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Best tools, websites for PhD students/ researchers/ graduates

 Tools and websites for PhD: In this blog post (tools and websites for PhD), we are listing the tools and websites that are useful for every Ph.D. student. Even these presented PhD tools and websites are important for experienced researchers. It also depends on the area of research and nature of investigation (theoretical, experimental, survey, pure data analysis, etc). There are no universal tools/ websites that are common to or applicable to all PhD scholars.

While writing a research article it is essential to use appropriate tools and websites for better productivity. It enhances the work and saves a lot of time. They are easy to use. Websites also play a major role in a researcher’s life. The online PhD tools act like a portal that connects researchers with other fellow scholars. It is a medium where their work can be displayed. This research work garners attention.

If I am missing some tools and websites for PhDs, please comment below so that we can update those tools in this blog post.

Uses of tools in PhD

  • Writing
  • Referencing
  • Managing
  • Researching
  • Grammar checking
  • Detecting plagiarism

Hence it is important to use both tools and websites efficiently while doing a Ph.D. Below mentioned are the tools and websites essential for researchers/ Graduates. 


List of tools and websites for PhD scholars/ Researchers

Below are the tools and websites every PhD/graduate should use in his research:

1. Google Scholar (useful tool for researchers)

tools and websites for PhD
Online tool for searching research papers

Google Scholar is a free website that provides a platform for searching scholarly articles. It uses “web crawler “as a tool for identifying appropriate content. The researchers can get authentic data from various relevant books, journals, papers, abstracts, reports, patents, etc. The researcher can access relevant literature from a wide range of subjects. Google scholar also provides links for open access as well as published research papers. One can sign up for a Google Scholar alert for receiving the latest information on his/her research interest area.

2. Research Gate

tools and websites for PhD
Online tool for sharing research work

Research Gate is a commercial website for researchers to present their papers, share information and collaborate with other fellow scholars. There are a number of articles on the website which researchers can put into use. It also provides a free service for browsing and downloading articles. But charges a little fee if a researcher wishes to be registered with this particular website. These paid members have an opportunity to share their work and discuss it with other users. 

This online research tool also provides features like blogging which help the users to give feedback on the existing work. It also provides virtual rooms for chatting and discussing research topics. A member having a query can easily get clarified through experts. It uses an “RG score” for publishing works. RG score is given based on the number of publications, citations, recommendations to the published work.

3. Scopus: an important database for researchers

tools and websites for PhD
Online database

Scopus is a website that provides superior quality of data with extensive search and enhanced analytical tools. It has a huge database. This database consists of approximately 36,000 titles from around 11,000 publishers around the world. It consists of journals, books, and conference papers. It helps in discovering key research findings by giving access to charts, tables, etc. These can be explored to get specific parameters and understand the data. The analytical tools provided with Scopus helps in getting results, comparing journals, and evaluating them.

4. Web of Science: another useful database

tools and websites for PhD
Research database

Clarivate Analytics‘ Web of Science is an online subscription-based citation indexing service that gives access to multiple databases that reference cross-disciplinary research.

5. Grammarly: writing tool

tools and websites for PhD
Writing tool for researchers/ graduates

Grammarly is the most commonly used website by researchers to improve their writing. It checks grammar and plagiarism. It also provides suggestions to avoid them. It is also an extension feature that can be accessed on Chrome, Outlook, and other browsers. It gives a detailed review of our work. These include spelling, spacing, punctuation, and other errors related to sentence formation. The lines which are plagiarized can be easily detected through this and corrected by researchers. 

PhD tools used in writing by researchers

The writing tools assist researchers in writing enhanced content. MS Word, Latex, Scrivener are commonly used tools. 

1. MS Word

It is the most common tool used by researchers. It has the following features: 

  • Text formatting 
  • Aligning 
  • Checking of grammar and spelling 
  •  Numbering 
  •  Insertion of watermarks  

It has these basic features along with others. It can be further enhanced by installing plugins. 

2. Latex: paper formatting tool

tools and websites for PhD
Writing tool

It is generally used for scientific works. Researchers write their papers and add markup tags to improve the content. It produces a document that can easily be converted into other formats using TEX packages. Even difficult equations can also be formatted using this software.  It has the following features.

  • Managing of bibliography 
  • Referencing of figures and tables 
  • Page layout 
  • Numbering 
  • Headings of chapters and other sections 

3. Scriniver

This writing tool is used for writing long texts. Texts like in Ph.D. thesis, storybooks, etc. The most important feature of this software is it allows splits. The long text can be divided into small parts and written. These parts can be reorganized and moved throughout the document. It shows summaries of each part using a sticky note. These parts can be visualized by viewing them. 

4. Ref-n-Write

This research tool is used for searching research papers. Researchers use it in a similar way to that of Google. It has an add-in to Word. While writing a paper one can search for relevant papers using this tool. Use these papers and refer to them while writing their own. 

Tools used for referencing in research writing

The following online writing tools are used for organizing references and incorporating them properly in our research papers. 

1. Mendeley: an important research tool

It is an online research tool used for managing references and creating bibliography lists. A researcher can import his files on this software. After installing it and opening an account one can access all the features. It automatically generates a bibliography list once both the file and reference list are imported to its library. This can be easily used by a researcher. It can also be added as a plugin to Word.                          

2. Citavi

It is an advanced management tool. It manages references along with the tasks. It allows researchers to find content, analyze, and structure it while writing a research paper. The ISBN feature allows importing pdfs, books, and other files. It also has plugins for importing pictures, text, and graphics, tables, etc. “Citavi Thoughts Option” allows storing our ideas while writing a paper. It saves all these into separate sections. These sections can be reorganized and filled with relevant information accordingly. 

Other useful tools and websites for PhD

1. Excel

Microsoft Excel can be used for quantitative analysis. It has a lot of functions like MAX, AVERAGE, etc. to get calculations done faster. It is also used for visualizing through the creation of graphs, tables, etc. It is the best tool for statistical analysis. 

2. Snipping Tool

Use the snipping tool to capture screenshots. It is useful to copy and paste a particular image or a page. Even you crop a particular section of an image. You can find this tool on your computer by writing “snipping tool” in the search box.

We hope that the recommended tools and websites will help PhD Scholars/ researchers and graduates.

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