety of super-short, highly digestible online courses. These courses are a great way to pick up specific skills (especially software skills) in a very short amount of time (many courses are less than 10 hours total). When I was writing up my dissertation, I learned SPSS from scratch using Udemy – it was a real lifesaver!

Wrapping up

And there you have it – 8 apps, software and services that will undoubtedly make your life easier come dissertation time. To recap:

• Grammarly – for instant editing and proofreading
• Evernote – for keeping all your notes in one place
• Dragon Anywhere – for transcribing text to speech
• Dropbox – for safely storing all your work
• Offtime – for eliminating the i-Distractions
• Mendeley – for ensuring perfect referencing
• Freemind – for mind-mapping without a whiteboard
• Udemy & Coursera – for rapidly gaining niche skills

You need help.

That’s why you’re looking into Grammarly, right?

With the world turning to the online and computer space, having a reliable way of ensuring your grammar is nearly perfect each time is essential.

Nobody wants a troll using their grammar as a weapon online.

No matter if you’re a blogger, aspiring to be a successful author, or just want an app to take care of the technical aspects of writing across many platforms (including email – thank goodness!), Grammarly might be the answer for you.

But before we get into the Grammarly review, let’s take a look at what this software actually is.

Grammarly Evernote Integration

Here’s what we’ll cover in our Grammarly review:

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is an app or extension for your browser that checks your grammar, spelling, plagiarism, and more in real-time on a number of different platforms, including Microsoft Word, WordPress, Facebook, and more.

This grammar app is actually coined as being your “Free Grammar Assistant.”

Sounds nice, right?

But there are certainly limitations – as with any writing software like this. Let’s take a look at a full Grammarly review of its features, the pros and cons, and the price point for premium and business upgrades.

Grammarly Review: The Features with Each Version

As someone who has used Grammarly’s free program for a few years while building a freelance writing business, I can confidently say that if you’re not using it, that’s a mistake.

But there may be features you need that aren’t available with the free or even premium versions.

Here’s a table covering each Grammarly feature and which plans cover it.

Features	Free	Premium
Grammar and spelling checks	✓	✓
Checks punctuations grammar, context, and sentence structure	X	✓
Vocabularly enhacement	X	✓
Genre-specific writing style checks	X	✓
Plagiarism detector (checks over 16 billions web pages)	X	✓

How Much Does Grammarly Cost?

As you know by now, Grammarly isn’t just free – and for a good reason.

With as many helpful features as it offers in addition to what you get for free, paying a pretty penny is totally worth it if you’re someone who needs more of those advanced capabilities.

Here’s how much Grammarly costs for each version:

Version	Monthly	Quarterly	Annual
Premium	$29.95 / month	$59.95 (breaks down to $19.98 / month)	$139.95 (breaks down to $11.66 / month)
Free	→	→	→

Grammarly Review with Pros and Cons

As with anything, there are some pros and cons that come along with Grammarly.

Let’s dive into this Grammarly review and discuss each in detail and what you can expect if you choose to use it for all your writerly needs.

Grammarly Pros

There are many reasons Grammarly has exploded its growth in recent years. These are a few of many pros this writing software has to offer.

#1 – Real-time grammar correcting

This is fantastic and has changed the game when it comes to checking your work and editing faster.

Instead of writing everything out and then clicking the “check spelling and grammar” button, you’ll know right when you make a mistake that you have, in fact, made an error.

You might be wondering why this is so great when you can just check it after you’re done.

Have you ever forgotten to hit that button when you spent a ton of time drafting something very important? Because I have.

And let me tell you, if I could see the errors as they happen, I can change them right away, resulting in a cleaner final result.

Plus, it’s all automatic. You don’t have to click a button for Grammarly to do its job.

#2 – Highly accurate

This grammar software doesn’t make a whole lot of mistakes. Occasionally, it can misunderstand what you’re trying to say or put a comma where you don’t necessarily need or want one, but overall, it has a high rate of accuracy.

Grammarly And Evernote

And when you’re checking grammar, accuracy is always best. Just be aware of why it’s asking you to change something and only accept if it’s correct.

#3 – Easy to understand explanations

Grammarly doesn’t just tell you when something is wrong. While that would totally be okay, this program goes a step further with explanations so you can understand in order to learn and improve.

So not only are you getting the benefit of your writing being polished in real-time, but you’re also learning how to become a better writer.

Grammarly has 2 options when it comes to explanations. You can do a quick-view to make the change with little help like below:

Or you can click “See More in Grammarly” and view a full explanation like the image below:

The more you use Grammarly, the more you’ll understand where commas go, how to phrase certain sentences properly, and how you can strengthen your writing altogether.

By a simple explanation like the one featured above, you won’t even need Grammarly as much in the future.

#4 – Customization

Even if you’re using the free version of Grammarly, it’s pretty customizable given its limitation in features.

You’re able to select your preferred language, turn it off on certain websites, as well as add new words you use often to the dictionary.

This is perfect if you have any words you use regularly that aren’t necessarily “real” words, like brand names, slang, or abbreviations. There’s no need to fix each of these errors if you just click “add to dictionary” when Grammarly marks it as incorrect the first time.

Just hover over the word and click “Add to Dictionary” in the pop-up box, as you can see below:

#5 – Very simple to use

You don’t have to be a computer whiz in order to figure out this piece of software.

Essentially, all you have to do is install the plugin or browser extension and you’re good to go!

Much like Microsoft Word and Google Doc’s spellcheck, Grammarly will underline incorrect words or grammar and show you what to replace it with and why if you simply hover over it.

This is perfect for those of you who need a bit of help in the grammar department but aren’t thrilled with the idea of a more complex piece of writing software.

Grammarly Cons

It can’t all be perfect, right? While there are some amazing features within Grammarly, there are certain aspects that could be improved.

#1 – It doesn’t work on everything

Most popularly, Grammarly doesn’t function on Google Docs, which can be a real bummer for those of you who use this writing software all the time.

But, they are currently beta testing Grammarly with Google Docs so you might not have to wait long before this feature is available for good!

Just take a look at the notification I received on my Grammarly Chrome extension when I was crafting this very blog post in Google Docs:

It seems as though Grammarly is certainly breaking out and extending their services to more and more platforms – which is great if you use many for work, hobbies, or a combination of the two.

#2 – Its free version is very limited

As you can see from the table above, the free version of Grammarly is very limited. It really only has one function, and that’s to correct your spelling and grammar.

While this might seem like a major con to some, it’s perfectly acceptable to others.

Personally, I don’t need much more than just the free features.

Going for Grammarly Premium is certainly more useful for those looking to transform their writing for the better or those who need a bit more than just grammar help.

There’s a huge gap between the free version and the premium option that could be closed a little by offering more free features.

If you’re curious which writing software is best for you and if Grammarly is even a good fit, take this short, 2-minute quiz below to find out!

#3 – Aggressive advertising

This company wants you to upgrade – they really want you to upgrade.

While they’re completely justified to get you to spend more money to go premium, their spam-like ads and emails can be a bit much for people.

Thankfully, you can easily opt-out of their email list by unsubscribing and that virtually solves the problem on that end.

However, they still advertise to you through the Grammarly extension from time to time by notifying you to upgrade.

While it’s irritating, it’s still tolerable and not necessarily a deal-breaker.

Grammarly Alternatives

If you’re not quite sold on Grammarly, there are other programs out there that are very similar you might want to check out.

Writing Software	Cost
Microsoft Word	$79.99
Scrivener	$45
Pages	$28
Freedom	$2.42/month
Google Docs	Free
Evernote	Free
FocusWriter	Free
FastPencil	Free
Hemingway App	Free
Dropbox	Free
Open Office	Free
yWriter	Free

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