Digital Tools that will help you to Improve and Develop Writing Skills
While everyone can write, it is not always easy to join different words together in a way that makes sense, evokes emotion from the reader, provides value, and generates leads. Developing good writing skills is a matter of finding the inspiration and writing environment that works best for you, expanding your vocabulary, asking for feedback, listening to it, and practicing.
Today, luckily, anyone can succeed in developing and improving their writing skills by utilizing any of the numerous digital tools available online. These digital tools or online resources make writing easier to complete and helps you develop your skills. The right tool can make your writing more productive, satisfying, and worthwhile. We have listed some of the best digital tools to help check your copy quality and improve your writing skills.
Below we have some very useful digital tools that will improve your writing skills for sure and you can be a good content writer. Good writing skills are also necessary for a blogger, SEO person, or digital marketing person.
Below are some essential writing tools to improve your content writing and quality also.
15 Digital Tools to Improve Your Writing Skills
1 – Google Doc
Google Docs is an online word processor that you can use to develop your writing skills. You can use it as a research tool to research the topic you are writing about, or use it to find quotes or information on the built-in dictionary. You will need this aid for its portability from tablet to laptop and for collaborating with others. It also allows you to store documents in Google Drive, which you can access from anywhere.
2 – Grammarly
More than a spelling and type check, Grammarly is a free editor tool that detects grammatical errors, overused and unnecessary words. The proof-reader’s paid version also checks sentence structure, passive voice, and plagiarism while using a color code to highlight the type of error with a suggestion on improving them.
Grammarly combined with the online writers’ rating tool helps you grade your copy with a readability score and estimate the reading plus speaking time. You can download the program as a browser extension, and it will correct anything written in a web browser, thereby ensuring you construct error-free posts.
3 – Hemingway
This digital editor, named after Ernest Hemingway, is primarily used to improve your text’s readability. It aims to help you write more effectively, concisely and ensure the reader understands the message you are trying to convey. With Hemingway, you paste your text into the free web app, and it will assess your writing and identify opportunities to simplify it. The editor highlights complicated (hard-to-read) sentences, unnecessary passive voice, and excessive adverbs.
4 – 750 Word
Another way to develop your writing is to practice daily using 750 Words. This tool encourages you to get all the ideas in your head down on paper without worrying about vague concepts. You have your private account to write what you want without adding titles or topics or sharing it.
750 Words then tracks your word count to ensure you write up to 750 words (about three writing pages). Also, the tool comes in a monthly game format which makes it more fun. You get one point for writing anything, two points for writing 750 words and above, and more points if you write consistently. And every time you write, it gives you some statistics on how much time you spent writing, the words/minute, the feelings, themes, and mindset of your content.
5 – ProWritingAid
This digital tool highlights clichés, overused, abstract, and complex words. It also identifies weak constructions like passivity, redundancies, plagiarism, and wrong sentence structure. It aims to make it easy for writers to identify trouble areas and strengthen them, thereby ensuring no errors remain.
6 – Twinword Writer
When you are using Twinword Writer to type and get stuck on a word, the tool intuitively detects the pause. It then analyzes your writing context and gives you a list of suggested alternate words you can use. Besides, it features a tone analyzer and a word counter. You can also click on an already written word for alternative suggestions.
7 – Daily Page
If you need any aid to make writing a habit, consider using Daily Page. The website emails you a fun writing reminder every morning, and you have to write a response. Since you are not obligated to reach any definite page or word count, you can write freely and track your writing skills every day.
8 – Cliché Finder
Sometimes, your content gets too riddled with clichés, which are often worn-out and over-used phrases and not always the best writing aids. Avoiding these clichés is the best way of making your writing specific, but these can be difficult. As a remedy, use Cliché Finder to identify these phrases by pasting and submitting your text on the website. The tool will cross-check your text with the list of clichés from the Associated Press Guide to News Writing and highlight them so you can replace them with a more specific and original text.
9 – Verbix
Verbix is a digital tool that caters to your verb challenges. It acts as a verb dictionary, and you could choose from a conjugation tool, a multi-language verb translator, or a search tool for verb games. Write a verb, select go, and see its cognates, synonyms, sample sentences, and etymology.
10 – Blog Topic Generator
If you are tasked with getting your writing topic, but you are at a loss for ideas, you can use the Hubspot Blog Topic (Ideas) Generator. You type in a word, and the tool produces a list of relevant titles, writing themes, or topic ideas in just a few seconds. You can then write based on the topic or use them as a guide to come up with your own.
11 – Ginger
It is also a grammar checking tool, which is very useful for writers and for SEO persons. This digital tool will help you to optimize your content for SEO Ginger is a proofreading tool that checks over your text for grammatical and spelling errors. It shows you all unnecessary adverbs and adjectives so you can remove them and strengthen your copy.
12 – OneLook Thesaurus
This Thesaurus functions as a reverse dictionary. It helps you prevent word repetition by coming up with synonyms to replace them. These synonyms are arranged into verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns. The website looks up words based on their descriptions, and you can even narrow down results using filters based on the number of letters or syllables, or even a phonetic rhyme.
13 – Rewordify
Rewordify is a free digital tool that improves your writing by simplifying difficult texts and improving sentence constructions for faster comprehension. You could then use the simplified version to fit your particular writing style.
14 – Draft
With Draft, you can edit your document, share it with friends who act as writing judges, and accept or decline changes from them. For a fee, you can also use Draft to ask a group of reviewers for suggested edits. It features a ‘mark draft’ button that allows you to save a draft. And compare it with others side by side in different writing panes. The draft also encourages you to remain accountable by tracking the number of words you write per day and sending you email reminders to help you meet your daily word count goal.
15 – Word Counter
WordCounter is excellent for when you have a predetermined word count. As the name suggests, the tool counts the words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs you create. More than this, it measures your copy’s reading level, letting you know if it is easy to understand.
WordCounter also estimates reading and speaking time so you can determine how long it will take your readers to go through your post. It can also spot grammar mistakes, overused words, and plagiarism so that you can replace them with other words if you choose to. An Auto-Save feature ensures your work remains safe even if you leave the site and come back later.
Conclusion
Finally, the best writers’ online resources cannot work if you are not writing (and reading). To improve your writing skill, you need to write, as often as possible, then go back, read it and fix it. The more you do this, the more comfortable you will feel about writing, and the better you get.
If you feel you are far from good, you could take up some online writing classes where you are coached personally to your needs. You could also reduce online distractions by using StayFocused, which disables your web browsing or blocks some specific websites temporarily allowing you to work solely on the project at hand.