By Olga Pogrebniak
It’s a daunting task for students to research and write a research paper, especially for younger students who are new to the long-form writing process.
While it’s easier to research in today’s advanced technological age—in fact, a savvy student can complete the required research in a matter of days—the problem hits when it’s time to accurately document all the resources they used.
Luckily, technology comes to the rescue again.
You and your students can use these tools keep documentations accurate and avoid both intentional and accidental plagiarism.
For Your Students
Wunderlist
For: Planning
This is a great tool for students who love to write themselves notes, reminders or lists because it allows users to create organized lists of any kind.
Students writing a research paper have numerous things to do in order to complete their paper on time, like scheduling days for research or making meetings to go through draft edits. Whatever the list is for, Wunderlist can help students create and organize it.
Evernote
For: Organizing ideas
Evernote is a place for students to organize their ideas, whether they need to jot down notes or save a photo to be used as an illustration. Evernote files all this information in one organized place so students can find their data whenever, wherever.
While this platform is similar to Wunderlist, it stands on it own as a way to organize initial research. Students can create notebooks for separate topics, ideas or sections, making it easy to add information in an organized fashion.
More: 10 Tools for Essay Writing to Share With Your Students
Mendeley
For: Keeping sources straight
Once students have their list of reminders and initial ideas, it’s time to begin the research. This is where things start to get a little chaotic and students can find themselves forgetting where they located the information, who originally wrote it, and who published it. This is where Mendeley comes to the rescue.
Students simply download a PDF, transfer it into Mendeley and then the tool does the rest of the work:
- Annotates required information for the bibliography, like author, title and publishing date.
- Syncs information to the cloud so that students can use the data on any electronic device, whether your student is in the library or in the car.
Once students are in the writing phase of the project, Mendeley allows them to transfer all the bibliography information over.
Easybib
For: Referencing resources
Now that students have their papers written it’s time to place all the annotations into one bibliography list to avoid plagiarism. This is where the fourth tool can help; Easybib is exactly what it advertises, an easy and accurate way to create the paper’s much-needed bibliography.
Since Mendeley captured all needed information, Easybib ensures all the information meets the formatting criteria for the academic paper.
For You
Unplag Plagiarism Checker
For: Checking for plagiarism
Your students have done the research, written the paper, edited it, and now you have to grade it and double check for any intentional or accidental plagiarism.
Unplag plagiarism checker will scan pages in seconds and compare your students’ text against search engines, books and other documents, highlighting questionable passages so a person can ensure they are properly annotated.
This tool is fast, easy, and inexpensive to use—it’s worth the few dollars to know your students reputation and class grades are not in jeopardy because of plagiarism.
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