The Best Apps for Writing a Research Paper

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Applications simplify our everyday lives in virtually every aspect. Research and editing apps offer the ease of mobility and helpful specification for writing an academic or professional research paper. Whether the task is researching a particular area or writing a well-formatted document on the go, there's probably an app for it.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker application offers a viable source of credible information for educational or professional research papers. The app -- which is available for most smartphone operating systems, such as iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 -- offers categories such as Arts and Culture, Fiction/Poetry, Reports/Essays and Humor from which to pull credible information.

Microsoft Office

Perhaps the most valuable tool for all writers to have on a mobile device is Microsoft Office, currently only officially available on WP7 devices. This app gives users access to OneNote, Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Documents created in Word have text formatting options similar to the desktop version of Word. Furthermore, documents include an outline option for quickly scanning the text of a particularly long essay. Once finished, you can send the document via email as an attachment or upload it via SharePoint.

Edit Minion

Edit Minion is a copy editor computer application that finds common mistakes in writing. Simply paste your research paper into the text field and click edit to find out which areas of your research essay need improvement. Edit Minion informs users of dangerous adverb use, weak words, "said" replacements, passive voice, preposition endings and commonly misspelled words.

Write or Die

Write or Die is an online application from the creator of Edit Minion. Its main purpose is helping writers closing in on a deadline to stop procrastinating and get to work. Using a coercive method of deleting your previous text if you stop writing for a couple of seconds, Write or Die may not kill you, but it will certainly coax you into knocking out that research paper much faster.