This is a list of tools and resources for writing and research. Before you check them out, how about browsing my books. There is a special cool one that you can use in class to help students reflect about their leadership. Check it out!
Writing tools
I have been writing at least 3 hours a day for the past 15 years. I have settled on a set of tools that I use for all my projects, including academic articles, books, essays and opinion pieces.
| Name | Description | Price | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scrivener | The best writing program for complex projects bar none. If you still use word, you MUST give scrivener a try. | Often discounted in November for NaNoWriMo. | Link |
| Hemingway | Best readability tool that I know. So easy to use! Must have for people that love long sentences (me!) | Free online, €20 to use offline. I have the offline version just because I travel a lot and am often out of wifi range. | Link |
| ProWritingAid | Amazing set of tools to improve your writing. Only the readability function is worse than Hemingway. | €80 a year / €300 lifetime. Often discounted in November for NaNoWriMo. | Link |
| Hours tracker | I write 3 hours everyday. Sometimes I have meetings or calls throughout the day, so I use this time tracker to make sure that I reach my target. | Free with pay for extra features. | Link |
| Toggl | Alternative to hours tracker that works across multiple platforms (PC and mobile). | Free | Link |
| Tadam | Some people write in 20 minute blocks, rather than use a timer (pomodoro technique). I don't do that very much, but when I do I use Tadam. | Free | Link |
| Deepfocus | Plays ambient sounds. I have a bit of ADHD, so need a bit of background noise but hate music. There's one with the sounds of a street a night that I like very much | Free | Link |
| Scapple | Best mindmapping tool ever! Unfortunately only available for MacOS. | €20 | Link |
Research tools and resources
See also the resources on my page for masters students’ theses.
| Title | Description | Topics | Link | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cogi transcription tool. | Recording / transcription app touted for its ability to make transcription a breeze. | Qualitative analysis, transcription tools. | Link | App |
| A primer on mining mailboxes for data | Great chapter explaining what kinds of data you can get from email mailboxes and how to parse it. | Quantitative analysis, Network analysis. | Link | Text |
| Data Basic.io | Set of tools that introduce all kinds of cool quantitative analyses. Great for research ideas. | Quantitative analysis | Link | Text |
| Gephi | Free social network analysis tool. | Quantitative analysis, social network analysis | App | |
| RQDA | Free module for R which allows it to be used for qualitative analysis. As far as I am concerned, this is the best qualitative software available. A bit slow on MacOS. | Qualitative analysis | Link | App |
| TAMS | Free qualitative analysis software for the Mac. What I used before having my job pay for NVivo. | Qualitative analysis | Link | App |
| R programming books | Curated list of books about R. | Quantitative analysis. | Link | Text |
Blog posts on writing and research
- Phenomenography in management?
- Are you an ‘architect’ or a ‘gardener’?
- Comparing two outlines
- IWD: Five amazing papers by women
- How to write an Editor letter / first submission
- How do you write the results section of a qualitative paper?
- How to make small data sets publishable?
- How to use masters’ theses to write good papers?
- Free qualitative software
- Great tutorials on innovative research methods for online data