Microsoft Word update will help you write better research papers
Microsoft is giving students a new tool that may make the coming school year a little easier.
The company just introduced a new feature for Word that could make writing research papers a little less painful. Called Researcher, it helps you find and cite sources without ever leaving Word.
The goal of Researcher, which is available now to Windows users running the latest version of Office, is to help give students writing papers a better idea of how to start their assignment.
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Built on top of Microsoft Bing's Knowledge Graph, Researcher allows you to search for sources directly within Word. It pulls material in from places that are likely to be teacher-approved -- like news articles and educational websites that aren't Wikipedia -- and allows you to easily pull quotes from your sources into your paper. Better still, after you quote one of the sources you find in Researcher, it will automatically configure the inline citation and bibliography entry using your preferred citation style.
The company says it will also be adding more sources -- like encyclopedias, national health and science centers and history databases -- to Researcher soon so it will be able to surface information from a bigger variety of sources.
Additionally, Microsoft is also adding a new feature to Word called Editor that aims to help people improve their writing beyond the typical grammar and spelling suggestion. Rather than looking for errors, editor checks for areas where prose can be improved and makes suggestions that may make the writing stronger. If a sentence or phrase could be more concise, for instance, it may suggest you remove extraneous words or rephrase. If you have a tendency to slip into the passive voice, it can detect that too -- and, better yet, help you fix it.
Behind the scenes, Editor is powered by machine learning and an actual team of linguists that helped it fine tune its suggestions. So while the feature will start off with more basic suggestions, Microsoft says it expects them to improve and become more complex over time. (You can also set your own preferences, like whether you want it to highlight jargon, clichés or informal language.)
Editor, which is rolling out later this year, will also improve Word's existing spelling and grammar suggestions. Instead of simply noting that you used "affect" when you meant "effect," or "there" when you should have used "their," the spelling and grammar menu will explain the error with definitions of the relevant words.
Topics Microsoft
Karissa was Mashable's Senior Tech Reporter, and is based in San Francisco. She covers social media platforms, Silicon Valley, and the many ways technology is changing our lives. Her work has also appeared in Wired, Macworld, Popular Mechanics, and The Wirecutter. In her free time, she enjoys snowboarding and watching too many cat videos on Instagram. Follow her on Twitter @karissabe.
