by Trent Lythgoe
I’m always looking for the latest digital writing tools. I suspect a few of my fellow professors secretly mock me for using technological writing crutches. But I feel no shame. Writing is hard enough—I see no reason to make it harder by using a typewriter, barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways. Tweedy technophobes can have my wireless mouse when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.
Here are a few tools I use in my writing process to make my work more effective and efficient.
Research
1) Google Scholar. Google Scholar is my first stop for academic research. A simple keyword search returns thousands of sources, sortable by date or relevance. My favorite feature is “cited by” which shows researchers the most influential sources based on the number of times they’ve been cited. Further, users can click the “cited by” number to get the list of citing works, and they can narrow their search to only that list by checking the “search within citing articles” box. These functions allow researchers to quickly narrow thousands of search results to only the most useful sources.
2) Zotero. Managing sources and building citations can be tough, but Zotero makes it easy. Zotero’s web browser plugin saves source information with one click. Once saved, writers can use Zotero’s Microsoft Word plugin to quickly create correctly formatted citations and works cited lists. Additionally, Zotero can easily switch citation styles. I once drafted an article using Chicago style but wanted to send it to a journal that uses APA. The style change would have taken several hours by hand. With Zotero, it took ten seconds and three mouse clicks.
Drafting and Revising
Once I’ve gathered my first round of sources, I move on to drafting. I turn off all digital tools so I can draft fast without concern for style or correctness. My first draft will be ugly. But all first drafts are. I welcome the ugliness because editing while drafting slows the process. It also increases my emotional connection to the writing, making it that much harder to murder my darlings–eliminate unnecessary ideas, characters, sentences–later on. Because murder them, I will.
My digital tools stay put away when I revise a draft. Revising is more like thinking than writing. The best revision tools are keyboard, mouse, and brain. The writer clarifies ideas and structures them logically. Revising reveals weak arguments and prompts the writer to do more research and drafting.
Editing and Proofreading
After moving from revision to editing, the digital tools come out. Editing makes the writing easy to understand through effective style and correctness. Several tools can help with one or both.
3) Microsoft Word Editor. Like its predecessors, Editor checks for spelling and grammar errors. But this isn’t your parents’ spell check. The modern Editor also finds clarity and conciseness problems. Writers can fine-tune the feedback for casual, professional, or formal styles. Additionally, the built-in Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tests help writers monitor readability. I strive to write at a 9th-grade level or lower for general audiences (this article, for example, scores 8.6) and 12th-grade or lower for professional readers.
4) Grammarly. Grammarly is my go-to grammar and clarity checker. Like Editor, it spotlights grammar and correctness problems. But Grammarly truly stands out on clarity issues. It finds confusing passages and suggests clearer alternatives. Grammarly offers Microsoft Word and Chrome plugins. As a fun bonus, it sends you a weekly statistics summary (I’ve made 69,484 writing errors since I started using Grammarly—probably a record).
5) OneLook Thesaurus. More than just a thesaurus, OneLook helps writers cut and simplify. Naturally, it finds word synonyms. But OneLook’s real power is finding synonyms for phrases. For example, searching for the phrase to hide and protect returns the synonym shield. Writers can use OneLook’s sorting feature to find simple alternatives for complex words (hazy is a short synonym for semiperspicuous—in case anyone asks). Another helpful feature is OneLook’s filter function, which narrows results by definition or part of speech. For shield, I can filter out the nouns (a piece of defensive armor) and see only the verbs (to protect or defend).
6) The Writer’s Diet. Professor Helen Sword’s website, built around her book of the same name, helps writers turn flabby writing into lean, energetic prose. Professor Sword argues that flabby writing results from too many be-verbs (is, was, are), zombie nouns (nominalizations), prepositions (at, in, to, of), ad-words (adverbs and adjectives), and waste words (it, this, that, there). The Writer’s Diet offers several tools, including a free Microsoft Word app, to help writers find and fix these problems.
7) Microsoft Word Read Aloud. Listening to my writing is always my last editing step. When we read familiar writing, our brain autocorrects errors and fills in missing words. But mistakes that get past our eyes don’t get past our ears.
Artificial Intelligence
I use artificial intelligence (AI), such as Chat GPT, Bing Copilot, and Google Gemini, to refine my writing rather than produce content. During research, for example, I might ask AI to summarize a topic or create an annotated bibliography. Or, once I have a draft, I might ask AI to summarize my writing to see if my arguments are clear, suggest counterarguments, or propose introductions and conclusions.
I treat AI like a moderately skilled research assistant rather than a coauthor. And as I would with a moderately skilled research assistant, I expect AI to make mistakes. I never accept its suggestions without verifying them.
I rarely ask AI to generate original content because it doesn’t write well. The models use the largest repository of bad writing in human history—the internet. As a result, AI writing tends to be vague, shallow, and incoherent. Stylistically, AI writing is often cluttered and cliché-ridden. Prompt engineering can improve AI content. And as AI gets better, these shortcomings may fade. But for now, AI makes a better assistant than coauthor.
It’s Still About the Writer
Although these tools are helpful, use them wisely. Do not assume the tool is always right—especially regarding style and tone. Trust yourself. Don’t let a computer change your mind if it sounds right and feels right. In the end, it’s your writing. Use digital tools to help you make it the best it can be.
Dr. Trent J. Lythgoe is an associate professor of military leadership and the Fox Conner Chair of Leadership Studies at the US Army Command and General Staff College. Dr. Lythgoe earned his PhD in political science at the University of Kansas. He served 22 years as a US Army aviation officer. Dr. Lythgoe’s research has appeared in Armed Forces & Society, Political Research Quarterly, Joint Force Quarterly, and Military Review. He is the author of three published or forthcoming book chapters and co-editor of a forthcoming book on civil-military relations from Army University Press.
