Essays can be really annoying. A good essay needs structure, research, a strong thesis and originality. A few fancy ten-dollar words never hurt anyone, either. But usually the worst thing about an essay is that it needs to be done by an impossible deadline while you juggle a billion other assignments.

To help with all of the above, we’ve scoured the internet and found a few great, FREE writing resources to help you take down that annoying essay that’s been looming over you.

Just click on any of the headings — we’ve hyperlinked to all the resources!

1. Thesis Generator

• This website looks like it’s from 1996, but it’s super helpful. Some people leave coming up with their thesis statement for the end, once the bulk of essay is already written. But knowing what you’re trying to prove going in will help keep you on track while writing.
• The Thesis Generator takes all the basic info about your topic (and the point you’re trying to prove), and boils it down into a single statement. The site generates a few options to pick from, and you can always tweak what it gives you. But it’s really helpful to have a core idea to build your essay around, and to fall back on if you get lost.

2. Story Toolz

• As the poorly spelled name implies, Story Toolz actually has a number of tools (I refuse to use “z” to spell that word) to help improve your writing.
• The Cliché Buster, Word Count Meter, and Readability scale are all helpful, but the Story Idea Generator is particularly great (especially for English and Film majors) — it’s as good for a laugh as it is for sparking an idea.

3. Essay Map

• Structure is really important in essay writing, and sometimes it can be the majority of what you’re graded on. Which is why it’s good to lay out your essay before hand, to help keep you from getting off track or rambling on.
• Essay Map guides you step-by-step to laying out your essay, and presents the information to you visually (like, you know, a map). It may seem tedious to make a skeleton of your essay before actually writing it, but it’ll save you time in the long run.

4. Vocabulary.com

• Words. All the best words. That’s what you want for conveying your well-researched ideas.
• For those dedicated to mastering Oscar Wilde-like wordplay, Vocabulary.com can actually design quizzes for you that will help you learn words quickly.

5. A Research Guide For Students

• Yes, that’s seriously the name of the website, and yes, the appearance of the site really is that boring. BUT DON’T BE FOOLED. You’ll be thankful you have this page bookmarked once you’ve gathered all of your research.
• This website has a series of guides that help you organize your research, utilize it and properly site it. As a bonus, there are also some very helpful guides on avoiding plagiarism, building bibliographies, and using footnotes and end notes (all that super annoying, but super necessary essay-writing stuff).

6. Plagiarism Checker

• You’re not allowed to plagiarize anything. Your profs and teachers will tell you this roughly 10,000 times. But sometimes something you’ve written might be unwittingly close to something that’s already been published, and that might be enough to land you in a heap of trouble. Best not to let all your hard work go to waste and take a few seconds to put your essay through the Plagiarism Checker before submitting it to your prof.

Got your own essay writing tool you’ve been using that we should know about? Let us know!

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