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Writers have historically been solely creative people. Beyond the few marketing writers and ad copy producers, most writers were novelists, poets, and journalists. Now, with technology becoming such a central part of our lives, writers are being hired for technical work. Whether it’s copywriting, coding, blogging, or press releases, there are all kinds of writing techniques that are used in technology. Below are five types of online writing skills utilized for technical aspects of our economy.

Copywriting

Copywriting refers to the production of copy for a variety of purposes. It is most often used in drafting website content. Every website requires engaging and informative writing about the company, product, art, or brand. However, copywriting is a broad field that encompasses a lot of different things. While a copywriter may simply write web pages and other words for promotional content, they can also use search engine optimization (SEO). SEO uses keywords, hyperlinks, and metadata to land a web page high up on Google or Bing, but copywriters aren’t the only ones using the method.

Blogging

Blogging is also another form of online writing that utilizes SEO. In fact, maintaining a blog can be the difference between landing high on search engines and falling to the back of the search. Blogs don’t just provide the consistent publishing of SEO content; they can also provide the avenue for informing and engaging with customers. You can write about the uses of your product, topics that pertain to your brand, information on new services or sales, and much more. The sky’s the limit with blogging. Not only can it be informative, but it can also land you on search engines and provide a method to link to your products and other web pages. If you have been making fun of blogging in the past, it might be time to change the way you are thinking about it.

Technical Writing

Technical writing might seem vague, but it is a field all its own. You need someone to write the words for employee handbooks, software manuals, medical copy, scientific journals, and other forms of technical spaces that need to be written about. Technical writing software provides a way to get the most out of your content. Drag and drop content into different places and convert them into different files. Interact with a database of talented technical writers. Find new solutions to problems. Whatever field you are in, if you are working with technology, you will probably need a technical writer at some point.

Email Newsletters

Another form of writing online that is quite effective comes in the form of emails. Companies of all kinds are utilizing email newsletters to speak directly to their customers. You don’t get to just talk to the people who want to hear what you are saying, it’s a great way to promote new products, announce new services, and provide information on sales. Email marketing, as it has become known, is one of the best ways to create an audience. Whether you are in the world of science or social media, email newsletters provide a fantastic opportunity to get the word out.

Press Releases

Press releases are nothing new, but they are being used in fresh and exciting ways. Now, you can send a press release directly to an email address. Whatever field the organization is in, a press release can announce changes to the structure, a pivot in business model, a new name, services, a product, or just that you plan on going in a different direction. Press releases must be written and the person who is writing them should understand who they are writing for. Press releases have become another type of online writing.

It doesn’t matter what your perspective is, online writing is dynamic and continues to change. It is important to understand the various forms of online and technical writing that exist. These are just a few. As technology becomes more and more prevalent, it is viable as a form of living. Where writers would either struggle to survive on their art or become huge stars, now writers can support themselves doing a form of technical online writing that never existed before. It will continue to evolve, but right now it is in a special place.

From the collection of data for research to its publication, there are many parts involved in creating a research paper. Because of this, doing research isn’t a simple task. Getting your research work published is more than just creating content.

Thankfully, there are many available tools that researchers can use in building their research. Check out the following:

Writing Software

Writing your research paper calls for many steps, including adding images, tables, or scientific equations. You may also need to include footnotes and cite references. Sometimes, you may need to use a word counter for a specific word requirement. Now, choosing the best writing software depends on your personal choice.

While there are many researchers who are content with open-access software, such as LibreOffice and OpenOffice, some are willing to spend a few bucks to use Microsoft Office Word. For the scientific community, however, Latex is a popular choice.

In a research paper, it’s ideal to ensure that your document is free from grammatical errors, typos, and wrong sentence structure. Even if your content is good, if it contains bad grammar, it can still be judged wrongly. Thus, using a writing software that also has a grammar checker would be truly helpful to improve your text.

Research Software

You need tools and software when doing research. In laying the groundwork for your investigation, a free tool to help you is Google Scholar. With this tool, you can easily look for works that are similar to yours and find out how their research can help you.

If your work involves analyzing data, you’ll also need to have the appropriate software. A common tool to help you perform basic graphing and statistical analysis is Microsoft Excel. Depending on your area of research, you may need to have other data analysis tools to improve your work.

Reference Tools

In organizing the references you’ve used in your paper, you need handy referencing tools. These tools come by different names, including citation app or software, reference management software, citation manager, or literature management software. All of these means a tool that’ll let you save and format your references.

It’s crucial to select a software that will let you consistently save the references that you used in your writeup. There are various options out there including Paperpile, Mendeley, and Zotero. These free resources allow you to collect the references you read and save them later for easy access.

Project Management Software

Working on a research manuscript involves deadlines and multiple tasks. With everything that needs to be done on time, it’s easy to get caught up and be overwhelmed. Thus, it’s a good idea to find a project management software that will help keep you on top of your work. With such a tool, you can easily lay out the activities that need to be done by whom and when. For many researchers, it’s helpful to visualize all tasks and know the expected timeline for doing them.

There are a bunch of options available to all kinds of researchers. Some of these include Scrivener, Microsoft Project, and Microsoft OneNote. Using these tools, you can save tables, images, lab results while you do your research, too.

Formatting Tools

Today, there are lots of journals with their own guidelines and formatting rules. Take note that publishers come with a specific style guide. If you want to publish your paper with them, it’s important that you follow their specified format.

You can start with templates provided by Google Docs or Microsoft Office Word. However, if you want your work to automatically follow a specific format, you can try Typeset or Overleaf, which are free tools.

Plagiarism Checker

Plagiarism happens when you use text from someone else’s work without citing the original author, which is a serious academic misconduct. Regardless of using it word for word or paraphrasing it, it’s still considered plagiarism if you don’t give credit to the rightful person.

A common way to plagiarize academic work is using your previously published work without stating that it was already used. This is called self-plagiarism. When you publish your work, the publisher also holds the copyright of your text and you’d need to ask permission to use it or you can also mention the source.

There are various plagiarism checking software you can choose from. This will ensure that you only submit work that’s free from plagiarism.

Some of this software includes DupliChecker and Turnitin.

Final Thoughts

Writing and publishing research work isn’t an easy thing to do. With the many steps to undergo, you’d need some tools to help manage the tasks until its completion.

While there are only a few of these tools mentioned above, you’re free to explore other software and tools, which can help you finish your work and finally have it published.

Five Types of Online Writing in Technology

Great Tools to Help When Writing and Publishing Your Academic Journals