Writing is only half the battle with academic papers. Essayist takes care of the other part: wrangling the bibliography and ensuring everything is formatted to APA- or MLA-style perfection.

What we love: How Essayist simplifies a usually tedious process. Search for books and journals directly in the app or manually enter magazine and newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, websites and more – the app handles the precise bibliography formatting for you.

Quick tip: Need to include an abstract or appendix (or three) in your document? Click the settings (gear) icon, then click Extra Sections to add them. And don’t miss picking a soothing background image for the app’s focused writing area. (Our favourite: the cloudy forest scene.)

Meet the creator: Erin Guest and Till Konitzer are self-taught coders based in Vancouver, Canada. They developed the app while Konitzer was writing his thesis and couldn’t find an app that suited his needs. (His thesis is featured in the screenshot.)