Going into the campus library the first thing you will see is no longer books, but computers. Computers are used for everything from class registration to daily homework assignments. With our computers always being so close to us, it is important that we as college students know how to make the internet work for us. Here are five web resources that can aid students with all aspects of their university life.
1. Written? Kitten! http://writtenkitten.net/
Written? Kitten! is a great site for when you just can’t find the motivation to reach your 1,000-word minimum on a paper. This website tracks teh number of words you type, and rewards you every 100 words with a new cat picture. Not into cats? Well you can also adjust the website to show you pictures of puppies or bunnies.
2. UNiDAYS https://m.myunidays.com/
Being in college is expensive. UNiDAYS is an awesome website that gives you special discount codes just for being a college student! To make an account all you have to do is sign up with your university email address. The site offers discounts at many of the places college students are already shopping like Asos, Levi’s, Apple, Urban Outfitters, and Express.
3. Dorm Co https://www.dormco.com/
Dorm Co is a great place to check out as you start shopping for your new living space in the fall. Dorm Co caters its products to college students by selling items that are small enough to fit in small living quarters and allow for internal storage and organization. They offer a wide array of discount bed comforters and shipping is always $2.95.
4. Word Hippo http://www.wordhippo.com/
Word Hippo seems like a goofy online thesaurus at first glance, but it is actually a very powerful word-searching device. If you are struggling to come up with a specific words for an essay, you can search for it on Word Hippo by looking up a synonym or antonym, or you can search based ont the word’s meaning, another rhyming word, or by using it in an example sentence. Word Hippo is also really great for English language learners becase you can look up translations and pronunciations on this site too!
5. Paper Rater https://www.paperrater.com/
Paper Rater is a college student’s dream website. As the name implies, it will actually grade your essays for you! For free you can submit up to 15 pages of writing for critique. Within seconds, the website will use algorithms to quantitatively determine the quality of your paper based on grammar, spelling, vocabulary used, sentence structure, readability, and the amount of clichés used. This site isn’t perfect and the grade you get may not be the grade your professor will give you, but I still think it is a great tool to compare your writing to others at your eduation level and for getting ideas on where to improve.