Software makes your job easier whether you are using them for education or business purpose. When it comes to writing a dissertation, you not only need to be wary of your research content but formatting guidelines too. Here is the list of free software for fitting your dissertation in a perfect writing standard.
LaTex
LaTex is an open-source software for typesetting highly suitable for technical and scientific writing, but it can be used by all PhD scholars regardless of their disciplines. It is not a word processor so you do not have to be concerned about formatting. This software follows basic coding to arrange your document such as:
\begin (document)
\title (text)
\author (text)
\end (document)
Following are the prominent features of the software:
- It includes both textual and non-textual material.
- It supports automatic generation of bibliographies.
- It is suitable for large documents consisting of tables, graphs, charts and figures.
- It is equipped with multilingual typesetting as well as typesetting of mathematical formulas.
Scrivener
It is one of the most used software by writers including but not limited to academic scholars, novelists, non-fiction writers, screenwriters and journalists. This software is perfect for long documents when you more often than not struggle for page space. You write original content and then allow it to arrange your text either in small sections or long as you like.
These are the highlights of the software:
- You can edit your material by splitting it into parts such as arguments or paragraphs or chapters, or you can edit them as a part of a single document.
- It is equipped with integrated outlining tools used for references and inserting images and tables in the text.
- You can export your written material to Word, Plain Text and PDF formats and import file formats such as Word and OpenOffice to Scrivener.
- This software allows you to use different formatting styles to follow your university’s guidelines.
LyX
LyX is well known for writing articles, dissertations, novels and any document that requires mathematical and statistical representation. LyX can help you learn the use of LaTex. Here are the characteristics of this software:
- It supports advanced feature for references and bibliographies.
- It is equipped with different type-classes used for different writing purposes.
- Other useful tools include spell check, multiple open documents, revision tracking and thesaurus.
- It supports many graphic formats such as SVG, EPS and XFig. You can also resize images.
- It supports multilingual documents including Hebrew and Arabic due to bi-directional text.
Citavi
Citavi can be used for both research and business purposes. You can search resources, create tasks, save your ideas, outline a draft and write your dissertation. The best part of this software is you can store myriad of full articles in any form and annotate them. This software also enables you to collaborate with other scholars from the same discipline where you can discuss your research and make progress.
Conclusion
When it comes to writing a dissertation, it is intrinsic that you choose relevant software that comes in handy for your research. The aforementioned software can make your job of writing dissertation easier and quicker. However, there are other software applications too that have been designed for writing purposes. Choose the one that is the closest to your requirements.