dissertation software tools

25+ Dissertation & Thesis Writing Apps

Everything You Need To Optimise Your Research Journey

Contributors: Derek J ansen (MBA),   Kerryn Warren (PhD) &  David Phair (PhD) | May 2024

Completing your dissertation   or thesis requires a hearty investment 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.

Here, we’ll share with you a wide range of apps, software and services that will   make your life a little easier   throughout the research process. While these apps can save you a lot of time, remember that your dissertation or thesis needs to be your own work – no tool should be doing the writing on your behalf. Also, be sure to check your university’s policy regarding AI-based tools and support before using any apps, tools or software. 

Overview: Dissertation & Thesis Apps

• Literature review
• Data collection
• Qualitative data analysis
• Quantitative data analysis
• Writing & Plagiarism
• Project management
• Reference management
• Honourable mentions

Literature Review & Search Apps

The following apps and tools can help you discover, analyse, and synthesise scholarly materials, significantly streamlining the literature review process.

Scite AI – Find & evaluate sources

The Scite AI app uses ‘Smart Citations’ to show how academic papers are discussed—i.e.,  supported, contradicted, or mentioned. This can help you fast-track the literature review process and source highly relevant papers quickly. 

Petal – Chat with your literature

Petal is an AI-driven tool that revolutionises your interaction with documents by enabling direct, context-aware conversations. Upload an article and it will swiftly summarise its contents and allow you to ask questions about the specific study (or studies).

Consensus – ChatGPT for academia

The Consensus app uses a powerful AI engine to connect you to over 200 million scientific papers. It allows precise searches and efficiently summarises key research findings . PS – Get 40% off Consensus Premium by using the coupon code GRADCOACH40.

Litmaps – Visualise related papers

This app is great for quickly identifying relevant research. For any given keyword or resource, it will provide you with a visual citation network, showing how studies are interconnected. This reveals both direct and tangential connections to other research, highlighting gaps and key discussions within your field.

Connected Papers – An alternative

Similar to Litmaps, Connected Papers visually maps academic research, simplifying how you explore related studies. Just input a paper, and it charts connections, helping identify key literature and gaps. It’s ideal for staying updated on emerging research.

Elicit – An “AI research assistant”

Another AI-powered tool, Elicit automates the discovery, screening, and data extraction from academic papers efficiently. This makes it useful for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as it allows you to focus on deeper analysis across various fields​.

Data Collection & Preparation

These apps and tools can assist you in terms of collecting and organising both qualitative and quantitative data for your dissertation or thesis.

SurveyMonkey – Simple surveys

SurveyMonkey is a versatile tool for creating and distributing surveys. It simplifies collecting and analysing data, helping you craft surveys that generate reliable results. Well suited for the vast majority of postgraduate research projects.

Qualtrics – An alternative

Qualtrics is a comprehensive survey tool with advanced creation, distribution, and analysis capabilities. It supports complex survey designs and robust data analysis, making it ideal for gathering detailed insights and conducting high-quality research.

Otter – Easy draft transcription

Otter is an AI-powered transcription tool that converts spoken words into text. It captures and transcribes lectures, interviews, and meetings in real time. Naturally, it’s not 100% accurate (you’ll need to verify), but it can certainly save you some time.

Qualitative Data Analysis

These software packages can help you organise and analyse qualitative data for your dissertation, thesis or research project.

NVivo – All-in-one qual platform

NVivo is a powerful qualitative data analysis software that facilitates data organisation, coding, and analysis. It supports a wide range of data types and methodologies, enabling detailed analysis and helping you extract rich insights from your data.

MaxQDA – QDA simplified

MAXQDA is a robust qualitative data analysis software that helps you systematically organise, evaluate, and interpret complex datasets. A little easier to get started with than NVivo, it’s ideal for first-time dissertation and thesis writers.

ATLAS.ti – For large datasets

ATLAS.ti offers robust tools for organising, coding, and examining diverse materials such as text, graphics, and multimedia. It’s well-suited for researchers aiming to weave detailed, data-driven narratives as it streamlines complex analysis tasks efficiently.

Delve – An intuitive interface

Delve is an intuitive qualitative data analysis tool designed to streamline the qualitative analysis process. Ideal for dissertations, Delve simplifies the process from initial data organisation to in-depth analysis, helping you efficiently manage and interpret complex datasets for clearer insights.

Quantitative (Statistical) Data Analysis

These software packages can help you organise and analyse quantitative (statistical) data for your dissertation, thesis or research project.

Julius – Your “AI data analyst”

Julius is an AI-powered data analysis tool that simplifies the process of analysing and visualising data for academic research. It allows you to “chat” with your data, create graphs, build forecasting models, and generate comprehensive analyses.

IBM SPSS – The “old faithful”

The OG of statistical analysis software, SPSS is ideal for students handling quantitative data in their dissertations and theses. It simplifies complex statistical testing, data management, and graphical representation, helping you derive robust insights.

R Studio – For the data wizards

While admittedly a little intimidating at first, R is a versatile software for statistical computing. It’s well-suited for quantitative dissertations and theses, offering a wide range of packages and robust community support to streamline your work.

STATA – For the data scientists

Stata is yet another comprehensive statistical software widely used for data management, statistical analysis, and graphical representation. It can efficiently handle large datasets and perform advanced statistical analyses.

Writing Improvement & Plagiarism Tools

These apps and tools can help enhance your writing and proactively identify potential plagiarism issues.

Grammarly – Improve your writing

Grammarly is a writing assistant that can help enhance academic writing by checking for errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation in real time. It also features a plagiarism detection system , helping you to proactively avoid academic misconduct.

Jenni – An AI “writing assistant”

Jenni AI helps you draft, cite, and edit with ease, streamlining the writing process and tackling writer’s block. Well suited for ESL students and researchers, Jenni helps ensure that your work is both precise, clear and grammatically sound.

Quillbot – Paraphrasing simplified

Quillbot is yet another AI-powered writing tool that can help streamline the writing process. Specifically, it can assist with paraphrasing , correcting grammar, and improving clarity and flow. It also features a citation generator and plagiarism checker .

Quetext – Solid plagiarism checking

Quetext is a plagiarism detection tool that helps ensure the originality of your academic work. It cross-references your documents against extensive online databases to highlight potential plagiarism and generate detailed reports.

Project & Time Management

These apps can help you plan your research project and manage your time, so that you can work as efficiently as possible.

GanttPro – PM simplified

An intuitive project management tool, GanttPro simplifies planning and tracking for dissertations or theses. It offers detailed Gantt charts to visualise task timelines, dependencies, and progress, helping you ensure timely completion of each section.

Trello – Drag-and-drop PM

Trello is a versatile project management tool that helps you organise your dissertation or thesis process effectively. By creating boards for each chapter or section, you can track progress, set deadlines, and coordinate tasks efficiently.

Toggl – Make every minute count

A user-friendly time-tracking app that helps you manage your research project effectively. With Toggl, you can precisely track how much time you spend on specific tasks. This will help you avoid distractions and stay on track throughout your journey.

Reference Management

These apps and tools will help you keep your academic resources well organised and ensure that your citations and references are perfectly formatted, every time.

Mendeley – Your citations, sorted

Mendeley is your go-to reference management tool that simplifies academic writing by keeping your sources neatly organised. Perfect for dissertations and theses, it lets you easily store, search, and cite your resources directly in MS Word.

Zotero – Great for Google Docs

Zotero is a free-to-use reference manager that ensures your sources are well-organised and flawlessly cited. It helps you collect, organise, and cite your research sources seamlessly. A great alternative to Mendeley if you’re using Google Docs.

Endnote – A paid option

Yet another reference management option, Endnote is sometimes specifically required by universities. It efficiently organises and stores research materials, making citation and bibliography creation (largely) effortless.

Honourable Mentions

Now that we’ve covered the more “exciting” dissertation apps and tools, it’s worth quickly making one or two mundane but essential mentions before we wrap up.

You’ll need a reliable word processor.

In terms of word processors, Microsoft Word will likely be your go-to, but it’s not the only option. If you don’t have a license for Word, you can certainly consider using Google Docs, which is completely free. Zotero offers a direct integration with Google Docs, making it easy to manage your citations and references. If you want to go to the other extreme, you can consider LaTeX, a professional typesetting software often used in academic documents.

You’ll need cloud storage.

The number of times we’ve seen students lose hours, days or even 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. Go sign up for any of the following cloud services (most offer a free version) and save your work there:

• Google Drive
• iCloud Drive

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

Need a helping hand?

Key Takeaways: Dissertation & Thesis Apps

And there you have it – a hearty selection of apps, software and services that will undoubtedly make your life easier come dissertation time.

To recap, we’ve covered tools across a range of categories:

Remember, while these apps can help optimise your dissertation or thesis writing journey, you still need to put in the work . Be sure to carefully review your university’s rules and regulations regarding what apps and tools you can use – especially anything AI-related.

Have a suggestion? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Simply leave a comment below and we’ll consider adding your suggested app to the list.

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14 Comments

It seems some of the apps mentioned are not android capable. It would be nice if you mentioned items that everyone could use.

Thanks for the feedback, Gale!

Yet to explore some of your recommended apps. I am glad to commend on one app that I have started using, Mendeley. When it comes to referencing it really helps a lot.

Great to hear that, Maggie 🙂

I have got Mendeley and it is fantastic. I have equally downloaded Freemind but I am yet to really understand how to navigate through it.

Based on your YouTube lessons,my literature review and the entire research has been simplified and I am enjoying the flow now,more than ever before.

Thank you so much for your recommendations and guide.It’s working a great deal for me.

Remain blessed!

Thank you for all the amazing help and tutorials. I am in the dissertation research proposal stage having already defended the qualifying paper. I am going to implement some of your advice as I revise chapters 1 & 2 and expand chapter 3 for my research proposal. My question is about the writing– or specifically which software would you recommend. I know MS Word can get glitchy with larger documents. Do the “reference” apps you recommend work with other options such as LaTeX? I understand that for some programs the citations won’t be integrated or automated such as cite while you write etc.. I have a paid version of endnote, and free versions of mendeley and zotero. I have really only used endnote with any fidelity but I’m willing to adapt. What would you advise at this point?

Thanks for your comment and for the kind words – glad to hear that the info is useful.

Generally, Word works reasonably well for most research projects and is our first recommendation. As long as one keeps the document clean (i.e. doesn’t paste in loads of different styles, ultra high-res images, etc), it works fine. But I understand that it’s not perfect for absolutely huge projects.

Regarding referencing with Latex, this article covers how to use Mendeley with Latex – https://blog.mendeley.com/2011/10/25/howto-use-mendeley-to-create-citations-using-latex-and-bibtex/ . Perhaps it will be useful. I hesitate to tell you to adopt software X or Y, or to move from Endnote, as each software has its strengths and weaknesses, and performs better in certain contexts. I’m not familiar with your context, so it’s not possible for me to advise responsibly. Mendeley works well for the vast majority of our students, but if there’s a very specific bit of functionality that draws you to Endnote, then it may be best to stick with it. My generic advice would be to give Mendeley a try with some sample references and see if it has the functionality you need.

I hope this helps! Best of luck with your research 🙂

Thank you for your amazing articles and tips. I have MAC laptop, so would Zotero be as good as Mendeley? Thank you

Derek would you share with me your email please, I need to talk to you urgently.

I need a free Turnitin tool for checking plagiarism as for the tools above

I have been going crazy trying to keep my work polished and thesis or dissertation friendly. My mind said there had to be a better way to do literature reviews. Thank God for these applications. Look out world I am on my way.

Wow Thanks for this write-up i find it hard to track down extremely good guidance out there when it comes to this material appreciate for the publish site

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45 Software Tools for Writing Thesis

Boost Your Thesis Writing with Essential Software Tools

Writing a thesis is a significant milestone in any academic journey. It demands an immense amount of dedication, research, and organization. To streamline your thesis writing process and ensure a well-crafted and cohesive document, it’s crucial to equip yourself with the right software tools. In this article, iLovePhD will explore some of the most important software tools you need to effectively write your thesis. These tools encompass a range of areas, including research, writing, organization, and productivity. Let’s dive in!

Discover the must-have software tools for writing a successful thesis. Streamline your research and boost productivity today!

Master Your Thesis Writing with These Essential Software Tools

1. reference management software.

Comprehensive reference management software , such as Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote, is a must-have tool for any thesis writer. These tools help you organize and manage your references efficiently, generate citations in different formats, and create a bibliography effortlessly. They save time, eliminate the risk of citation errors, and facilitate the seamless integration of references into your thesis. Here is a list of the top ten reference management software tools:

Zotero is a free and open-source reference management tool that helps you collect, organize, and cite research sources. It has a user-friendly interface and offers features like web browser integration and collaboration options.

1.2 EndNote

EndNote is a popular reference management software used by researchers, students, and librarians. It allows you to store, organize, and format bibliographic references, and it offers a wide range of citation styles.

1.3 Mendeley

Mendeley is a reference manager and academic social network. It enables you to organize your references, collaborate with others, and discover new research articles. Mendeley offers both free and premium versions.

1.4 RefWorks

RefWorks is a web-based reference management tool that helps you store and organize your references. It offers features like citation formatting, collaboration options, and document sharing.

Citavi is a comprehensive reference management and knowledge organization tool. It allows you to manage references, create citations, and organize your research materials. Citavi is commonly used by students and researchers.

JabRef is an open-source reference manager that specializes in handling bibliographies in BibTeX format. It is cross-platform compatible and offers features like customizable citation styles and integration with LaTeX editors.

1.7 ReadCube Papers

ReadCube Papers is a reference management tool that focuses on enhancing the reading experience of research papers. It offers features like PDF annotation, article discovery, and cloud-based reference syncing.

1.8 Paperpile

Paperpile is a reference manager designed specifically for Google Docs and Google Scholar. It provides seamless integration with Google services and offers features like citation formatting and collaboration tools.

Colwiz is a reference management, collaboration, and research discovery platform. It allows you to organize your references, collaborate with colleagues, and discover new research articles.

Qiqqa is a reference management software that offers features like PDF management, annotation tools, and citation generation. It also includes advanced features like full-text search and note-taking capabilities.

These are just a few of the popular reference management software tools available. Each tool has its own unique features and capabilities, so it’s worth exploring them further to find the one that best suits your needs.

2. Word Processing Software:

While this might seem obvious, using powerful word-processing software is essential. Microsoft Word and Google Docs are popular choices due to their robust features and compatibility. These tools provide a professional writing environment, including features like spell check, grammar correction, formatting options, and word count tracking. Additionally, they offer collaborative features, making it easier to seek feedback from advisors or peers. Here are the top five word-processing software tools:

2.1 Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular and widely used word-processing software tools. It offers a comprehensive range of features for creating, editing, and formatting documents. It includes a user-friendly interface, collaboration tools, templates, and advanced formatting options.

2.2 Google Docs

Google Docs is a web-based word-processing tool offered by Google. It allows users to create and edit documents online, collaborate in real-time, and easily share documents with others. Google Docs also provides cloud storage, offline access, and seamless integration with other Google services.

2.3 Apple Pages

Pages is the word processing software included in Apple’s iWork suite. It is designed specifically for macOS and iOS devices and offers a clean and intuitive interface. Apple Pages provide a variety of templates, advanced typography tools, collaboration features, and seamless integration with other Apple products.

2.3 LibreOffice Writer

LibreOffice Writer is a free and open-source word processing software that is part of the larger LibreOffice suite. It offers a range of features comparable to Microsoft Word, including extensive formatting options, styles, templates, and compatibility with various document formats.

2.4 WPS Office Writer

WPS Office Writer is a popular word-processing tool that provides a free alternative to Microsoft Word. It offers a familiar interface, supports a wide range of file formats, and includes features such as document collaboration, templates, and extensive formatting options.

Please note that the popularity and preference for word processing software can vary depending on individual needs and preferences.

3. Research Databases and Search Engines:

Conducting thorough research is a cornerstone of thesis writing. Access to reliable research databases , such as PubMed, JSTOR, or IEEE Xplore, is vital. These platforms provide access to a vast array of scholarly articles, journals, books, and conference papers. Additionally, search engines like Google Scholar and Scopus can help you discover relevant literature and enhance your research capabilities. Here are the top five research databases and search engine tools commonly used:

PubMed is a widely used research database in the field of medicine and life sciences. It provides access to a vast collection of biomedical literature, including articles from scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings.

3.2 Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a freely accessible search engine that indexes scholarly literature across various disciplines. It includes articles, theses, books, conference papers, and more. It provides a convenient way to search for academic resources from multiple sources.

3.3 IEEE Xplore

IEEE Xplore is a digital library that focuses on electrical engineering, computer science, and related disciplines. It provides access to a vast collection of technical documents, including journal articles, conference papers, standards, and ebooks.

3.4 ScienceDirec t

ScienceDirect is a leading full-text scientific database offering access to a wide range of scholarly literature in various fields. It covers subjects such as physical sciences, engineering, life sciences, health sciences, and social sciences. ScienceDirect includes journals, books, and conference proceedings.

JSTOR is a digital library that provides access to a vast collection of academic journals, books, and primary sources across multiple disciplines. It covers subjects such as arts, humanities, social sciences, and more. JSTOR is particularly useful for historical research and accessing older publications.

These tools offer comprehensive access to scholarly literature and can be valuable resources for researchers, academics, and students. However, depending on your specific field or research area, there may be other specialized databases and search engines that are more relevant to your needs.

4. Note-Taking Tools

Keeping track of ideas, concepts, and findings is crucial during the research process. Note-taking tools like Evernote, OneNote, or Notion can be immensely helpful. These tools allow you to create and organize digital notes, attach files, insert images, and even collaborate with others. The ability to access your notes across different devices ensures seamless integration with your thesis writing workflow. Here are the top five note-taking tools commonly used in research:

4.1 Microsoft OneNote

OneNote is a versatile note-taking tool that allows you to create and organize notes in a free-form manner. It offers features such as text formatting, audio and video recording, image embedding, and cross-platform synchronization.

4.2 Evernote

Evernote is a popular note-taking tool that enables users to capture, organize, and search their notes across multiple devices. It offers features like text formatting, web clipping, file attachments, and collaboration options.

Zotero is a powerful research tool specifically designed for academic and research purposes. It allows you to collect, organize, cite, and share research materials such as articles, books, web pages, and more. It also integrates with word processors for easy citation management.

Notion is an all-in-one productivity tool that can be used for note-taking, task management, project planning, and more. It provides a flexible and customizable workspace where you can create and organize notes using a combination of text, tables, lists, media, and more.

4.5 Google Keep

Google Keep is a simple and lightweight note-taking tool that integrates well with other Google services. It offers basic note-taking features, including text, voice, and image notes, as well as checklists and reminders. It also syncs across devices and allows for easy collaboration.

These software tools provide various features and functionalities, so it’s worth exploring them to find the one that best fits your specific research needs and preferences.

5. Plagiarism Checkers

Maintaining academic integrity is of utmost importance when writing a thesis. Reference checkers like Grammarly and Turnitin can help ensure proper citation usage, prevent accidental plagiarism, and improve the overall quality of your writing. These tools provide detailed reports on potential issues and suggest corrections, thereby enhancing the credibility and originality of your work. There are several plagiarism checker tools available for researchers to ensure the originality of their work. Here is a list of ten popular plagiarism checker tools used in research :

5.1 Turnitin

Turnitin is one of the most widely used plagiarism detection tools, often integrated into educational institutions’ systems. It compares submitted work against a vast database of academic content, publications, and internet sources.

5.2 Grammarly

While primarily known as a grammar and writing assistance tool, Grammarly also offers a plagiarism checker feature. It scans the text for similarities against various online sources and provides a detailed report.

5.3 Copyscape

Copyscape is an online plagiarism checker used to detect copied content. It searches the web for matching content and provides a list of URLs where the content has been found.

5.4 Plagscan

Plagscan is a comprehensive plagiarism checker that compares documents against multiple sources, including academic journals, websites, and its extensive database. It offers a detailed report highlighting potential matches.

5.5 DupliChecker

DupliChecker is a free online plagiarism checker that scans the text against various online sources and offers a percentage of similarity along with highlighted matches.

5.6 Unicheck

Unicheck is a cloud-based plagiarism detection tool specifically designed for educational institutions. It compares submitted documents against a massive database to identify potential instances of plagiarism.

5.7 Quetext

Quetext is an AI-powered plagiarism checker that scans documents for similarities against an extensive database of academic content and web sources. It provides a detailed report with highlighted matches.

5.8 Plagiarism CheckerX

Plagiarism CheckerX is a software-based plagiarism detection tool that scans documents against online sources, academic databases, and publications. It offers an easy-to-understand report highlighting similarities.

5.9 WriteCheck

WriteCheck is a plagiarism checker developed by Turnitin. It allows users to submit their work and receive an originality report, indicating potential matches found in the database.

Viper is a free plagiarism checker that scans documents for similarities against online sources. It provides a detailed report and also offers additional features for academic users.

6. Project Management and Task Tracking software Tools:

Thesis writing involves managing numerous tasks, deadlines, and milestones. Employing project management and task tracking tools like Trello, Asana, or Todoist can greatly aid in staying organized. These tools enable you to create task lists, set deadlines, allocate priorities, and collaborate with others. Visualizing your progress and breaking down the writing process into smaller, manageable tasks boosts productivity and helps you meet your targets effectively. When it comes to project management and task tracking tools for thesis writing, there are several options available. Here are five popular ones:

Trello is a highly visual project management tool that allows you to organize tasks and projects on virtual boards. You can create lists, add cards for individual tasks, set due dates, and collaborate with others. Trello’s flexibility makes it suitable for organizing research materials, outlining chapters, and tracking progress.

Asana is a comprehensive project management tool that helps you track tasks, assign responsibilities, set deadlines, and communicate with your team. It provides features such as task dependencies, subtasks, and file attachments, making it useful for managing complex thesis projects with multiple contributors.

6.3 Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is a powerful project management software that offers robust features for planning, scheduling, and tracking projects. It allows you to create Gantt charts, set milestones, allocate resources, and monitor progress. While it may have a steeper learning curve compared to other tools, it offers extensive functionality for managing large-scale thesis projects.

6.4 Todoist

Todoist is a simple yet effective task-tracking tool that helps you create and manage to-do lists. It allows you to set due dates, prioritize tasks, and create recurring tasks. You can also collaborate with others by sharing tasks and adding comments. Todoist’s intuitive interface and cross-platform availability make it a popular choice for individual thesis writers.

6.5 Evernote

Although not strictly a project management tool, Evernote is a versatile note-taking application that can be invaluable for thesis writing. It allows you to capture and organize research notes, save web clippings, create to-do lists, and attach files. With its powerful search functionality and synchronization across devices, Evernote helps you stay organized and retrieve information quickly.

The choice of the tool ultimately depends on your specific needs and preferences. It’s a good idea to try out a few options and see which one aligns best with your workflow and project requirements.

7. Data Analysis and Visualization Tools:

For research involving data analysis, tools like SPSS, R, or Excel can be invaluable. These tools provide powerful statistical analysis capabilities, allowing you to draw meaningful insights from your data. Additionally, visualization tools like Tableau or Python’s Matplotlib can help present your findings in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand manner. There are several popular data analysis and visualization tools used in thesis writing. Here are the top five tools:

R is a widely used open-source programming language for statistical analysis and data visualization. It provides a vast number of packages and libraries specifically designed for data analysis. R allows you to perform various statistical tests, create visualizations, and generate reports, making it a popular choice among researchers.

Python is another powerful programming language commonly used for data analysis and visualization. It offers libraries like NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib, which provide efficient data manipulation, analysis, and plotting capabilities. Python’s versatility and ease of use make it a preferred choice for researchers in various domains.

7.3 Tableau

Tableau is a popular data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive and visually appealing charts, graphs, and dashboards. It provides a user-friendly interface for exploring and analyzing data from various sources. Tableau offers advanced features for storytelling and data presentation , making it suitable for thesis writing and research projects.

SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) is a software package widely used in social science research. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for data analysis, including descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and hypothesis testing. SPSS also offers data visualization capabilities to present research findings effectively.

Microsoft Excel is a widely available spreadsheet program that offers basic data analysis and visualization functionalities. It is often used for organizing and manipulating data, performing simple statistical calculations, and creating basic charts. While Excel may not be as powerful as specialized data analysis tools, it remains a popular choice due to its familiarity and ease of use.

These tools provide researchers with a range of options for data analysis and visualization, allowing them to choose the one that best suits their needs and preferences.

Conclusion:

Writing a thesis can be a challenging yet rewarding experience. By equipping yourself with the right tools, you can streamline your workflow, enhance your research capabilities, and produce a well-structured thesis. Remember, the tools mentioned in this article are meant to assist and optimize your writing process, but it’s crucial to adapt them to your specific needs and preferences. Embrace these tools, and let them empower you to create a compelling thesis that showcases your academic prowess. Happy writing!

Various Software Tools for Writing Thesis:

Writing Softwares for Thesis

Research Tools for Thesis Writing

Citation Management Tools for Thesis

Plagiarism Checkers for Thesis Writing

Grammar and Proofreading Tools for Thesis

Formatting Tools for Thesis Writing

Reference Management Tools for Thesis

Data Analysis Tools for Thesis Writing

Literature Review Tools for Thesis

Time Management Tools for Thesis

Collaboration Tools for Thesis Writing

Presentation Tools for Thesis Defense

Thesis Writing Templates and Samples

Tips and Techniques for Thesis Writing

Common Challenges in Thesis Writing

Thesis Writing Resources and Guides

FAQ on Tools for Writing Thesis

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7 Must-Have Thesis Writing Tools in 2021

Writing tools like Grammarly, Mendeley online, Thesaurus, BibMe, Evernote, Plagiarism checker, Hemingway Editor, Stay Focused and Dissertation authors have significant importance in thesis writing.  

Traditionally, writing a thesis for either PhD or dissertation was a tougher task, needing huge manual writing, Proofreading, correction, re-writing, and editing things manually. 

So, it was tedious, time-consuming and depressive and therefore no one wants to go for a doctorate. However, the recent scenario is totally different, now we have computers, mobile phones and a lot of apps. 

Things can be done at a fingertip, with one click and all done! Thanks to high-power computers and apps. “Useful” apps make tasks, work and everyday life easy for us. 

We now have apps for writing, proofreading, arranging documents, taking instant and important notes, doing citation & referencing and other stuff during your research. This article explains how a PhD student can utilize apps that are useful. I will also explain how you can use it. 

Features of Mendeley:

How to use mendeley , how to cite the work , features of evernote , how to use evernote , features of bibme are: , how to use bibme, how to use thesaurus , how to use dissertationauthers , features of grammarly: .

• How to use Grammarly? 

Features of Hemingway Editor: 

Wrapping up: , 7 must-have thesis writing tools in 2021, mendeley: .

Citing articles and enlisting references orderly isn’t an easy task; it’s time-consuming and tiresome. But what if a tool can do all this work seamlessly, effectively and precisely? Mendeley is that one tool you need.

Every PhD must have Mendeley- a reference manager tool. This app or web portal is exclusively designed to manage bibliography and citations therefore it must be there on every PhD students’ laptop. 

Four amazing features of Mendeley are, 

• You can store articles, PhD, journal reads on your Mendeley. 
• It automatically creates a reference format. 
• It can cite every bit of information seamlessly and precisely when integrated. 

Meaning just read the article from Mendeley, write your content in MS word and just do insert a citation. It automatically inserts the related citation and reference at the end of the page. 

Besides, several other features are, 

• It automatically generates a bibliography 
• You can import a pdf and research papers from other sources 
• You can find the relevant articles to what you are reading 
• You can collab with other researchers online 
• You can access all your article libraries from anywhere by logging in to your account. 

The Mendeley is developed by Elsevier Publication available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 

• Go to www.mendeley.com from your computer 
• Click on “create a free account”. 
• Enter your email address and continue your work. 
• Download the ‘Mendeley for desktop’ software 
• Start adding reading materials, pdfs and research articles or create your own library. 
• To use Mendeley for citation and referencing, first from your Mendeley app for tools and click on ‘Install MS word Plugin’. 
• Go to MS word>> referencing and insert citation using the Mendeley.

Now you are ready to use, write literature from the article and just click on insert citation and your work is ready. 

We are planning to write a whole article on the present topic, how to use it and how helpful it is, that article’s we will provide you later.

In summary, the very first software or app or tool every PhD student is required is Mendeley to write a thesis. It’s a citation and reference manager tool. 

 “Notes” as writing, images, pdf, article, news paragraph is an everyday part of a PhD student . Whatever you read, whenever you find things related to your PhD topic, you have to keep a note. 

And trust me keeping notes isn’t so easy. If you fail to make it up, you will forget it the next morning. Evernote- is a tool that keeps your notes from desktop, mobile or any other device and syncs them. 

• You can scan and save documents, label them, make important sentences underline and create pdf. 
• You can even save rich notes, save images, record audio, capture ideas. 
• You even can save entire or partial web pages. 
• You can mark, highlight, underline, and pinpoint every note you capture. 
•  And guess what you can excess it from anywhere. 

Go to www.evernote.com and click on sign in. 

Now click on ‘create account’ and create one using your email address. 

Or you can download the desktop apps. 

In summary, to keep notes seamlessly and organized, the Evernote tool is required. Moreover, users can create keyboard shortcuts, note links, anchor notes to remember and share notes. 

BibMe: 

BibMe- The online writing center is the tool or service developed by Chegg. It has many features to improve your academic writing and PhD work. 

One of the best features it has is it cites your work using different styles, even using their recent version of the style. 

• You can create accurate citations in multiple styles 
• Insert citation and references in your article or paper 
• Improve your writing by improving sentence structure, grammar and spelling 
• It can also detect plagiarism and can correct it. 

Go to www.bibme.org .

Click on ‘Create account’. Create your account using your email address and use their features. 

In summary, a BibMe app is an excellent tool, however, it isn’t available as a plugin for MS Word. You can use the free version or can use the paid version to explore more features. 

Thesaurus: 

Academic writing should be professional and precise, one needs to choose the correct word as per the sentence requirement. Using Thesaurus you can find synonyms of various words. 

Besides, You can find antonyms and choose acronyms and abbreviations. 

Go to www.thesaurus.com . 

Click on synonyms and type your word in the search box.  

In summary, Thesaurus makes your writing impressive when you use synonyms and transient words. 

Disserationauthors:  

Writing a research paper, review article or thesis is quite hard for a novice, you may feel helpless sometimes when your writeup is rejected multiple times. Even if you don’t understand what is wrong with your part. 

 If you feel so, don’t worry you can hire writers, experts or writing assistance who helps you. Dissertationauthors hire expert writers for you basically from the USA and UK. 

• Go to www.dissertationauthors.com . 
• Fill the order form 
• Pay for your write up or paper 
• Reach your personal writer 
• Download your completed work

In summary, students have to write their own stuff, however, if your writing isn’t of that level you can use this service. 

Grammarly: 

Grammar, spelling and synonyms are common problems every research student faces, specifically those who aren’t from a pure English background. Imagine, what if some software or tool can do all stuff automatically!

Grammarly is exactly that one tool. They have free and paid plans available, however, the free version is enough for most students. 

It has many services in which the Google chrome “add on” extension is the best. When activated it automatically detects and corrects English problems to all documents. 

Related article: Grammarly: Your PhD writing assistant

• Correct spelling and Grammer 
• Correct wordy sentences 
• Suggest punctuations 
• Structurize the sentence 
• Check plagiarism 
• Adds more transient words and synonyms 
• And a lot more… 

Read more: How to Check Plagiarism for PhD Thesis?- Top 10 Plagiarism Checkers

How to use Grammarly?  

• Go to www.grammarly.com  
• Sign in or sign up for your account. 
• Go to the Google chrome extension search for Grammarly. 
• Add Grammarly to your chrome extension. 
• Do a quick setting as per your requirement. 

In summary, Grammarly is the one tool or software that must be present on every PhD fellow’s laptop. Its technology is based on AI, meaning as you write more, it understands your style more and suggests accordingly. 

Moreover, it also mails you your performances, common problems and how you can improve.  

Hemingway Editor 

This software is somehow similar to Grammarly, however, it has something unique in it. It’s an online editor you can use to quickly edit your article. It finds common errors, sentence structure, and grammatical mistakes. 

It corrects it precisely. Several common features are enlisted here, 

• Highlight lengthy and complex sentences, and corrections 
• Finds common writing errors 
• Finds active or passive voices. 
• It denotes each error with a different color quote. 
• It can also add headings, count the number of words and other things. 

In summary, It’s not that impressive software for the students but can help especially to correct complex sentences. It is useful for bloggers. 

Apps and Softwares make your everyday life easy and when you are in PhD, it becomes so important to make things easy. You should visit and use all this Softwares and its tools. 

However, as per my opinion research candidates should have at least Grammarly, Mendeley and Evernote. These three are enough to do a lot of work. 

Use Mendeley for citation, bibliography generation and other PhD stuff, Grammarly for writing assistance and Evernote for keeping notes and important things. 

Dr. Tushar Chauhan is a Scientist, Blogger and Scientific-writer. He has completed PhD in Genetics. Dr. Chauhan is a PhD coach and tutor.

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Best Tools For Thesis Writing: Dissertation and Academic Writing Tools

In the quest to master the art of thesis writing, selecting the right tools is crucial. This comprehensive guide introduces the best tools available for thesis writing, each tailored to enhance different aspects of the writing process.

From advanced language proofing to efficient reference management, these tools are designed to streamline your workflow, ensure academic integrity, and elevate the quality of your thesis. Discover how each tool can transform your thesis writing experience, making it more efficient and effective. 

Best Tools For Thesis Writing

Grammarly – language proof your thesis.

Grammarly is not just a grammar checker; it also cater to various aspects of academic writing, from ensuring the originality of content to assisting with the intricacies of formatting and citation.

Grammarly integrates with word processing software like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. It facilitates real-time editing and proofreading, allowing students to refine their thesis statements and arguments as they write. 

The tool’s compatibility with online sources is a boon for literature reviews, streamlining the process of integrating various studies and reports into a cohesive narrative.

It works with many reference management software, ensuring that all bibliographical entries are error-free and consistently formatted. These includes: 

One of the lesser-known features of Grammarly is its ability to suggest rephrases for overused or unclear phrases, a common issue in lengthy academic pieces like dissertations or theses. This aids immensely in maintaining a clear and engaging narrative throughout the writing process.

Additionally, for students working with LaTeX for technical writing or complex document formatting, Grammarly’s ability to check the clarity and readability of text, when used in conjunction with a LaTeX editor, is invaluable.

Grammarly’s free version is robust enough to handle the basics of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. However, for a more in-depth analysis like vocabulary enhancement and advanced grammar checks, the premium version steps in.

Turnitin – Remove Plagiarism From Your Academic Writing

Turnitin is far more than just a plagiarism checker; Turnitin offers a suite of features that profoundly enhance the writing and research process.

One of Turnitin’s standout features is its ability to compare submitted work against an extensive database of academic papers, offering peace of mind to those concerned about inadvertent plagiarism in their dissertation writing.

This comparison includes a thorough check against online sources, making it a robust tool for literature reviews.

Turnitin’s integrates with word processing software like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. This way, you get real-time plagiarism detection, ensuring that all citations and references are accurately credited, a crucial aspect in academic integrity.

The software is also invaluable in managing the format and citation style of a thesis.

Whether it’s APA, MLA, or Chicago style, Turnitin helps ensure that your bibliography and in-text citations are correctly structured, thus avoiding common errors in academic writing.

Additionally, Turnitin’s feedback and grading tools are a boon for educators and students. They allow for detailed comments and suggestions, which can be crucial in refining a thesis statement or rephrasing sections for clarity and impact.

This feature is particularly beneficial in the revision phase of thesis writing.

Suppose you use reference management software like:

In this case, Turnitin’s compatibility ensures a seamless integration, making the management of bibliographies and citations more efficient.

This integration is especially helpful in disciplines requiring extensive reference management, such as in technical writing or legal studies.

Microsoft Word – Base For Your Thesis Writing 

Microsoft Word, offers a plethora of features tailored for the rigorous demands of thesis writing and dissertation crafting. It’s more than just a word processor; it’s a comprehensive tool designed to streamline the writing process for students and researchers.

Microsoft Word’s template feature can be a game-changer for academic writing. You can set up a standard format for your thesis, including predefined styled for:

• Subheadings, and

This not only saves time but also helps in maintaining a professional look required for academic submissions.

One of the lesser-known yet incredibly handy features is the ability to create and manage citations and bibliographies.

Compatible with reference management software like Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote, Word simplifies the process of citation, crucial in avoiding plagiarism and ensuring proper acknowledgment of sources.

For those dealing with extensive research papers, Word’s navigation pane is a boon. It allows easy mapping and reorganization of sections, crucial in maintaining a coherent structure in your thesis. 

Word’s Review feature is invaluable for collaborative writing. It allows for tracking changes, inserting comments, and even comparing different versions of a document. This is particularly useful when multiple revisions are involved in the thesis writing process.

Freemind – Outline Your Dissertation

FreeMind, a mind mapping software, is an innovative tool that’s increasingly being utilized in the realm of academic writing, particularly for thesis and dissertation preparation.

This free, open-source software offers a dynamic way to organise:

• Research, and

At the heart of FreeMind’s utility is its ability to help students and researchers create visual outlines for their academic projects. This is particularly advantageous during the initial stages of thesis writing, where organizing a vast amount of information and ideas can be overwhelming.

FreeMind allows users to create nodes for each main idea or chapter of their thesis, to which they can add sub-nodes for more detailed points or references. This hierarchical structure makes it easier to map out the entire thesis, providing a clear overview of the project.

For graduate students embarking on extensive literature reviews, FreeMind can serve as a tool to categorize and link various sources and theories.

This not only aids in avoiding plagiarism by keeping track of citations but also helps in synthesising information from different sources cohesively.

Additionally, FreeMind’s compatibility with various word processing tools, like Microsoft Word and LaTeX, ensures that the transition from mind mapping to actual writing is seamless.

Its ability to export maps in multiple formats allows for easy integration into other software used in the writing process.

FreeMind’s real-time collaboration feature is a boon for those working on joint research papers or dissertations, facilitating brainstorming and idea-sharing among team members.

This feature, along with its intuitive interface, makes FreeMind a valuable asset in the toolkit of academic writing tools, enhancing both the efficiency and quality of academic writing projects.

ChatGPT – Best AI Writing Assistant

ChatGPT is based on advanced AI technology, and can be used to assist in various aspects of academic writing. This makes it a valuable asset for students and researchers.

In the context of thesis writing, ChatGPT can be utilized for brainstorming ideas, generating outlines, and even providing suggestions for thesis statements.

Its ability to process and generate text based on user prompts makes it an excellent tool for drafting initial versions of academic documents.

For those engaged in the laborious process of writing a dissertation, ChatGPT offers real-time assistance in:

• Rephrasing sentences,
• Enhancing clarity, and
• Suggesting alternative ways to present complex ideas.

For researchers conducting literature reviews, ChatGPT can help summarize articles, providing quick insights into their content. This is particularly useful when dealing with a large volume of literature.

However, it’s important to note that while ChatGPT is a powerful tool, it should be used to complement traditional research methods, ensuring accuracy and credibility in academic work.

ChatGPT’s versatility extends to its compatibility with various software tools used in academic writing, such as Microsoft Word, LaTeX, and softwares like Mendeley, Zotero, and EndNote. This compatibility streamlines the writing process, from initial research to the final draft.

Canva – Software Tools For Graphics

Canva, primarily known for its graphic design capabilities, is increasingly finding its way into the realm of academic writing, particularly in the visual presentation of complex data and information.

This tool, with its user-friendly interface, offers a fresh approach to creating visually appealing elements for theses, dissertations, and research papers.

In the process of thesis writing, Canva can be used to design compelling graphics, such as infographics and charts, which are essential in representing data in a more digestible format.

This is especially beneficial in fields where visual data presentation can significantly enhance the understanding of complex topics.

Canva’s vast library of templates and design elements allows for the creation of professional-looking graphics without the need for advanced design skills.

For graduate students working on dissertations, Canva provides an array of options to create layouts for posters or presentations, often required for thesis defenses or academic conferences.

The tool’s drag-and-drop feature simplifies the process of designing these materials, making it accessible even for those with limited graphic design experience.

For those concerned about plagiarism and citation, Canva can aid in creating original graphics, ensuring that your academic work remains unique and authentic.

While it doesn’t replace traditional writing software, Canva complements them by adding a visual dimension to academic writing, enhancing the overall impact and readability of scholarly work.

Zotero – Citation Tools For Writing

Zotero has become a cornerstone tool for academic writing, especially in the fields of thesis and dissertation writing.

As a comprehensive tool designed for students, researchers, and academic writers, Zotero simplifies the process of managing research materials, such as: 

• Organizing, and

One of the standout features of Zotero is its ability to seamlessly integrate with browsers. This allows users to easily add sources from the web to their Zotero library with just a click.

For thesis writers who rely heavily on online sources for their literature review, this feature is a significant time-saver.

Zotero’s ability to automatically extract citation information and store it in an organized library simplifies the management of research sources.

Zotero offers robust support for various citation formats. Whether it’s:

• Chicago, or

Zotero can generate bibliographies and in-text citations in the chosen format, directly integrating with word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs. This integration is particularly beneficial for maintaining consistency in citations throughout a lengthy academic document.

Furthermore, Zotero stands out for its collaboration features. It allows users to share libraries with others, making it a useful tool for co-authored research papers or group projects.

The real-time syncing feature ensures that all members of a research group have access to the latest resources and references.

Zotero’s compatibility with PDF management tools and its ability to index the content of PDFs for easy searching adds another layer of efficiency. For graduate students and thesis writers, this means quick retrieval of information from a vast collection of saved research papers.

Wrapping Up: Best Academic Writing Apps And Tools

In conclusion, the journey of thesis writing is made significantly smoother with the aid of these versatile tools. From Grammarly’s meticulous language polishing to Zotero’s efficient citation management, each tool offers unique capabilities to enhance your academic writing.

By integrating these resources into your workflow, you can focus more on the content and quality of your thesis, ensuring a well-crafted, professionally presented final document. Embrace these tools to unlock your full potential in academic writing and research.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

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Top 11 Dissertation Writing Software For Students 2024

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Dissertation Writing Software: Your Research, Streamlined.

Writing a dissertation or thesis plays an important role in one's academic career. However, it is also a rigorous task that students often struggle with. Writing a thesis requires a lot of research, dedication, and organisation which needs to compile a lot of information together. To create a well-crafted and cohesive dissertation, it’s important to equip yourself with the right tools that will make the writing process easy for you. Well, here’s the good news for you: there are many dissertation writing software available that will help you up your game & increase your chances of producing a top-quality thesis. In this blog, we will be covering some of the top thesis-writing software that will help you write a dissertation that will stand out. 

Top 11 Dissertation & Thesis Writing Software 

To write an effective thesis, one needs to do extensive research and consider many factors that will help one’s dissertation stand out. We are covering some of the best dissertation writing software that will help you stay organised and write an effective dissertation. These tools will help you with meticulous research and planning. Without further ado, let’s check out some of the amazing dissertation writing software. 

Top Feature: Organize and Label Items

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, iPadOS, Android (beta)

Rating: 9.1/10

Review: Excellent Open Source Citation Software with Multiple Integration Plug-ins Available

The first one on our list of dissertation writing software is Zotero, which helps you organize and label items. Zotero is a reference management software that helps in managing bibliographic data and research-related materials. This is one such dissertation writing software that will make your research task easy and organize & label items. The user-friendly interface and additional features such as web browser integration and collaboration options. 

Top Feature: Translation

Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux/Unix

Rating: 4.7/5

Review: Latex is very helpful for preparing the documents. It has high-quality typesetting system.

Another of the best dissertation writing software is the open-source document preparation system that was exclusively developed for scholarly and technical writing. This software is known for its highly customizable and powerful typesetting system. Students can take the utmost advantage of this software when writing a dissertation or thesis using its strong reference manager, BibTex. 

Top Feature: Mind Mapping

Platform: Windows, MacOS, Linux

Rating: 8.2/10

Review: A unique approach for organizing literature, focusing on your annotations instead of documents. It allows you to find the information you are looking for much faster.

While writing a dissertation, students often face a blocker in keeping multiple documents organized and sorted. Docear’s single-section user interface lets you sort documents and annotations. It contains a variety of tools, including PDF management and mind mapping, which allow its users to connect with new literature related to their area of research.  

4. Otter.ai

Top Feature: Custom Vocabulary, Playback Control

Platform: iOS or Android app

Rating: 4.5/5

Review: Great alternative to manual transcription services as it is faster and easier to access.

Another one of the best dissertation writing software is Otter, which develops speech-to-text transcription. Otter, developed by Otter.ai, was founded in 2016 by Sam Liang and Yun Fu who has a history of working in artificial intelligence. Otter does the hours of work with just a click; instead of writing for long hours and spending most of your time on the keyboard, you just have to speak, and Otter will do the rest of the work for you. This simple yet powerful app converts the audio into text format and ta da you on your way to writing the best dissertation. 

5. SpellCheckPlus

Top Feature: Spelling, Grammar, and Vocabulary Checks.

Platform: Web App

Rating: 4.1/5

Review: Grammar checker that finds common spelling errors and grammatical mistakes in English.

While writing such a long thesis or dissertation, mistakes are bound to happen well, what if we tell you that there is a tool that will not only edit but will give you suggestions to make your writing better? Isn’t it great? SpellCheckPlus is one of the best dissertation writing software that gives a summary of the suggestions that can make your writing better. It has a free version that gives you suggestions based on the content, whereas you can opt for an upgraded “pro” option, which includes additional features. 

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Top Feature: Bibliography & Citation Maker

Platform: Windows, MacOS

Rating: 2.6/5

Review: This is a great plagiarism checker at a good price.

A dissertation or thesis is incomplete without bibliographies; however, it takes a lot of time to manually find and write them. With BibMe in frame, this has become easy. The fully automated system generates citations and cited pages for you with just one click. All you have to do is select the format of your choice—APA, MLA, or Chicago/Turabian—and choose from a database that provides a wide range of options. Click “add” and download the bibliography of your choice. 

Top Feature: Different Controls & No Annoying Installation

Platform: Google Drive

Rating: 4.2/5

Review: Easy to use, lots of different controls, and no annoying installation.

With so many thoughts and ideas to make one's thesis better, it becomes too difficult to keep track of it becomes overwhelming. With Mindmup in the picture, you can easily connect the dots and your ideas and create an amazing thesis. Mindmup is one of the best dissertation writing software that works as online mind-mapping that makes it easy for students to put down their thoughts into action. MindMup is also a terrific collaborative tool.

8. iA Writer

Top Feature: Focus Mode, Content Blocks

Platform: Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android

Rating: 4.4/5   

Review: A pleasing minimalist tool for short-form writers, content creators, and bloggers.

Received recognition from The Guardian and The New York Times, iA Writer is one of the best dissertation writing software. It allows students to focus more by providing them with a writing-conducive environment. It has some of the best features, like focus mode, version control, cloud support, and insightful metrics. With broader clarity as to what it needs to rectify, it keeps the focus on the text and focuses on improving the content. 

9. Grammarly Premium

Top Feature: Tone Adjustments; Plagiarism Detection

Platform: Windows, iOS

Rating: 4/5

Review: Yes, the premium version of Grammarly is worth every penny.

Another one of the best dissertation writing software is Grammarly Premium, which can make your dissertation better with its amazing features. Grammarly Premium proofreads your content and gives you suggestions based on the analysis. It also has a handy feature of plagiarism check that will help you in making your thesis better. Another good feature is it easily integrates with Word, Google Docs and Chrome and gives you instant suggestions for rectification.

10. RefWorks

Top Feature: Stores and Organizes all forms of information

Rating: 4.3/5

Review: It is a useful program for managing citations and has helpful features for organisation.

RefWorks is a web-based reference management tool that helps you organize and store your references. It has amazing features like citation formatting, collaboration options, and document sharing. RefWorks is one of the best dissertation writing software that will help you keep your references handy and well-organized. 

Top Feature: Text Editor

Platform: Safari, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge

Rating: 4.8/5

Review: Notion is a good note-taking app for collaborating and is packed with features.

Writing a thesis or dissertation requires extensive planning and research. This leads to organizing and keeping things on track, which, if not handled properly, can lead to confusion. Notion allows you to organise your ideas and provides a flexible and customizable workspace. You can use a combination of text, tables, lists, media, and more. The notion also allows you to color-code text to keep the content highlighted. 

Writing a thesis requires a lot of research, which can often make it difficult for students to keep their research material organized. This dissertation writing software will let you organize and create an outstanding thesis or dissertation. These thesis writing software will make the process of writing dissertation easy for you and stand out.   

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best dissertation writing software, what are some of the features that notion offers, is there any dissertation writing software that can help with checking spelling or grammar, can i use ai to write my dissertation, which software is used for phd thesis.

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Top 11 Software Tools for Thesis Writing: Boost Your Research

Crafting a thesis may seem challenging, but employing suitable software tools transforms it into a more structured and approachable undertaking. Delve into these potent resources to simplify your research, elevate your writing, and excel in your academic pursuits. This post elaborates on several tools commonly utilized for academic thesis writing.

Citavi is a comprehensive reference management and knowledge organization tool. It allows you to manage references, create citations, and organize your research materials. Citavi is commonly used by students and researchers.

Docear is a unique solution to academic literature management, i.e., it helps you organizing, creating, and discovering academic literature. This unique literature management tool designed specifically for academics when it comes to discovering, organizing and ultimately creating academic literature. A recommender system that helps you to discover new literature: Docear recommends papers which are free, in full-text, instantly to download, and tailored to your information needs.

3. Paperpile

Paperpile is a software for reference management that is just like Zotero and works like an extension for the Google Chrome browser, making it accessible for Linux, Mac, and Windows users. We suggest that you use it to discover and import information from stage platforms such as PubMed, arXiv, and Google Chrome. You can undoubtedly trade all the PDF archives and information to Google Drive, which implies you will have the chance to edit your papers collaboratively. This collaboration will not end, as you can send data back and forth between P Zotero and Paperpile, such as Mendeley.

4. RefWorks

RefWorks is accurate; select from thousands of customizable citation styles to use within authoring tools. Generate bibliographies and citations in a snap with any authoring tool. Use our integrations to insert citations in Word and Google Docs. Leverage thousands of pre-built citation styles and request new styles. Customize citation styles or create your own from scratch with the citation style editor.

5. SpellCheckPlus

SpellCheckPlus applies the same concept to the writing process. Rather than simply correcting your mistakes, it summarizes them into distinct categories. SpellCheckPlus offers feedback that not only improves your current project but also your writing and grammar at large. In other words, SpellCheckPlus is no mere editing tool; rather, it’s a teaching tool. And as even the very best writers know, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to how you deliver your message.

MindMup acts as an online mind-mapping canvas, perfect for representing ideas and concepts visually. Capture ideas at the speed of thought using a mind map maker designed to help you focus on your ideas and remove all the distractions while mindmapping. MindMup is also a terrific collaborative tool.

7. iA Writer

iA Writer gives you the essence of pure writing by providing an unobtrusive interface that lets you concentrate on your text. Despite its minimalistic approach, the application offers a variety of distinctive features that are specifically designed for writing-focused tasks. With iA Writer, you can gain unparalleled insight into your writing structure, detect superfluous words and clichés, and navigate through your documents and notes with ease.

Elicit uses language models to extract data from and summarize research papers. As a new technology, language models sometimes make up inaccurate answers (called hallucinations). They reduce hallucinations and increase accuracy by: training our models on specific tasks; searching over academic papers; and making it easy to double-check answers. Elicit only shows you papers that actually exist and are part of the scientific literature.

9. Lucidchart

It is an online diagramming tool to create flowcharts, diagrams, and visuals. Lucidchart is an intelligent diagramming application that brings teams together to make better decisions and build the future. Lucidchart helps users sketch and share professional flowchart diagrams, providing designs for anything from brainstorming to project management.

10. Trinka AI

Trinka is an online grammar checker and language correction AI tool for academic and technical writing. Trinka finds difficult errors unique to academic writing that other grammar checker tools don’t. From advanced English grammar errors to scientific tone and style, Trinka checks it all! Trinka goes beyond professional grammar checks and enhances your writing for vocabulary, tone, syntax, and much more. Make your point confidently with Trinka.

11. WhiteSmoke

WhiteSmoke renders you with the highest quality proofreading abilities available, correcting not only simple spelling mistakes like old-fashioned word processors but everything from grammar, word choices, and even style mistakes, all without breaking a sweat.

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Baylor Graduate Writing Center

Helping Grad Students Become Better Writers

Five Essential Writing Apps & Software for Graduate Students

Software: Add-ons, Widgets for Office and Browsers

Website: https://www.grammarly.com

I would be remiss as a writing consultant if I didn’t start this list out with Grammarly (arguably the #1 writing software we recommend to all GWC clients). Grammarly is a communications assistance software that handles multiple levels of revision at once: spell-checks, punctuation, grammar, tone, level of formality, clarity, consistency, passive versus active voice, etc. You can also download add-ons that integrate Grammarly into your Microsoft Office applications and your browsers.

The free version is fantastic and will get you serious mileage on your writing projects for quite some time. However, I would strongly recommend paying for the Premium version once you’re in the final stages of writing and revising your master’s thesis or dissertation document. The paid version adds plagiarism checks, citation formatting, full sentence rewrites, and word choice suggestions: all invaluable tools for the overwhelmed, exhausted graduate student trying to limp across the finish line of their Final Tech Review.

Software & Application: iOS & Andriod, Mac and Windows Desktop

Website: https://www.notion.so

In high school, I can remember carrying around a massive three-ring binder filled with notes, handouts, and assignments for all seven class periods. By mid-year, I swore the binder weighed more than I did – I gave up toting it in my backpack, as its weight caused the straps to dig into my bony shoulders, and instead carried it in front of me like the tome from the Lost Ark. This was the only way I could stay organized, keep track of my calendar, and hold my notes all in one place.

You do not have to suffer this indignity, dear reader. Notion will do all of this FOR YOU.

Think of Notion as your three-ring binder. You can take notes, store pictures and videos, create calendar items, track deadlines, and more. As a graduate student, you are constantly being pulled in so many different directions. Why not give yourself a digital organization system that’s easily accessible and syncs across all of your devices?

Academic Phrasebook

Website: https://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: academic voice is not natural . One doesn’t launch into graduate coursework with the ability to “posit” and “synthesize” in APA with ease. The ability to discuss theoretical frameworks in relation to your research comes with time. And practice. So much practice. But… while you become more comfortable finding your own academic voice, the Academic Phrasebook is here to help you jumpstart your writing in the right direction.

This website is priceless for the early-career graduate student looking to polish and refine their academic prose. Created by Manchester University, this site provides formal academic terms, phrases, and sentence starters based on what area of your thesis, article, or dissertation you are working on.

How many times have you gone to a thesaurus to look up another word for “examine” or “investigate” because you feel like you’ve used it 60 times in your writing? This website can help you diversify your vocabulary and sound like a seasoned academic scholar.

Website: https://otter.ai

Otter.ai is a dictation software that allows you to convert audio or spoken words into text. In the fledgling stages of my research prospectus, I would often find inspiration when driving to and from work. I’d do my best to try and hold onto these moments of clarity until I got to my office to write them down. This rarely went well. I’d be left bereft of inspiration and cranky at my failing memory the rest of the day. If I had known about Otter.ai, I could have used it during my morning commutes to dictate my thoughts and save them on their cloud storage system for easy access later.

Otter.ai is also quite helpful when you find yourself stuck in a particularly difficult section of your writing. Using Otter.ai allows you to soundboard and record your ideas without the hinderance of word/page count paralysis or visual imposter syndrome getting in the way.

Calling all qualitative researchers! If you are conducting a qualitative student and plan to conduct several interviews with study participants to collect your data, Otter.ai can provide you with hands-free recordings and transcriptions of your conversations! However, be mindful that transcriptions will not be perfect and WILL need to be cleaned up later.

Dropbox / Google Drive / Apple / Skybox / OneDrive, etc.

Do not–I repeat–DO NOT save your documents on your laptop or computer and call it a day. I cannot tell you how many nightmares I’ve had as a graduate student that my computer crashed and I hadn’t saved the lasted version of my dissertation in my Google Drive. I literally woke my husband up screaming.

Get into the habit now of backing up all of your files onto a cloud storage system of some kind. I don’t care which one you choose. There are several now available, often for free or low monthly rates. Choose what works best for you and your devices.

I began using Dropbox in the beginning to catalogue copies and screenshots of research for my literature review. What I didn’t account for was running out of room. I had already used a large portion of my Dropbox space to store my digital music library of repertoire for studio teaching. This meant jumping ship mid-program to Google Drive, which provided larger storage capacities at a much lower cost. Google Drive also was the preferred cloud for many of my colleagues and professors, which meant it was easier to share and collaborate on research together.

Don’t use your personal data to get through your graduate studies. Upload and store to a cloud system and sleep easy knowing your work is secure!

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Thesis Apps: Best Applications & Software for Graduate Students

The process of writing a thesis requires a lot of time and patience. Custom-writing.org experts are willing to make this task easier for you. We’ve compiled a list of thesis writing apps and software. These tools will help you make plans and self-organize. There are also free apps to improve your productivity, help you carry out the research, boost your vocabulary, and check your work for mistakes.

With the thesis apps on this list, you won’t ever have to wonder how to write a dissertation because you’ll know the answer – it’s easy!

• 📑 Word Processors
• ⏰ Time Managers
• 🚀 Productivity Apps
• 🎓 Dictionaries
• 🔬 Research Tools
• 🔤 Grammar Checkers

1. 📑 Word Processors and Note-Taking Apps

This should be a no-brainer, but writing is one of the essential parts of creating a thesis. So it’s evident that you need to have the best thesis apps to deal with this task effectively.

Here are some apps that you might want to check out.

• Google docs . This is probably the first app that comes to mind when you think of alternative free word processors. It has all the functionality and capabilities you’ll need to write and format your thesis. It also allows users to work together on the same document in real-time. It’s available for Android, iOS, or as a web app.
• WPS Office . This multi-platform solution includes not only a word processor. It’s also a full-fledged office suite that allows you to create and work with spreadsheets, presentations, and PDF documents. What else could you need to create a perfect thesis?
• Office Online . This one is for those who want to get the most out of Microsoft Office for free. This one is as good as it can get — an online version of Office. Enough said.
• Jarte . This is a free word processor based on the WordPad engine. It has all the necessary functions and provides a comfortable way to work with text—and it’s free. This app also can export your documents to PDF and HTML files.
• Evernote , Google Keep , and OneNote . The reason why we put these three together? They’re all note-taking apps. Do we know that there are many other similar apps too? Yes, we do. But there’s a reason why these three are so popular. They all offer the same thing – a way to keep all your notes in one place. The difference between them is how it’s all organized, along with some extra features. All of these thesis writing apps are free, too.

2. ⏰ Time-Managing Thesis Apps

With all the steps you need to complete to write a good thesis, it’s not hard to get lost. You can quickly get stuck in one place without knowing what to do and end up making no progress at all.

Or you can use one of the dissertation apps in this category to build a plan and organize your workflow!

• Pocket . Pocket brings order to the chaos of posts and articles you want to read or use to write your thesis. You can easily save them all in one place and look through them later. Then you can decide whether or not you’ll need a particular piece of information.
• Todoist . This one is a free time manager (though it also has paid plans with extra features). With this app, you can set deadlines for each stage of your thesis creation process, and it will remind you of them beforehand. This app will help you stay on track of what plans are waiting for you next.
• Wunderlist . This to-do list app indeed does wonders. It lets you build short- and long-term plans and keep them all in order. You can set notifications to stay on track and always be sure that you’re performing according to your schedule, whether it’s a particular stage of your thesis writing or some other assignment.

3. 🚀 Thesis Apps to Improve Productivity

We all have days when things don’t work, and everything is a distraction. So how can you deal with this all-too-common problem?

There’s a good selection of productivity apps that can help you out. With one of these, you’ll finish writing your thesis in no time.

• Any.do . This one is a task manager that’ll help you stay on track of whatever your current tasks are. It will help you build a habit of reviewing your tasks and make sure that you know which assignments you need to pay the most attention to at the moment. With this app, you won’t miss deadlines or find yourself wondering what to do next.
• IFTTT . This tool allows you to create short automation sequences without any coding skills. It will remember every little thing that you tend to forget. On the one hand, you’ll get those things done; on the other—you won’t get distracted by those tasks and will be able to concentrate on what’s important right now. The app supports plenty of services and is easy to use.
• RescueTime . This app will track the time you spend completing tasks. It will also report all the websites you visit, the apps you use, and breaks you take during the day. By doing so, it helps you create greater self-awareness. As a result, you’ll immediately see whether something is going wrong and keeping you from following your plan.
• StayFocusd . This Chrome extension helps you stay focused on your current task (which, of course, explains its name). It will block all those distracting sites that tend to get in your way while you’re working. You can set a specific time for blocking or choosing a time limit for a certain time during the day.
• Write or Die . This one is a web-based tool. It is also available for iOS, with an Android version coming soon. The tool helps you eliminate writer’s block. Within the app, you can set a specific period and the word count you need to reach within this time. It also features stimuli and rewarding images.

4. 🎓 Vocabulary Boosters and Dictionaries

At this stage, dictionaries and vocabulary boosters come into play.

• Merriam-Webster Dictionary . This is one of the most well-known dictionaries out there. Apart from listing definitions and offering a thesaurus, it also features word games. These word games aim to increase your vocabulary, which will come in handy when writing a thesis. Apart from having a web-based version, there are also apps available for Android and iOS.
• Cambridge Dictionary . This is another famous dictionary listing almost every aspect and sphere imaginable. In long-term perspective, it’s even more useful than the best thesis statement generator , as it can potentially provide you with knowledge you’ll keep forever. All of the resources are available from the site, widget, or official mobile apps. A wide selection of available dictionaries and thesauruses will surely meet all of your writing needs.
• The Free Dictionary . There are many things to discover under this simple name. This web service provides dictionaries on a variety of topics. It also features a thesaurus, idioms, acronyms, a grammar book, and encyclopedia articles. What else can you ask for?

5. 🔬 Tools for Conducting Research

Another essential part of writing a thesis is research. Without properly researched sources and data , everything that’s written in your thesis will be highly questionable.

To avoid poorly supported arguments , and to be able to conduct outstanding research, consider using one of the following tools.

• Mendeley . Once you try this tool, you won’t believe that you ever researched without it. It will help you complete any type of research, come up with a topic for your paper, organize your literature review , make annotations, and manage your research materials. This multi-platform tool also allows syncing across all your devices.
• Mindmup , Bubbl.us . Both of these apps are great tools for mind mapping. They’ll help you get all of your thoughts and ideas in order. This organization will significantly help your research, as everything will be neatly organized and accessible. Both of these tools have free plans and web versions. They only differ with their extra features.
• WolframAlpha . This is a go-to source of expert knowledge on a wide variety of disciplines. This answer engine is also available on mobile platforms. Instead of just giving a list of documents or web pages that may or may not answer your question, it comes up with results from a curated knowledge base in response to your query.

6. 🔤 Grammar Checkers

Everyone makes mistakes. But it’s not a bad idea to make sure that there’s none in your thesis. The apps described below can help you with that.

• Hemingway Editor . This tool aims to improve your writing style and make it as straightforward as possible. It makes colored highlights to indicate long or very complicated sentences. As a result, you get a clean piece of content that’s understandable and easy to digest.
• Ginger . This multi-platform solution helps you find and correct all types of grammar mistakes. It also makes it easier to edit text, which improves your overall productivity, as you’ll spend less time correcting errors.
• Grammarly . This tool has gained so much popularity that it probably doesn’t even require an introduction. It finds and corrects mistakes that no word processor can spot. The tool has a browser extension, offline software, and a premium version with extra features.

Hopefully, you’ll get some thesis help by using these free tools. With these apps at your disposal, you’ll be able to craft a fantastic thesis easily.

Did we miss something? Are there any free thesis apps that you like to use that aren’t on this list? Tell us about them in the comments!

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I need pure thesis

Your personal research assistant

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research.

Available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and iOS

Just need to create a quick bibliography? Try ZoteroBib .

Meet Zotero.

Collect with a click..

Zotero automatically senses research as you browse the web. Need an article from JSTOR or a preprint from arXiv.org? A news story from the New York Times or a book from a library? Zotero has you covered, everywhere.

Organize your way.

Zotero helps you organize your research any way you want. You can sort items into collections and tag them with keywords. Or create saved searches that automatically fill with relevant materials as you work.

Cite in style.

Zotero instantly creates references and bibliographies for any text editor, and directly inside Word, LibreOffice, and Google Docs. With support for over 10,000 citation styles, you can format your work to match any style guide or publication.

Stay in sync.

Zotero can optionally synchronize your data across devices, keeping your files, notes, and bibliographic records seamlessly up to date. If you decide to sync, you can also always access your research from any web browser.

Collaborate freely.

Zotero lets you co-write a paper with a colleague, distribute course materials to students, or build a collaborative bibliography. You can share a Zotero library with as many people you like, at no cost.

Zotero is open source and developed by an independent, nonprofit organization that has no financial interest in your private information. With Zotero, you always stay in control of your own data.

Still not sure which program to use for your research? See why we think you should choose Zotero .

Ready to try Zotero?

Thesis Help: 95 Best Online Tools for Thesis Writing

Writing a thesis is like being sentenced to life and hard labor in libraries. Forget regular working hours or your natural right to sleep and rest. Only successful defense of your project will break you free.

• Word Processing and Taking Notes
• Knowledge Management
• Student Planners
• Bibliography Helpers
• Academic Research Tools
• Productivity Apps
• Vocabulary Builders
• Dictionaries
• Plagiarism Check
• Grammar and Style Check

The following free tools, however, provide a ray of hope. Draconian time management and supernatural self-organization can help you cope with your thesis faster. Optimize the process and enjoy the time you save.

📝 Word Processing and Taking Notes

Although you may be used to Microsoft Word, the following free alternatives can be of much help for thesis writing:

• LaTeX is a high-quality system equipped with special features for technical and scientific documentation. A great tool for thesis help due to its user-friendly interface and dozens of helpful features. For example, the tool automatically generates bibliographies and indexes.
• LyX is a free document processor that emphasizes the importance of document structure.
• Scrivener is a popular text-editing tool for Windows users. Use one of several templates to construct your document. There are also labeling options available during the working process.
• XMind is an easy-to-use text-editing and mind-mapping tool. Develop essay maps with this paper editor you can use on an iPhone or iPad for creating, editing, and storing your files.
• OpenOffice is free and intuitive editing software popular with students. Try this excellent writing tool you can easily use instead of Microsoft Word. It gives similar functions for typing, formatting, and revising.
• AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word and suitable for a wide range of academic tasks.
• Jarte is a free word processor that is based on Windows WordPad and fully compatible with Windows Word.
• Google Docs is Google’s awesome service that allows you to create, format, store, and share documents online.
• ThinkFree is a free Java-based word processor that is fully compatible with Word.

• Etherpad is an open source text editor that allows real-time collaborative editing online. You and your mentor can use this tool for online revision of your thesis.

🧠 Knowledge Management

Here’s the kicker:

While doing research for your dissertation, you will need to dig through an incredible amount of literature. Maybe even look at some free college essays examples.

To make your job easier without getting lost or wasting time, consider the following knowledge management tools — they are great for dissertation help.

• KeepNote is a particularly effective note-taking application that can help you use full-text search and store your findings and notes.
• TomBoy is a free and easy-to-use note-taking and mind-mapping application. When making an analysis of sources or gathering articles in one place, it’s easy to get lost in dozens of links. Tomboy allows you to store every link carefully and have access to them anytime from your desktop.
• TiddlyWiki is a knowledge management app with a number of helpful features of much help for your thesis.
• Mindnote is an effective mind-mapping tool that can help you organize your thoughts intuitively.
• Mendeley is a tool that allows you to create your own easily searchable library of your research findings and accessible from any device.
• VUE stands for Visual Understanding Environment. This tool can be used for structuring and sharing information.
• EyePlorer is a convenient tool for creating charts and mind maps online. You can just drag in your thesis statement’s keywords and get the results.
• Zotero is a valuable academic research and knowledge management tool that combines functionality of a citation maker and knowledge management.
• Endnote can help you find, save, and share the information you need. You can work on a document with your team, see the history of changes, and get your sources cited in one of 6,000 styles.
• Cam scanner is probably one of the easiest ways to save bibliographic information by simply “scanning” a resource with your phone or any other device.

⌚ Student Planners

In being preoccupied with your thesis, you may easily forget something. The following free tools will help you be better organized:

• Any do can synchronize your personal tasks and help you achieve maximum potential.
• Trello can help you see everything about your project in one place.
• Exam Countdown is a free and easy-to-use app to keep track of all your deadlines. Thesis development consists of many parts. Don’t miss any of them with this helpful and vivid tool.
• Wunderlist is a tool for ticking off all your personal and academic goals.
• Todoist is a free online task manager that will kindly remind you of approaching deadlines.
• Tomsplanner is an online chart to help you get things done.
• HabitRPG is a free productivity app that treats your life like an exciting game. Habitica is an RPG game that not only motivates you to start a thesis but also helps with everyday routines like cleaning your room or getting enough sleep.
• Todokyo is a simple way to create to-do lists online.
• Ta-da Lists will help you reach those amazing “ta-da” moments with all your daily and weekly tasks.

🙋 Bibliography Helpers

Collecting resources and formatting citations is important for your dissertation writing, but imagine letting free citation tools do that work for you! Make this academic dream come true with our past list of the top 25 free online best citation generators , or check out the following collection of free tools:

• BibDesk will help you edit and manage your bibliography. This tool can help you keep track of not only bibliographic information but also related links and files.
• BiblioExpress will help you find, manage, and edit bibliographic records.
• Docear is a free academic literature management suite that helps you discover, organize, and cite your resources.
• Recipes4Success is an open source bibliography maker that formats citations in MLA and APA. It works as a rewording generator—you fill in the fields, and the tool gives you a full sentence in one of the most popular citation styles.
• Ottobib is a free, easy, and fast bibliography maker that allows formatting citations using only ISBN. If you use ISBN for your referencing, you can save a lot of time.
• Citavi is a free reference management and knowledge organization tool that can help to not only create citations but also organize and highlight text.
• Cite This for Me is an open source and easy-to-use citation maker that is compatible with a wide range of citation styles.
• GoBiblio is a free online citation maker that generates citations in MLA and APA.

🔬 Academic Research Tools

One more thing you will appreciate is an academic full-text research environment free of commercial links:

• Google Scholar is the place to start your online research that will help you with your thesis.
• ContentMine is a tool that extracts scientific facts from around a billion academic resources.
• Data Elixir is a twice-monthly digest of the latest scientific discoveries.
• Labii is a template-based electronic notebook. Keep all your data organized into categories like protocols, results, samples, and so on.
• LazyScholar is a free Chrome or Mozilla extension that will do an automatic full-text search and create fast citations.
• Scientific Journal Finder can help you access the latest and most relevant resources in your field.
• Scizzle is a fast and easy way to discover new papers on a topic of your choice.
• MyScienceWork is a platform for making your research papers visible to anyone on the web or getting access to research of others.
• Sparrho is a collection of scientific channels and an easily navigated search engine. It contains more than 60 million scientific articles, and the best universities in the world use it.

Working with sources and doing research may be rather exhausting.

Here’s the deal:

You have to work on your performance and productivity.

🏃‍♀️ Productivity Apps

Another important routine change that can save hours and days of your life is blocking or minimizing distractions:

• TimeDoctor is an easy to use time-tracking app that will prevent you from distractions and increase your productivity.
• Online timer by TimeCamp is a free and simple solution for measuring your work time divided by separate tasks.

• Freedom can help you block the most distractions
• SelfControl is a Mac app that will help you avoid distracting websites. Just block social media or news feeds that interfere with your work.
• Write or Die is a web-based app designed to boost your productivity by reaching a target word count within a chosen time frame.
• Focus Time is a combination of an activity tracker and a Pomodoro timer.
• Rescue Time promises to help you block all distractions. Control the choice of blocked resources or use the default list.
• Leechblock NG is a Firefox add-on that can block time-wasting sites.
• StayFocusd politely questions if you shouldn’t be working and helps you achieve that.
• Write Monkey is software that can create a distraction-free interface for simply writing.
• Nirvana will help you prioritize your tasks and get the most important ones done on time.
• Tomato Timer is a minimalist timer that will help you work according to the well-known Pomodoro technique (working 25 minutes before taking a 5-minute break).

📖 Vocabulary Builders

By the time you finish your project, you can undoubtedly boast of having a rich and diverse academic vocabulary. You may want to boost your vocabulary even further with the following tools:

• IntensiveVocab is a free tool designed to help you improve your vocabulary, score higher on standardized tests, and thus improve your dissertation’s language.
• WhichWord is an iOS app designed to help you better understand the difference between frequently confused words.
• Just the Word is an online tool to help you better combine words in a sentence. You enter “just the word” into a search line and receive examples of how that word can be used and other students’ errors.
• Lexipedia is a tool that creates semantic differences for a word of your choice. This tool organizes the results in a mind map. It’s available in English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian.
• Wordnik is a free tool that will give you several definitions for a word of your choice.
• Wordhippo is an easy and quick way to find synonyms and antonyms for a certain word. You can also find rhymes, scrabble options, words with specific letters, and so on.
• SAT Vocab by MindSnacks is a free app that can help you learn SAT vocabulary and formulate more difficult sentences by simply playing games.
• Vocabulary Builder from Magoosh is a free app to quickly boost your vocabulary.
• Visual Vocab SAT is a free but effective app for building your vocabulary.

📚 Dictionaries

This collection of sources will make you thesis writing process easy and professional.

• Abbreviations is a huge directory of all abbreviations imaginable. It’s a vast library of acronyms and abbreviations in various fields like science, medicine, government, business, and more.
• Cambridge Dictionaries is a collection of free online English dictionaries and thesauruses including bilingual and semi-bilingual resources.
• Definitions is a multilingual dictionary that provides definitions from many reputable resources. It knows every word in many narrow fields like trees, dinosaurs, and ancient history.
• Macmillan Dictionary is an open source tool with activities and word lists to not only find the words you need but also learn them.
• Merriam Webster is a free dictionary with a variety of online quizzes and tests. It’s one of the most valuable online dictionaries.
• Thesaurus is an open source dictionary offering synonyms and definitions.
• Urban Dictionary is the go-to place for synonyms and definitions. This is the best place to search for slang words.
• Ozdic is a free online collocation dictionary. You can get a full analysis of a particular word you need to learn.
• YourDictionary provides simple definitions that anyone can understand.

✅ Plagiarism Check

• PlagScan will compare your documents with billions of others.
• Article Checker is a free online plagiarism-checking tool that can search for copies of your text on the web.
• Duplichecker is a free plagiarism detection tool restricted to 1,000 words per search.
• PlagiarismCheck.org generates plagiarism reports and offers an unlimited number of free attempts.
• Plagium is a free, quick search that helps you detect instances of occasional plagiarism in your paper.
• Dustball is a free plagiarism detection tool that will easily find plagiarized parts in your text.
• ThePensters is free plagiarism-checking software for students and beyond. It analyzes the percentage of plagiarized text from web pages. Also, with the help of this tool, you can create a bibliography by ISBN code.
• PlagTracker is a convenient online plagiarism detection tool.
• Plagiarisma is another free online plagiarism checker. It supports about 200 languages, and you can switch between Google and Bing search engines when checking your documents.
• Copyscape will help you scan your thesis for any copies on the web.

✍️ Grammar and Style Check

Grammar and style checking of large amounts of text can last forever if you do it manually. The following free tools will make a world of difference for you:

• Ginger is a quick and quality online grammar checker. This is a perfect tool to eliminate misspellings.
• Grammarly with its grammar, style, and plagiarism check is a must-have for students.
• AftertheDeadline is a spell, style, and grammar checker that promises intelligent editing.
• Spellchecker is a spell check solution with a 300-day free trial. Along with grammar mistakes, it shows misused words and syntax errors.
• Online Correction is a tool for detecting style, spelling, and grammar mistakes in writing.
• Spell Check Online is a website for quick spell check online.
• Paper Rater is a free tool that offers online proofreading and does not require download.
• Grammar Check.me is a way to check and correct style, grammar, and spelling of your text online.
• Language Tool is an open source tool for style and grammar check.

Would you like to add some tool to this list? Which free apps and websites help you with your thesis?

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I got 64 % similarity for my assignment. is it bad or good? if it’s bad please tell me how to fix it?

Thanks for these helpful Tools.

Thanks for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Wow good bro

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks for the feedback, Abderrahmane!

Hi, I would like to ask you about the thesis for Diploma

Hello! Sure, please do not hesitate to ask our experts ivypanda.com .

I’m glad, your message via Twitter brought me here and I really found your blog so helpful. Cheers!

Thank you for your kind words! 🙂

Wow right time, thanks for such a great article. Helpful.

Melik, I’m glad the article was helpful to you 🙂

If you are going for ‘fancy stuff’ you might mention markdown, rmarkdown/knitr etc. This will replace latex imho.

And if you mention Latex you should mention Overleaf (an online version and a way to learn it).

Overall though, a very interesting list. Do you rate/rank these tools?

Thank you for the feedback, David!

OUTSTANDING!!!

Thank you for putting this together.

Thank you very much, Michele 🙂

Thanks regarding furnishing this kind of well put together content.

Thanks for your feedback, Mandila! Glad you liked it!

That’s an apt answer to an interesting question.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope these tools are really helpful to you. Good luck!

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The Best Software for Writing Your Dissertation

It takes dedication, effort, and hard work for you to complete your dissertation. Most undergraduate coursework will take you a semester or two to finish. But, writing a dissertation will take you up to three years.

There are no shortcuts, but with dissertation writing help, you can always optimize the process and work smarter. In this digital era, you do not have to strain and overwork to get the best dissertation writing results. You can use dissertation apps and software when writing to help make your project easier.

What Is Writing Software?

The best dissertation writing software, how to choose a dissertation app or software, which software is best for writing research papers, dissertation writing tools or dissertation writing service.

Writing software is a set of instructions or programs that helps people to write. Such thesis writing software is mainly used in schools by teachers and students to help them write better. In addition, they help make writing easier and fast.

The reason you should embrace the software when writing your dissertation is because of the present tools and features that you need to design dissertation pages and write content. It is no wonder; people who use this software complete their projects within a short duration. But importantly, know the software that suits you.

There is no scarcity in dissertation writing software. It is possible to get confused and overwhelmed about the best app to use. But, all these apps are great as they help writers in different ways.

So, as a writer, you need to understand the software and how they work. That way, it will be easy for you to choose the best one to use for your project. Here are some of the dissertation writing software:

• Grammarly premium: The software will help you proofread your work to ensure that your spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and tone are on point.
• Dragon Anywhere: With this software, you do not have to type your project word by word, you can dictate your research, and it will convert the audio to text format.
• Off time: Phones are the biggest distractions when working, but this app will help you block out distractions from your phone so that you can focus on your project.
• Dropbox: You should not risk losing your project; save all your work on the cloud by using this software.
• ThesisRush: It’s an online dissertation website that you need for custom thesis writing help.

It is easy for you to get confused with all the available writing apps and software. Before you write a dissertation, you need to choose apps and software that you will use for your project. Here are pointers that will help in making the selection easier.

It is important to find out if the dissertation apps are adaptable to your operating system. For example, some apps will not work in the Android system while others are incompatible with the iOS system.

While some thesis writing software is free, there are those you will be required to pay so that you can use. Research before buying an app to ensure it does not fall short of integration and functionality. Besides, you also need to ensure that you can afford to pay for the app.

Check the software for academic writing to ensure that it offers you acceptable levels of safety. For example, ensure that it will not leak or compromise your dissertation.

Writing a dissertation is challenging and time-consuming, but with some help, you can reduce the time and effort you use in doing your research. The apps highlighted below will help you draft a fantastic thesis with ease.

Pages/MS-word/Google Docs

The pages/MS-word/Google Docs are standard word processing apps that can assist you with your writing. Each of these apps can handle your basic dissertation writing needs and are available to use no matter where you are. Besides, you can use them on any device today. The apps also have many plugins that you can use for added functionality.

It is possible to access the apps even if you are on a budget. Google docs are free, and if you are a Mac user, you get the Apple pages automatically. They are simple to use and will deliver standard service.

The app enables you to design a schedule that meets your needs while considering the objectives that you need to achieve. Dissertation writers need to stick to a timetable during the writing process. But, when designing a timetable, make sure that it is both practical and achievable.

You can also use this app to schedule your activities for the next six months or a year. The app is suitable for students writing a dissertation while still taking their classes. If you want to be orderly, you now know what to do.

The app enables you to fix images and pictures. It is also possible to edit the background and individual details on the document. When using this app, you can present your image using either a 2D or a 3D view, depending on what suits you.

During your dissertation writing process, you might need to design certain pages and illustrations. At times, the design might need attention to detail. If that is the case with your essay, consider using the Crocodoc app.

Dictionary.Com

It will help you find the meaning of words and different synonyms. The app will also define idioms and phrases which you were not aware of. During your dissertation writing process, you might come across words that might have you in doubt, and that’s where the app comes in handy.

Try some of the academic writing apps highlighted above for quality and quantity output. Good luck as you choose the best writing app. Ready to write a dissertation or seek some professional dissertation writing help? Talk to us for the best dissertation writing experience.

The list of dissertation writing software should help you find some good, reliable tools. Of course, not all of the programs listed above are free. However, you can save a lot of money by using some of these programs instead of using a dissertation writing service. The downside is that you need to do all the work when using the software. On the other hand, outsourcing some of the writing to an expert writer online is a lot easier. At the end of the day, what matters is that you get the job done. If the deadline is just around the corner, you definitely need a dissertation writing service. If you have enough time, use these tools to become more productive and keep yourself organized.

2 thoughts on “ The Best Software for Writing Your Dissertation ”

Would like information about your software

Good article. But I’m already under pressure. And soon it will be necessary to pass a thesis. I`m afraid that I`ll not put in terms. Who can tell a good and most importantly quick way to complete a dissertation?

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Thesis and Dissertation: Getting Started

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The resources in this section are designed to provide guidance for the first steps of the thesis or dissertation writing process. They offer tools to support the planning and managing of your project, including writing out your weekly schedule, outlining your goals, and organzing the various working elements of your project.

Weekly Goals Sheet (a.k.a. Life Map) [Word Doc]

This editable handout provides a place for you to fill in available time blocks on a weekly chart that will help you visualize the amount of time you have available to write. By using this chart, you will be able to work your writing goals into your schedule and put these goals into perspective with your day-to-day plans and responsibilities each week. This handout also contains a formula to help you determine the minimum number of pages you would need to write per day in order to complete your writing on time.

Setting a Production Schedule (Word Doc)

This editable handout can help you make sense of the various steps involved in the production of your thesis or dissertation and determine how long each step might take. A large part of this process involves (1) seeking out the most accurate and up-to-date information regarding specific document formatting requirements, (2) understanding research protocol limitations, (3) making note of deadlines, and (4) understanding your personal writing habits.

Creating a Roadmap (PDF)

Part of organizing your writing involves having a clear sense of how the different working parts relate to one another. Creating a roadmap for your dissertation early on can help you determine what the final document will include and how all the pieces are connected. This resource offers guidance on several approaches to creating a roadmap, including creating lists, maps, nut-shells, visuals, and different methods for outlining. It is important to remember that you can create more than one roadmap (or more than one type of roadmap) depending on how the different approaches discussed here meet your needs.

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Writing a dissertation in our high-tech age offers scholars aids and tools which they have never had before. From organizational, motivating, and word-building apps to dictionary, bibliography building and collaborative websites, free online resources can do just about everything except write the dissertation for you.

So, bring your creativity and knowledge and let these free research tools assist with every step of writing your dissertation from finding the right word to cleaning up a bibliography.

Docear, according to docear.org “helps you organizing, creating, and discovering academic literature.” With high ratings from academicians around the world, docear offers many features including the following:

• Single-Section User-Interface – An organizational tool which allows researchers to sort documents into related categories. This handy tool also allows for the sorting of annotations including comments and highlighted texts. Annotations of multiple documents can be viewed at one time across multiple categories.
• Literature Suite Concept – Docear combines several tools into one versatile application. The literature suite concept which Docear offers allows you to draft papers, assignments and theses directly in Docear as well as copy references directly into a draft.
• Recommender System – This system recommends new literature in your personal study. Based on information input, Docear tailors new literature to information and research requirements.

2. Google Scholar

Familiar to the google user and relatively easy to use, Google Scholar is one of the simpler, free tools available for researchers. Google Scholar allows users to locate books, articles, conference proceedings and other materials on a multitude of topics. Some helpful aspects of Google Scholar include:

• The ability to see articles related to your topic of study as well as how many times articles have been cited and by whom. Article citations are provided in a number of styles. Links to books and articles can be displayed.
• Articles and citations can be saved for future use.

Although Google Scholar is a helpful resource, results are not always limited to peer reviewed articles and texts. Results for scholarly writing are left for the user/researcher to evaluate.

A bibliography resource, bibme is an online tool designed specifically for bibliographies. A free tool, bibme allows researchers to search a database of entries to find sources cited and autofill information. Manual entries allow students the ability to use physical sources as well. Other aspects of bibme include:

• “Citation Guide” to assist in citing work properly
• Instruction in MLA, APA and Chicago formatting
• A free account in order to save bibliographies

Bibme also checks papers for grammar, unintentional plagiarism, sentence structure, style and punctuation.

4. Scrivener

Although Scrivener is not technically free, the program does offer a free trial and it is also relatively cheap at only $19.99 as a one-time fee for each feature. Scrivener is specifically designed to help students, writers and novelists to find assistance in proofreading. Features of Scrivener include:

• Enabling of multiple people to add annotations, comments and insert images etc. into one document
• Allows businesses to set targets for words or characters
• Color-coded labels on specific functions
• Progress-tracking on revisions

Scrivener is highly rated by a number of computer systems and companies. It is also highly rated and regarded by scholars and students. With an editor which is similar to a word processor, users find it familiar and easy to use. Other features, such as a “corkboard” at which to post, compare and contrast notes, formatting which can be preset, the ability to easily import other documents and many other features make Scrivener one of the best writing assistant programs available.

5. Etherpad

According to etherpad.org, “etherpad is a highly customizable open source online editor providing collaborative editing in really real-time.” Collaboration is one of the strong points of etherpad, allowing friends and colleagues to write on the same document simultaneously. Plugins allow users to customize etherpad to suit individual preferences and needs. Etherpad is highly rated for:

• Providing access to data through well-documented API
• Support for import/export to data exchange formats
• Simplicity and usability
• Time slider – enables all participants to keep track of changes within a pad throughout a period of time.

Etherpad’s collaborative capabilities are functional through its powerful “pad” feature. The pad, once set up, generates a URL link which can be shared with others. According to etherpad.org, any publicly available server from around the world can be used to install Etherpad.

6. Cambridge Dictionary

Gone are the days of bulky dictionaries on the desk, let alone stacks of language dictionaries, a thesaurus and grammar aids. The online Cambridge dictionary combines all of these on one website along with a whole lot more. Features of the Cambridge dictionary online include:

• Database of over 2 billion words
• Real-life examples showing how grammar is used
• Clear explanations for over 500 topics
• Spelling, punctuation and word formation information
• Advice on how to use conversational English
• Translation from and to English from and to numerous other languages

Dictionary definitions in the Cambridge Dictionary include definitions and explanations in English, a Learner’s Dictionary, Essential British English and Essential American English. Dictionary Plus also includes free community word lists as well as grammar and image quizzes which also generate personalized word lists.

Far more than just a dictionary, the Cambridge Dictionary grants skills that extend from learning the names of street food in Bangkok to improving descriptive language all at a student’s fingertips.

7. Lexipedia

As a sort of visually-oriented thesaurus, Lexipedia color codes words which students type according to their type of speech and the relationships of those word to other words. Complete definitions are granted by hovering over words. For visual learners, Lexipedia makes it easy to find exact words for papers, theses and other writing projects. Lexipedia runs in English, Spanish, German, French, Dutch and Italian.

Especially handy for researchers, is the research tab which outlines the background of each word, giving more extensive information and causes or classifications of the word. For example, “back pain” is classified according to different types of pain, and Lexipedia also gives causes of back pain, risk factors and diagnoses.

Like a Wikipedia article oriented more around the origin of the word but also the meaning, history, syntax, word formation and more, Lexipedia is a great resource for scholars of all ages and levels, even on the doctoral level.

8. Habitica

Ok, it really is a game. It may be free and it may even help with writing a dissertation (which is why it’s included here) but Habitica is not only for the scholarly. According to one reviewer, the game eventually kind of maxes itself out, which may make it perfect for a dissertation project since those should be relatively short.

On Habitica, users set up tasks, usually everyday tasks, but why not a dissertation? After the tasks are completed in real time, users can check them off earning Experience and Gold. With Gold, users can buy equipment and custom rewards. Experience levels characters up and unlocks content such as quests, skills and even pets.

Habitica can be used in a team or group setting which could make it perfect for doctoral students. Staying accountable to other grad students/dissertation writers could make you and your colleagues into record breaking dissertation completers. Well, maybe not, but it might help.

Dissertation check lists which start with goals like completing the dissertation proposal, continue with chapter completions and revisions and end with the defense and final approval can be entered into Habitica making the process of writing a dissertation a whole lot more fun.

Trello may be one of the more popular online tools for organized collaboration and project management. Starting with a “Trello board, lists and cards” and expanding through more features and customization, Trello streamlines teamwork.

According to a post on the Writing and Learning Center at the University of North Carolina, Trello is an excellent organizational tool for student writers. According to the writing center coach who authored the article, Trello is an especially helpful tool for writing long projects. The author points out that writing for long projects is a process with multiple steps. Picking a topic, researching, outlining and writing/re-writing drafts are all a part of the writing process.

Turning the large project into smaller projects is where Trello comes in.

Trello uses lists and cards as a sort of white board to create the building blocks of organizing a paper or project. Your writing project grows from this foundation with tools to assist with various aspects of completing your project including:

• Assignments
• Productivity Metrics

10. CamScanner

CamScanner is a free online tool which allows users to scan, edit and store documents and contents. Considered one of the best mobile scanning apps, CamScanner can be very useful for those who are writing dissertations or other research projects. According to camscanner.com, camscanner allows for “accurate text extraction with one key (OCR) and supporting conversion of various formats (including PDF, Word, Excel, PPT and image).

Some features available with CamScanner are:

• File management over multiple devices including computers, tablets and phones
• Multiple channel file sharing
• HD Scanning – CamScanner cleans up the background on cellphone generated pics to generate optimal modes of imaging.
• All Round Conversion – this tool allows accurate text extraction with one key (OCR). It also supports the conversion of formats including PDF, Word, Excel, PPT and image.
• Edit files in PDF form by merging, splitting, editing and adding a signature

With over 700 million downloads of CamScanner, it is commonly used around the globe as a research tool of choice.

Zotero is a highly rated easy to use online tool that assists the collection, organization, citation and sharing of research. Students have been using Zotero successfully to aid them in their dissertation writing for many years. The program has become more streamlined and remained just as successful now as it was when it was launched in 2006.

With the ability to create references and bibliographies in tandem with any text editor and even within Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs, Zotero can format work to match any style guide or publication. Zotero has the capability of supporting over 9,000 citation styles.

Other features of Zotero include:

• Optional synchronization of data across devices
• Tracking notes, bibliographic and files and keeping them up to date
• Access of research, through sync, from any web browser
• Collaborative bibliographies – Zotero can be shared with as many people as you like with no cost
• Independent and nonprofit – Zotero has no financial interest in private information

12. Open Office

OpenOffice, according to openoffice.org “is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.” Available in multiple languages and effective on all common computers, OpenOffice is the free office software of choice for many students and researchers.

Data can all be stored in one place in an international open standard format with OpenOffice. Also, the program can read and write files from various common office software programs.

OpenOffice is used by:

• Governments
• Not for profits
• IT Businesses
• F/OSS advocates

Lastly, Apache OpenOffice is under the Apache 2.0 License making it available for any purpose whether it be public administration, educational, commercial or domestic.

LyX is a processing program for documents that enables a structured approach to writing documents rather than simply being appearance oriented.

LyX is designed specifically for structured documents such as books, theses and academic articles making it ideal for dissertation writers. With a fully integrated equation editor, LyX produces and approach that “results in a world-class support for creation of mathematical content.” However, Lyx can also be used very effectively for film scripts, theater plays or novels

Some of the features of Lyx include:

• Math/Science features
• Structured document creation
• Graphics/tables
• Internationalization
• Document formats
• Usability/user interface
• Document management

Tomboy for Windows is a free app to help students and others organize their work. Tomboy is considered quite powerful for a desktop application and is useful for combining notes and ideas into a coherent whole. A linking system helps the app to organize your thoughts and ideas.

Links in Tomboy can be added and changed to expand your original ideas. Notes can be created and accessed by clicking on the Tomboy app. Also, a Table of Contents keeps track of all your notes in chronological order. Automatic spellcheck as well as easy accessibility, plugins supports and link notes using hyperlinks are other positive aspects of Tomboy.

Jarte, according to jarte.com is a:

• free word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine built into Windows.
• fast starting, easy to use word processor that expands well beyond the WordPad feature set.
• small, portable, touch enabled word processor whose documents are fully compatible with Word and WordPad.

Jarte prides itself on being quick and nimble, it takes up very little space on a PC, and it’s display is well-suited to small screen PCs. Jarte is easily run from a flash drive or DropBox folder making it a portable word processor.

Other features of Jarte include:

• Screen Reader Friendly
• Stable WordPad Editing Engine
• Completely Free
• Easy access to history

According to a review by PC World Magazine:

“It’s one of life’s little ironies that in a country with free speech, a program called Word costs over a hundred dollars. Fortunately, we also have Carolina Road Software and their free-of-charge word processor, Jarte.”

16. Ottobib

OttoBib is a free online bibliography and citation tool which allows writers to cite books using their International Standard Book Number. Multiple ISBNs can be cited through OttoBib as long as they are separated with commas. Citation styles supported by OttoBib inlcude MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, BibTeX and Wikipedia.

Some features of OttoBib are:

• The enabling of eLearning content developers to reference content exclusively from the ISBN number of a book.
• Add-on that gives users the ability to create citations from the web browser of their choice.

Although OttoBib is simple to use, it also lacks the more sophisticated tools of other online citation generators. However, OttoBib is completely free and doesn’t require a premium subscription to use. OttoBib is especially helpful in the area of book sources.

17. GoBiblio

Another free online resource especially for the creation of bibliographies is GoBiblio. GoBiblio was designed to assist writers by saving time and energy in studying manuals and generating their bibliography for them. Formats that can be used on GoBiblio’s user friendly website are:

• Section in a book
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article

Writers may input information according to the style of their choice, include or exclude advanced web details, and produce a polished bibliography with little effort. With a simple but helpful section with advice and information on producing a bibliography, GoBiblio is a perfect source for beginning writers but can also be used by accomplished scholars as well.

18. LazyScholar

According to lazyscholar.org, LazyScholar “finds free scholarly full texts, metrics, and provides quick citation and sharing links automatically.” LazyScholar includes many useful features including:

• Automatic Full Text Search – Lazy Scholar searches scholarly articles for free full texts. Integration with a library is also possible through Lazy Scholar to find full texts even when away from the library.
• Metrics – Various citation metrics are available through Lazy Scholar including Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Web of Science, Journal rank and Altmetric among others.
• Quick Citation – pre-formed citations are available on Lazy Scholar in over 900 citation styles.
• New Recommendations – Lazy Scholar helps students to find out their favorite topics and also scans listings in order to present and suggest new ideas and papers.
• Search History – Lazy Scholar offers an interface to save writer’s history.
• Extractions – Lastly, Lazy Scholar has the capability of extracting PICO information, abbreviations, and references from PDFs and non-PDFs.

A great online dictionary for those who are writing a dissertation in their second language (way to go!) is Ozdic. Ozdic is a dictionary/collocation tool that is an excellent resource for postgraduates that need to go beyond a dictionary to find the best combinations and juxtapositions of English words even in a specialized field.

Ozdic gives scholars and writers the ability to search in their collocations dictionary, specifically search for nouns, dictionary nouns, pressure nouns, knowledge nouns and more.

Free and easy to use, Ozdic allows users to plug a word into their simple search engine. Ozdic then generates all of the various uses of that word along with its synonyms and definitions, how the word fits in various contexts, with a noun, with a preposition or in a phrase. Ozdic gives English in Context, making the use of particular words much more accurate and direct.

20. SpellChecker

Even the most careful and accomplished writers need to carefully check their work for spelling mistakes. Spellchecker.net is a free online tool that allows students and writers to check their grammar and spelling immediately. A free online service, SpellChecker conveniently spell checks writing with only a single click.

Users of SpellChecker can copy and paste their text into the spell checker site for free grammar and spell check capability. English spelling and grammar are fixed easily and simply with SpellChecker’s simple to use program. A free thesaurus as well as dozens of other language options are also available through SpellChecker. Both Basic and Advanced Checks are offered through spellchecker.net.

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CS&E Announces 2024-25 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) Award Winners

Seven Ph.D. students working with CS&E professors have been named Doctoral Dissertation Fellows for the 2024-25 school year. The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship is a highly competitive fellowship that gives the University’s most accomplished Ph.D. candidates an opportunity to devote full-time effort to an outstanding research project by providing time to finalize and write a dissertation during the fellowship year. The award includes a stipend of $25,000, tuition for up to 14 thesis credits each semester, and subsidized health insurance through the Graduate Assistant Health Plan.

CS&E congratulates the following students on this outstanding accomplishment:

• Athanasios Bacharis (Advisor: Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos )
• Karin de Langis (Advisor:  Dongyeop Kang )
• Arshia Zernab Hassan (Advisors: Chad Myers )
• Xinyue Hu (Advisors: Zhi-Li Zhang )
• Lucas Kramer (Advisors: Eric Van Wyk )
• Yijun Lin (Advisors: Yao-Yi Chiang )
• Mingzhou Yang (Advisors: Shashi Shekhar )

Athanasios Bacharis

Bacharis’ work centers around the robot-vision area, focusing on making autonomous robots act on visual information. His research includes active vision approaches, namely, view planning and next-best-view, to tackle the problem of 3D reconstruction via different optimization frameworks. The acquisition of 3D information is crucial for automating tasks, and active vision methods obtain it via optimal inference. Areas of impact include agriculture and healthcare, where 3D models can lead to reduced use of fertilizers via phenotype analysis of crops and effective management of cancer treatments. Bacharis has a strong publication record, with two peer-reviewed conference papers and one journal paper already published. He also has one conference paper under review and two journal papers in the submission process. His publications are featured in prestigious robotic and automation venues, further demonstrating his expertise and the relevance of his research in the field.

Karin de Langis

Karin's thesis works at the intersection of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and cognitive science. Her work uses eye-tracking and other cognitive signals to improve NLP systems in their performance and cognitive interpretability, and to create NLP systems that process language more similarly to humans. Her human-centric approach to NLP is motivated by the possibility of addressing the shortcomings of current statistics-based NLP systems, which often become stuck on explainability and interpretability, resulting in potential biases. This work has most recently been accepted and presented at SIGNLL Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL) conference which has a special focus on theoretically, cognitively and scientifically motivated approaches to computational linguistics.

Arshia Zernab Hassan

Hassan's thesis work delves into developing computational methods for interpreting data from genome wide CRISPR/Cas9 screens. CRISPR/Cas9 is a new approach for genome editing that enables precise, large-scale editing of genomes and construction of mutants in human cells. These are powerful data for inferring functional relationships among genes essential for cancer growth. Moreover, chemical-genetic CRISPR screens, where population of mutant cells are grown in the presence of chemical compounds, help us understand the effect the chemicals have on cancer cells and formulate precise drug solutions. Given the novelty of these experimental technologies, computational methods to process and interpret the resulting data and accurately quantify the various genetic interactions are still quite limited, and this is where Hassan’s dissertation is focused on. Her research extends to developing deep-learning based methods that leverage CRISPR chemical-genetic and other genomic datasets to predict cancer sensitivity to candidate drugs. Her methods on improving information content in CRISPR screens was published in the Molecular Systems Biology journal, a highly visible journal in the computational biology field. 

Hu's Ph.D. dissertation is concentrated on how to effectively leverage the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) – especially deep learning – to tackle challenging and important problems in the design and development of reliable, effective and secure (independent) physical infrastructure networks. More specifically, her research focuses on two critical infrastructures: power grids and communication networks, in particular, emerging 5G networks, both of which not only play a critical role in our daily life but are also vital to the nation’s economic well-being and security. Due to the enormous complexity, diversity, and scale of these two infrastructures, traditional approaches based on (simplified) theoretical models and heuristics-based optimization are no longer sufficient in overcoming many technical challenges in the design and operations of these infrastructures: data-driven machine learning approaches have become increasingly essential. The key question now is: how does one leverage the power of AI/ML without abandoning the rich theory and practical expertise that have accumulated over the years? Hu’s research has pioneered a new paradigm – (domain) knowledge-guided machine learning (KGML) – in tackling challenging and important problems in power grid and communications (e.g., 5G) network infrastructures.

Lucas Kramer

Kramer is now the driving force in designing tools and techniques for building extensible programming languages, with the Minnesota Extensible Language Tools (MELT) group. These are languages that start with a host language such as C or Java, but can then be extended with new syntax (notations) and new semantics (e.g. error-checking analyses or optimizations) over that new syntax and the original host language syntax. One extension that Kramer created was to embed the domain-specific language Halide in MELT's extensible specification of C, called ableC. This extension allows programmers to specify how code working on multi-dimensional matrices is transformed and optimized to make efficient use of hardware. Another embeds the logic-programming language Prolog into ableC; yet another provides a form of nondeterministic parallelism useful in some algorithms that search for a solution in a structured, but very large, search space. The goal of his research is to make building language extensions such as these more practical for non-expert developers.  To this end he has made many significant contributions to the MELT group's Silver meta-language, making it easier for extension developers to correctly specify complex language features with minimal boilerplate. Kramer is the lead author of one journal and four conference papers on his work at the University of Minnesota, winning the distinguished paper award for his 2020 paper at the Software Language Engineering conference, "Strategic Tree Rewriting in Attribute Grammars".

Lin’s doctoral dissertation focuses on a timely, important topic of spatiotemporal prediction and forecasting using multimodal and multiscale data. Spatiotemporal prediction and forecasting are important scientific problems applicable to diverse phenomena, such as air quality, ambient noise, traffic conditions, and meteorology. Her work also couples the resulting prediction and forecasting with multimodal (e.g., satellite imagery, street-view photos, census records, and human mobility data) and multiscale geographic information (e.g., census records focusing on small tracts vs. neighborhood surveys) to characterize the natural and built environment, facilitating our understanding of the interactions between and within human social systems and the ecosystem. Her work has a wide-reaching impact across multiple domains such as smart cities, urban planning, policymaking, and public health.

Mingzhou Yang

Yang is developing a thesis in the broad area of spatial data mining for problems in transportation. His thesis has both societal and theoretical significance. Societally, climate change is a grand challenge due to the increasing severity and frequency of climate-related disasters such as wildfires, floods, droughts, etc. Thus, many nations are aiming at carbon neutrality (also called net zero) by mid-century to avert the worst impacts of global warming. Improving energy efficiency and reducing toxic emissions in transportation is important because transportation accounts for the vast majority of U.S. petroleum consumption as well as over a third of GHG emissions and over a hundred thousand U.S. deaths annually via air pollution. To accurately quantify the expected environmental cost of vehicles during real-world driving, Yang's thesis explores ways to incorporate physics in the neural network architecture complementing other methods of integration: feature incorporation, and regularization. This approach imposes stringent physical constraints on the neural network model, guaranteeing that its outputs are consistently in accordance with established physical laws for vehicles. Extensive experiments including ablation studies demonstrated the efficacy of incorporating physics into the model. 

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• Published: 13 May 2024

Commonly used software tools produce conflicting and overly-optimistic AUPRC values

• Wenyu Chen 1   na1 ,
• Chen Miao 1   na1 ,
• Zhenghao Zhang 2 ,
• Cathy Sin-Hang Fung 1 ,
• Ran Wang 1 ,
• Yizhen Chen 2 ,
• Yan Qian 3 ,
• Lixin Cheng 4 ,
• Kevin Y. Yip 2 , 5 ,
• Stephen Kwok-Wing Tsui 1 , 6 &
• Qin Cao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3106-562X 1 , 6 , 7  

Genome Biology volume  25 , Article number:  118 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

The precision-recall curve (PRC) and the area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) are useful for quantifying classification performance. They are commonly used in situations with imbalanced classes, such as cancer diagnosis and cell type annotation. We evaluate 10 popular tools for plotting PRC and computing AUPRC, which were collectively used in more than 3000 published studies. We find the AUPRC values computed by the tools rank classifiers differently and some tools produce overly-optimistic results.

Introduction

Many problems in computational biology can be formulated as binary classification, in which the goal is to infer whether an entity (e.g., a cell) belongs to a target class (e.g., a cell type). Accuracy, precision, sensitivity (i.e., recall), specificity, and F1 score (Additional file 1 : Fig. S1) are some of the measures commonly used to quantify classification performance, but they all require a threshold of the classification score to assign every entity to either the target class or not. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and precision-recall curve (PRC) avoid this problem by considering multiple thresholds [ 1 ], which allows detailed examination of the trade-off between identifying entities of the target class and wrongly including entities not of this class. It is common to summarize these curves by the area under them (AUROC and AUPRC, respectively), which is a value between 0 and 1, with a larger value corresponding to better classification performance.

When the different classes have imbalanced sizes (e.g., the target cell type has few cells), AUPRC is a more sensitive measure than AUROC [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ], especially when there are errors among the top predictions (Additional file 1 : Fig. S2). As a result, AUPRC has been used in a variety of applications, such as reconstructing biological networks [ 5 ], identifying cancer genes [ 6 ] and essential genes [ 7 ], determining protein binding sites [ 8 ], imputing sparse experimental data [ 9 ], and predicting patient treatment response [ 10 ]. AUPRC has also been extensively used as a performance measure in benchmarking studies, such as the ones for comparing methods for analyzing differential gene expression [ 11 ], identifying gene regulatory interactions [ 12 ], and inferring cell-cell communications [ 13 ] from single-cell RNA sequencing data.

Given the importance of PRC and AUPRC, we analyzed commonly used software tools and found that they produce contrasting results, some of which are overly-optimistic.

For each entity, a classifier outputs a score to indicate how likely it belongs to the target (i.e., “positive”) class. Depending on the classifier, the score can be discrete (e.g., random forest) or continuous (e.g., artificial neural network). Using a threshold t , the classification scores can be turned into binary predictions by considering all entities with a score \(\ge t\) as belonging to the positive class and all other entities as not. When these predictions are compared to the actual classes of the entities, precision is defined as the proportion of entities predicted to be positive that are actually positive, while recall is defined as the proportion of actually positive entities that are predicted to be positive (Additional file 1 : Fig. S1).

The PRC is a curve that shows how precision changes with recall. In the most common way to produce the PRC, each unique classification score observed is used as a threshold to compute a pair of precision and recall values, which forms an anchor point on the PRC. Adjacent anchor points are then connected to produce the PRC.

When no two entities have the same score (Fig.  1 a), it is common to connect adjacent anchor points directly by a straight line [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ] (Fig.  1 b). Another method uses an expectation formula, which we will explain below, to connect discrete points by piece-wise linear lines [ 20 ] (Fig.  1 c). The third method is to use the same expectation formula to produce a continuous curve between adjacent anchor points [ 17 , 21 ] (Fig.  1 d). A fourth method that has gained popularity, known as Average Precision (AP), connects adjacent anchor points by step curves [ 15 , 19 , 22 , 23 ] (Fig.  1 e). In all four cases, PRC estimates a function of precision in terms of recall based on the observed classification scores of the entities, and AUPRC estimates the integral of this function using trapezoids (in the direct straight line case), interpolation lines/curves (in the expectation cases), or rectangles (in the AP case).

Different methods for connecting adjacent anchor points on the PRC. a An illustrative data set with no two entities receiving the same classification score. b – e Different methods for connecting adjacent anchor points when there are no ties in classification scores, namely b direct straight line, c discrete expectation, d continuous expectation, and e AP. f An illustrative data set with different entities receiving the same classification score. Each group of entities with the same classification score defines a single anchor point (A, B, C, and D, from 3, 7, 2, and 1 entities, respectively). g – j Different methods for connecting anchor point B to its previous anchor point, A, namely g linear interpolation, h discrete expectation, i continuous expectation, and j AP. In c and h , tp is set to 0.5 and 1 in Formula 1, respectively (Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text)

When there are ties with multiple entities having the same score, which happens more easily with classifiers that produce discrete scores, these entities together define only one anchor point (Fig.  1 f). There are again four common methods for connecting such an anchor point to the previous anchor point, which correspond to the four methods for connecting anchor points when there are no ties (details in Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text). The first method is to connect the two anchor points by a straight line [ 15 , 18 , 19 ] (Fig.  1 g). This method is known to easily produce overly-optimistic AUPRC values [ 2 , 24 ], which we will explain below. The second method is to interpolate additional points between the two anchor points using a non-linear function and then connect the points by straight lines [ 14 , 17 , 20 ] (Fig.  1 h). The interpolated points appear at their expected coordinates under the assumption that all possible orders of the entities with the same score have equal probability. The third method uses the same interpolation formula as the second method but instead of creating a finite number of interpolated points, it connects the two anchor points by a continuous curve [ 17 , 21 ] (Fig.  1 i). Finally, the fourth method comes naturally from the AP approach, which uses step curves to connect the anchor points [ 15 , 19 , 22 , 23 ] (Fig.  1 j).

Using the four methods to connect anchor points when there are no ties and the four methods when there are ties can lead to very different AUPRC values (Fig.  1 , Additional file 1 : Fig. S3 and Supplementary Text).

Conceptual and implementation issues of some popular software tools

We analyzed 10 tools commonly used to produce PRC and AUPRC (Additional file 1 : Table S1). Based on citations and keywords, we estimated that these tools have been used in more than 3000 published studies in total ( Methods ).

The 10 tools use different methods to connect anchor points on the PRC and therefore they can produce different AUPRC values (Table  1 , Additional file 1 : Fig. S4–S7 and Supplementary Text). As a comparison, all 10 tools can also compute AUROC, and we found most of them to produce identical values (Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text).

We found five conceptual issues with some of these tools when computing AUPRC values (Table  1 ):

➀ Using the linear interpolation method to handle ties, which can produce overly-optimistic AUPRC values [ 2 , 24 ]. When interpolating between two anchor points, linear interpolation produces higher AUPRC than the other three methods under conditions that can easily happen in real situations (Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text)

➁ Always using (0, 1) as the starting point of the PRC (procedurally produced or conceptually derived, same for ➂ and ➄ below), which is inconsistent with the concepts behind the AP and non-linear expectation methods when the first anchor point with a non-zero recall does not have a precision of one (Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text)

➂ Not producing a complete PRC that covers the full range of recall values from zero to one

➃ Ordering entities with the same classification score by their order in the input and then handling them as if they have distinct classification scores

➄ Not putting all anchor points on the PRC

These issues can lead to overly-optimistic AUPRC values or change the order of two AUPRC values (Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text and Fig. S8-S13).

Some of these tools also produce a visualization of the PRC. We found three types of issues with these visualizations (Table  1 ):

Producing a visualization of PRC that has the same issue(s) as in the calculation of AUPRC

Producing a PRC visualization that does not always start the curve at a point with zero recall

Producing a PRC visualization that always starts at (0, 1)

Inconsistent AUPRC values and contrasting classifier ranks produced by the popular tools

To see how the use of different methods by the 10 tools and their other issues affect PRC analysis in practice, we applied them to evaluate classifiers in four realistic scenarios.

In the first scenario, we analyzed data from a COVID-19 study [ 25 ] in which patient blood samples were subjected to Cellular Indexing of Transcriptomes and Epitopes by Sequencing (CITE-seq) assays [ 26 ]. We constructed a classifier for predicting CD4 \(^+\) T cells, which groups the cells based on their transcriptome data alone and assigns a single cell type label to each group. Using cell type labels defined by the original authors as reference, which were obtained using both antibody-derived tags (ADTs) and transcriptome data, we computed the AUPRC of the classifier. Figure  2 a shows that the 10 tools produced 6 different AUPRC values, ranging from 0.416 to 0.684. In line with the conceptual discussions above, the AP method generally produced the smallest AUPRC values while the linear interpolation method generally produced the largest, although individual issues of the tools created additional variations of the AUPRC values computed.

The AUPRC values computed by the 10 tools in several realistic scenarios. a Predicting CD4 \(^+\) T cells from single-cell transcriptomic data. b Predicting inflammatory bowel disease cases that belong to the ulcerative colitis subtype in the sbv IMPROVER Metagenomics Diagnosis for Inflammatory Bowel Disease Challenge. Only the top 8 submissions according to PRROC (discrete expectation) AUPRC values are included. c Predicting cases with preterm prelabor rupture of membranes in the DREAM Preterm Birth Prediction Challenge. In b and c , each entry shows the AUPRC value and the background color indicates its rank among the competitors

In the second scenario, we compared the performance of different classifiers that predict whether a patient has the ulcerative colitis (UC) subtype of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or does not have IBD, based on metagenomic data (processed taxonomy-based profile) [ 27 ]. The predictions made by these classifiers were submitted to the sbv IMPROVER Metagenomics Diagnosis for IBD Challenge. Their performance was determined by comparing against diagnosis of these patients based on clinical, endoscopic, and histological criteria. Figure  2 b shows that based on the AUPRC values computed, the 10 tools ranked the classifiers differently. For example, among the top 8 submissions with the highest performance, the classifier in submission 26 was ranked first in 8 cases, sole second place in 2 cases, and tied second place with another classifier in 4 cases (Fig.  2 b and Additional file 1 : Fig. S14). We observed similar rank flips when considering the top 30 submissions (Additional file 1 : Fig. S15 and S16).

In the third scenario, we compared the performance of different classifiers in identifying preterm prelabor rupture of the membranes (PPROM) cases from normal pregnancy in the DREAM Preterm Birth Prediction Challenge [ 28 ]. Based on the AUPRC values produced by the 10 tools, the 13 participating teams were ranked very differently (Fig.  2 c and Additional file 1 : Fig. S17). For example, Team “GZCDC” was ranked first (i.e., highest) in 3 cases, tenth in 4 cases, and thirteenth (i.e., lowest) in 7 cases. In addition to differences in the ranks, some of the AUPRC values themselves are also very different. For example, the AUPRC values computed by PerfMeas and MLeval have a Pearson correlation of − 0.759.

In the fourth scenario, we compared 29 classifiers that predicted target genes of transcription factors in the DREAM5 challenge [ 29 ]. Again, some classifiers received very different ranking based on the AUPRC values computed by the different tools (Additional file 1 : Fig. S18 and S19). For example, the classifier named “Other4” was ranked second based on the AUPRC values computed by PerfMeas but it was ranked twenty-fifth based on the AUPRC values computed by MLeval. In general, tools that use the discrete expectation, continuous expectation, and AP methods are in good agreements in this scenario, but they differ substantially from tools that use the linear interpolation method.

Conclusions

Due to their highly technical nature, it is easy to overlook the inconsistencies and issues of the software tools used for producing PRC and AUPRC. Some possible consequences include reporting overly-optimistic AUPRC, ranking classifiers differently by different tools, and introducing biases to the evaluation process, such as inflating the AUPRC of classifiers that produce discrete scores.

To address the problems, it is crucial to use tools that are free of the bugs described and avoid using the linear interpolation method (Table  1 ). It is also necessary to state clearly in manuscripts both the tool used (with its version number) and the underlying methods implemented by the tool for producing PRC and AUPRC. Whenever feasible, the adoption of multiple tools that implement different methods (e.g., one based on continuous expectation and one based on AP) is recommended, with comprehensive reporting of all their results.

Information about the tools

In this study, we included 12 tools commonly used for PRC and ROC analyses (Additional file 1 : Table S1). For each tool, we analyzed the latest stable version of it as of August 15, 2023. Because TorchEval had not released a stable version, we analyzed the latest version of it, version 0.0.6. Among the 12 tools, ten can compute both AUROC and AUPRC, while the remaining two can only compute AUROC. We focused on these 10 tools in the study of PRC and AUPRC. Some tools provide multiple methods for computing AUROC/AUPRC.

For tools with an associated publication, we obtained its citation count from Google Scholar. If a tool has multiple associated publications, we selected the one with the largest number of citations. As a result, the citation counts we report in Additional file 1 : Table S1 are underestimates if different publications associated with the same tool are not always cited together.

The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) packages PerfMeas and MLeval did not have an associated formal publication but only release notes. In each of these cases, we used the package name as keyword to search on Google Scholar and then manually checked the publications returned to determine the number of publications that cited these packages.

The CRAN package yardstick also did not have an associated formal publication. However, we were not able to use the same strategy as PerMeas and MLeval to determine the number of publications that cited the yardstick package since “yardstick” is an English word and the search returned too many publications to be verified manually. Therefore, we only counted the number of publications that cited yardstick’s release note, which is likely an underestimate of the number of publications that cited yardstick.

All citation counts were collected on October 9, 2023.

For tools with an associated formal publication, based on our collected lists of publications citing the tools, we further estimated the number of times the tools were actually used in the studies by performing keyword-based filtering. Specifically, if the main text or figure captions of a publication contains either one of the keywords “AUC” and “AUROC,” we assumed that the tool was used in that published study to perform ROC analysis. In the case of PRC, we performed filtering in two different ways and reported both sets of results in Additional file 1 : Table S1. In the first way, we assumed a tool was used in a published study if the main text or figure captions of the publication contains any one of the following keywords: “AUPR,” “AU-PR,” “AUPRC,” “AU-PRC,” “AUCPR,” “AUC-PR,” “PRAUC,” “PR-AUC,” “area under the precision recall,” and “area under precision recall.” In the second way, we assumed a tool was used in a published study if the main text or figure captions of the publication contains both “area under” and “precision recall.”

For the CRAN packages PerfMeas and MLeval, we estimated the number of published studies that actually used them by searching Google Scholar using the above three keyword sets each with the package name appended. We found that for all the publications we considered as using the packages in this way, they were also on our lists of publications that cite these packages. We used the same strategy to identify published studies that used the CRAN package yardstick. We found that some of these publications were not on our original list of publications that cite yardstick, and therefore we added them to the list and updated the citation count accordingly.

TorchEval was officially embedded into PyTorch in 2022. Due to its short history, among the publications that cite the PyTorch publication, we could not find any of them that used the TorchEval library.

Data collection and processing

We used four realistic scenarios to illustrate the issues of the AUPRC calculations.

In the first scenario, we downloaded CITE-seq data produced from COVID-19 patient blood samples by the COVID-19 Multi-Omic Blood ATlas (COMBAT) consortium [ 25 ]. We downloaded the data from Zenodo [ 30 ] and used the data in the “COMBAT-CITESeq-DATA” archive in this study. We then used a standard procedure to cluster the cells based on the transcriptome data and identified CD4 \(^+\) T cells. Specifically, we extracted the raw count matrix of the transcriptome data and ADT features (“X” object) and the annotation data frame (“obs” object) from the H5AD file. We dropped all ADT features (features with names starting with “AB-”) and put the transcriptome data along with the annotation data frame into Seurat (version 4.1.1). We then log-normalized the transcriptome data (method “NormalizeData(),” default parameters), identified highly-variable genes (method “FindVariableFeatures(),” number of variable genes set to 10,000), scaled the data (method “ScaleData(),” default parameters), performed principal component analysis (method “RunPCA(),” number of principal components set to 50), constructed the shared/k-nearest neighbor (SNN/kNN) graph (method “FindNeighbours(),” default parameters), and performed Louvain clustering of the cells (method “FindClusters(),” default parameters). We then extracted the clustering labels generated and concatenated them with cell type, major subtype, and minor subtype annotations provided by the original authors, which were manually curated using both ADT and transcriptome information.

Our procedure produced 29 clusters, which contained 836,148 cells in total. To mimic a classifier that predicts CD4 \(^+\) T cells using the transcriptome data alone, we selected one cluster and “predicted” all cells in it as CD4 \(^+\) T cells and all cells in the other 28 clusters as not, based on which we computed an AUPRC value by comparing these “predictions” with the original authors’ annotations. We repeated this process for each of the 29 clusters in turn, and chose the one that gave the highest AUPRC as the final cluster of predicted CD4 \(^+\) T cells.

For the second scenario, we obtained the data set used in the sbv IMPROVER (Systems Biology Verification combined with Industrial Methodology for PROcess VErification in Research) challenge on inflammatory bowel disease diagnosis based on metagenomics data [ 27 ]. The challenge involved 12 different tasks, and we focused on the task of identifying UC samples from non-IBD samples using the processed taxonomy-based profile as features. The data set contained 32 UC samples and 42 non-IBD samples, and therefore the baseline AUPRC was \(\frac{32}{32+42} = 0.432\) . There were 60 submissions in total, which used a variety of classifiers. We obtained the classification scores in the submissions from Supplementary Information 4 of the original publication [ 27 ]. When we extracted the classification scores of each submission, we put the actual positive entities before the actual negative entities. This ordering did not affect the AUPRC calculations of most tools except those of PerfMeas, which depend on the input order of the entities with the same classification score.

To see how the different tools rank the top submissions, we first computed the AUPRC of each submission using PRROC (option that uses the discrete expectation method to handle ties) since we did not find any issues with its AUPRC calculations (Table  1 ). We then analyzed the AUPRC values produced by the 10 tools based on either the top 8 (Fig.  2 b and Additional file 1 : Fig. S14) or top 30 (Additional file 1 : Fig. S15 and S16) submissions.

For the third scenario, we downloaded the data set used in the Dialogue on Reverse Engineering Assessment and Methods (DREAM) Preterm Birth Prediction Challenge [ 28 ] from https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn22127152 . We collected the classification scores, from the object “prpile” in each team’s RData file, and the actual classes produced based on clinical evidence, from “anoSC2_v21_withkey.RData” ( https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn22127343 ). The challenge contained 7 scenarios, each of which had 2 binary classification tasks. For each scenario, 10 different partitioning of the data into training and testing sets were provided. We focused on the task of identifying PPROM cases from the controls under the D2 scenario defined by the challenge. For this task, the baseline AUPRC value averaged across the 10 testing sets was 0.386. There were 13 participating teams in total. For each team, we extracted its classification scores and placed the actual positive entities before the actual negative entities. For submissions that contained negative classification scores, we re-scaled all the scores to the range between 0 and 1 without changing their order since TensorFlow expects all classification scores to be between zero and one (Additional file 1 : Supplementary Text). Finally, for each team, we computed its AUPRC using each of the 10 testing sets and reported their average. We note that the results we obtained by using PRROC (option that uses the continuous expectation method to handle ties) were identical to those reported by the challenge organizer.

For the fourth scenario, we obtained the data set used in the DREAM5 challenge on reconstructing transcription factor-target networks based on gene expression data [ 29 ]. The challenge included multiple networks and we focused on the E. coli in silico Network 1, which has a structure that corresponds to the real E. coli transcriptional regulatory network [ 29 ]. We obtained the data from Supplementary Data of the original publication [ 29 ]. There were 29 submissions in total. For each submission, we extracted the classification scores of the predicted node pairs (each pair involves one potential transcription factor and one gene it potentially regulates) from Supplementary Data 3 and compared them with the actual classes (positive if the transcription factor actually regulates the gene; negative if not) in the gold-standard network from Supplementary Data 1. Both the submissions and the gold-standard were not required to include all node pairs. To handle this, we excluded all node pairs in a submission that were not included in the gold-standard (because we could not judge whether they are actual positives or actual negatives), and assigned a classification score of 0 to all node pairs in the gold-standard that were not included in a submission (because the submission did not give a classification score to them). The gold-standard contained 4012 interacting node pairs and 274,380 non-interacting node pairs, and therefore the baseline AUPRC value was \(\frac{4012}{4012+274380} = 0.014\) .

Availability of data and materials

Our code is written in Java, Python and R. The reproducible code and all the data used in this paper are available at GitHub [ 31 ] and Zenodo [ 32 ].

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Review history

The review history is available as Additional file 2 .

Peer review information

Andrew Cosgrove was the primary editor of this article and managed its editorial process and peer review in collaboration with the rest of the editorial team.

QC is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Award Number 32100515. YQ is supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation under Award Number 2021A1515110759 and Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China under Award Number 2023A1515011187. LC is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Award Number 32370711 and Shenzhen Medical Research Fund under Award Number A2303033. KYY is supported by National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P30CA030199, National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers U54AG079758 and R01AG085498, and internal grants of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Author information

Wenyu Chen and Chen Miao are co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

School of Biomedical Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China

Wenyu Chen, Chen Miao, Cathy Sin-Hang Fung, Ran Wang, Stephen Kwok-Wing Tsui & Qin Cao

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China

Zhenghao Zhang, Yizhen Chen & Kevin Y. Yip

The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

Shenzhen People’s Hospital, First Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology, Second Clinical Medical College of Jinan University, Shenzhen, China

Lixin Cheng

Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA

Kevin Y. Yip

Hong Kong Bioinformatics Centre, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China

Stephen Kwok-Wing Tsui & Qin Cao

Shenzhen Research Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China

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Contributions

KYY, SKWT, and QC conceived and supervised the project. WC, CM, KYY, and QC designed the computational experiments and data analyses. WC, CM, and YC surveyed and collected the tools. WC, CM, ZZ, CSHF, and RW prepared the data. WC and CM conducted the computational experiments. WC, CM, ZZ, and RW performed the data analyses. All the authors interpreted the results. WC, CM, KYY, and QC wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Kevin Y. Yip , Stephen Kwok-Wing Tsui or Qin Cao .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate.

No ethical approval was required for this study. All utilized public datasets were generated by other organizations that obtained ethical approval.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Supplementary Information

Additional file 1. supplementary text, figures and tables., additional file 2. review history., rights and permissions.

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Chen, W., Miao, C., Zhang, Z. et al. Commonly used software tools produce conflicting and overly-optimistic AUPRC values. Genome Biol 25 , 118 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-024-03266-y

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AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 Release Notes

Article Number: RN-RAD-WIN-24-5-1

New Feature Highlights

New game support.

• Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT
• Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

Expanded HYPR-Tune Support

• Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition
• The Last of Us™ Part I
•  Enable HYPR-RX and get an instant boost in performance of up to 136% on the Radeon™ RX 7600XT GPU across games like Baldur's Gate 3, F1 23, Resident Evil 4 and more! RS-643
• Enable HYPR-RX and get an instant boost in performance of up to 86% on the Ryzen™ 8700G APU across games like Baldur's Gate 3, F1 23, Resident Evil 4 and more! RS-64
• Join the conversation by sharing how well HYPR-RX with AFMF is working on your system. This information across thousands of games helps us make further improvements.
• The latest version of AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition ensures optimal support and performance, providing the most refined enhancements and optimizations for the best user experience.
• AMD Software can power AI functionality included with leading ISV applications. Content Creators can rely on AMD Software to accelerate AI-enhanced features in many content creation apps, including Adobe® Creative Cloud, Blender®, DaVinci Resolve, Topaz Photo & Video AI and many more.  Click HERE for more information  

AI Development on Radeon

• AMD Software enables lower-level AI functionality with popular frameworks like PyTorch and ONNX Runtime on Linux®, enabling developers, enthusiasts and researchers to work with AI on select Radeon 7000 series desktop GPUs. Click HERE for more information.   

Fixed Issues and Improvements

• Intermittent application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing World of Warcraft® or World of Warcraft® Classic on RDNA™ 3 series graphics products.
• Intermittent application crash or driver timeout may be observed while playing Overwatch® 2 on Radeon™ RX 5000 series graphics products. 
• Intermittent stutter immediately after alt-tab with Performance Metrics Overlay enabled. 
• Texture flicking may be observed while playing Hitman: Contracts.
• Corruption around certain water elements may be observed while playing Alan Wake 2 with Radeon™ Boost enabled.

Known Issues

• Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas may fail to launch.[Hotfix pending verification]
• Black corruption may be observed while playing Alien Isolation on Radeon™ 7000 series graphics products.
• Corruption may be observed while playing Dying Light 2 Stay Human: Reloaded Edition with Radeon™ Boost enabled. Users experiencing this issue are recommended to disable Radeon™ Boost as a temporary workaround.
• Intermittent in-game corruption may be observed while playing Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR'S CUT with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition™ Record & Streaming and HDR enabled.
• Max Payne 1 and 2 may fail to launch on RDNA 3 series graphics products when Anti-Aliasing is enabled.
• AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition Performance Metrics may intermittently fail to update while playing HELLDIVERS™ 2.[Resolution targeted for 24.6.1]
• Audio and video may intermittently become out of sync while recording using the AV1 codec in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition. [Resolution targeted for Q3]

Package Contents

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 Driver Version 23.40.33.01 for Windows® 10 and Windows® 11 (Windows Driver Store Version 31.0.24033.1003).

The AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 installation package can be downloaded from the following link:

By clicking the Download button, you are confirming that you have read and agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions of the  End User License Agreement  (“EULA”).  If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of these licenses, you do not have a license to any of the AMD software provided by this download.

• AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 Driver for Windows® 10 & Windows® 11 64-bit

Systems pairing RDNA series graphics products with Polaris or Vega series graphics products:

• AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 Driver Including Vega and Polaris Series Graphics Support for Windows® 10 & Windows® 11 64-bit

Installing AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition

For detailed instructions on how to correctly uninstall or install AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, please refer to the following support resources:

• How-To Uninstall AMD Software on a Windows® Based System
• How-To Install AMD Software on a Windows® Based System

NOTE : This driver is not intended for use on AMD Radeon products running in Apple Boot Camp platforms. Users of these platforms should contact their system manufacturer for driver support. When installing AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 for the Windows® operating system, the user must be logged on as Administrator, or have Administrator rights to complete the installation of AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1. 

Radeon Product Compatibility

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 is compatible with the following AMD Radeon products.

Mobility Radeon™ Product Compatibility

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 is a notebook reference graphics driver with limited support for system vendor specific features. 

​​​​AMD Processors with Radeon Graphics Product Compatibility

Important note for laptop and all-in-one (aio) pcs .

AMD recommends OEM-provided drivers which are customized and validated for their system-specific features and optimizations. If you experience issues using the AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition driver package downloaded from AMD.com, please install the OEM-provided drivers for full support and compatibility. AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition does not include support for handheld gaming devices.  Users should check with the OEM for device specific drivers.

Compatible Operating Systems

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.5.1 is designed to support the following Microsoft® Windows® platforms. Operating System support may vary depending on your specific AMD Radeon product.

• Windows 11 version 21H2 and later
• Windows 10 64-bit version 1809 and later

WHQL Results

RS-643 - Testing conducted by AMD as of March 27, 2024, on a test system configured with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 32GB DDR5, Radeon RX 7600XT GPU, MSI x670E ACE motherboard, and Windows 11 Pro, with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 and AMD HYPR-RX ON/OFF, on various titles including Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Callisto Protocol, F1 23, Far Cry 6, Horizon Zero Dawn, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, Resident Evil 4, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.  Game tested at 1080p resolution. Performance may vary. System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results.

RS-645 - Testing conducted by AMD as of March 27, 2024, on a test system configured with a Ryzen 8700G APU and Windows 11 Pro, with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 24.2.1 and AMD HYPR-RX ON/OFF, on various titles including Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, The Callisto Protocol, F1 23, Far Cry 6, Horizon Zero Dawn, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2, Resident Evil 4, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.  Game tested at 1080p resolution. Performance may vary. System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different results. 

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OVERCLOCKING WARNING:  AMD processors are intended to be operated only within their associated specifications and factory settings.  Operating your AMD processor outside of official AMD specifications or outside of factory settings, including but not limited to the conducting of overclocking (including use of this overclocking software, even if such software has been directly or indirectly provided by AMD or otherwise affiliated in any way with AMD), may damage your processor and/or lead to other problems, including but not limited to, damage to your system components (including your motherboard and components thereon (e.g. memory)), system instabilities (e.g. data loss and corrupted images), reduction in system performance, shortened processor, system component and/or system life and in extreme cases, total system failure.  AMD does not provide support or service for issues or damages related to use of an AMD processor outside of official AMD specifications or outside of factory settings.  You may also not receive support or service from your board or system manufacturer. Please make sure you have saved all important data before using this overclocking software.  DAMAGES CAUSED BY USE OF YOUR AMD PROCESSOR OUTSIDE OF OFFICIAL AMD SPECIFICATIONS OR OUTSIDE OF FACTORY SETTINGS ARE NOT COVERED UNDER ANY AMD PRODUCT WARRANTY AND MAY NOT BE COVERED BY YOUR BOARD OR SYSTEM MANUFACTURER’S WARRANTY.

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Get ready for Microsoft Build 2024

James Casey

May 15th, 2024 0 0

Microsoft Build is just around the corner, taking place from May 21-23, 2024. Whether you’re tuning in online (for free) or joining us in person in Seattle, prepare to be immersed in the latest innovations in Microsoft developer tools and technologies. Microsoft Build also offers unparalleled opportunities to network and create valuable connections with industry leaders and like-minded professionals.

Join Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as Rajesh Jha, Mustafa Suleyman, and Kevin Scott at the opening keynote to learn how this era of AI will unlock new opportunities, transform how developers work, and drive business productivity across industries.

This year’s lineup promises an array of engaging sessions. While this blog post focuses on identity related breakout sessions and demos, there will be a lot more to discover at the conference!

Breakout session

Secure your intelligent applications with microsoft entra, speakers: ​ matt gotteiner, pamela fox, den delimarsky.

In this comprehensive session (online & in-person), learn the essentials of how to automatically set up authentication for your intelligent apps and discover how to add access controls to your apps and data. We will guide you through registering your AI applications using the Microsoft Graph API or the new Microsoft Graph Bicep resources which enable repeatable deployment of Microsoft Entra ID resources. We’ll share industry-leading practices for token validation and refresh with the Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL).

Explore the most effective OAuth flows for different applications, such as server-side or single-page applications (SPAs), leverage Azure App Service’s built-in authentication, and learn to filter output based on the authenticated user.

Demo sessions

Create secure applications in minutes with visual studio code and microsoft entra external id​, speaker: katherine legg​.

Dive into this quick demo (in-person only) where you’ll learn how to use the Microsoft Entra External ID extension for Visual Studio Code to create your first External ID application, completely within your IDE. Bootstrap your development with pre-configured sample applications to get started quickly.

Developer’s guide to combat fraud with real-time identity verification​

Speaker: sydney morton.

In this demo (in-person only), we introduce Face Check using Microsoft Entra Verified ID, which helps to reduce sign-up friction, the risk of fraud, and account takeover.

Face Check enables apps to perform real-time biometric matching against identity documents issued by governments (e.g. driver’s licenses or passports), businesses, or education institutions.​ Learn how to enhance user verification processes in a more secure and user-friendly way.

Create pixel perfect authentication experiences for native mobile apps

​speaker: james casey.

Explore the capabilities of the Authentication API and SDK in Microsoft Entra External ID (in-person only) which allow you to create pixel perfect UX for sign-up and sign-in experiences in your mobile applications . This session will cover how you can use these to create fully custom and secure login experiences on mobile devices, enhancing both the aesthetic and functionality.

Simple and secure app authentication with authentication brokers​

Speakers: medhir bhargava, den delimarsky.

Learn about the integration of Web Account Manager (WAM) on Windows (in-person only) through various MSAL libraries, such as MSAL.NET, MSAL Python, and MSAL Java, and how it can simplify your application’s authentication processes. The session will highlight the seamless authentication experiences enabled by WAM . We’ll also explore how MSAL libraries facilitate public client authentication flows with Microsoft Entra ID and enhance web, mobile, and desktop applications.​

Join us at Build 2024

Embark on your journey to mastery at Microsoft Build. Beyond the sessions outlined above, there will be interactive Q&As, further live demos, and guidance from seasoned experts. You’ll leave ready to tackle development challenges with confidence.

Register now to secure your spot at Microsoft Build and be part of the movement that’s shaping the future of technology. Whether you’re looking to enhance your coding skills, explore new security practices, or streamline your development processes, Build is the place to be. See you there, and don’t forget to follow the hashtag #MSBuild on socials for the latest updates.

Sign me up!

James Casey Principal Product Manager, Identity & Network Access, Developer Experience

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GUI Tool To Removes Ads From Various Places Around Windows 11

xM4ddy/OFGB

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OFGB (Oh Frick Go Back)

On April 23, 2024, Microsoft released an update for Windows 11 that added ads all across the OS, including the File Explorer, Start Menu, and more. This tool changes certain keys in the Windows Registry to disable those ads. It's written in C# and uses WPF .

First things first, credits:

• Registry keys, comments about their function and the inspiration for this project were all from Shawn Brink and his awesome script .
• A good bit of the theme used for the app is from a cool project called DarkNet by Aldaviva .

To download the latest version of OFGB, click here or click the "Releases" tab at the right of the page.

To build OFGB, you will need Visual Studio and the .NET 8.0 SDK .

• Clone/download the repository, either with git clone https://github.com/xM4ddy/OFGB or by downloading the ZIP file.
• Open the solution file in Visual Studio.
• Build the solution by pressing Ctrl + Shift + B or by going to Build > Build Solution .

Contributions

If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, feel free to open an issue or start a discussion .

Other Notes

Thanks for checking out the project, and for all of the support! ❤️

GitHub is the only place I am sharing this program! I am not affiliated with any other websites that may share this app, thus I cannot guarantee the safety of any downloads from outside of GitHub.

Want to avoid all this mess? Try Linux!

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