8 Useful Services While Working on Academic Work
Every module at HSE feels like the hunger games: dozens of essays, presentations and projects often overlapping with exams. We are constantly writing, editing, citing and designing. At some point, it feels like the creative energy runs out not because of ideas, but because of formatting requirements and endless small details.
For 3 years as I am a HSE student, I have found several online tools that make the studying process at HSE more efficient and useful. Below are 8 services that can help you write cleaner texts, organize sources, focus better, and create beautiful slides.
Magic boards
When you have to brainstorm a research project or plan a group presentation, Miro is a lifesaver. It is an online collaborative whiteboard where teams can draw mind maps, attach links, or move notes together in real time.
Miro is a must have for online classes. Miro boards are the main tool which we use during our Minor classes. We usually work in groups during the classes, so it is very useful for working together there while connecting our ideas all together. Students can easily find on the Miro boards necessary materials, grade sheets and tasks. I like that you can return to your materials whatever you need.
Miro turns abstract academic ideas into something tangible and visual which is perfect for visual learners and anyone tired of endless Google Docs.
One more platform with sources
We are all familiar with the pain of having to find countless sources for academic work. If you are bored of Google Scholar or CyberLeninka as platforms of sources — try Mendeley.
Mendeley is a free reference manager that keeps all your articles and books organized in one digital library. You can easily produce references, citations and bibliographies in a whole range of journal styles with just a few clicks.
I want to mention a big variety of academic works in English on this platform. It really saved me when I was preparing my coursework.
In order to problems with sources
The digital academic sphere operates on PDFs: they are the format for lecture notes, assignments, and journal articles. However, in practice managing these files, such as merging chapter PDFs, compressing large documents for submission, or editing scanned PDFs, often require specialized assistance. And students deal with these problems especially while working with sources for academic work. PDF24 Tools can become your assistant that would help you to overcome these obstacles.
Unite, divide, edit, convert, compress, extract or delete pages from a file — and this is the least part of the functions of this service. Your every problem with PDFs can be solved with this one platform and it is convenient.
I usually use it for page extraction. It helps me when I find a big book for my text, but I really need only one chapter out of it. It is always more pleasant to work with a smaller file without unnecessary information, so I refer to this platform for help.
Check your text before sending it
Nowadays, there are dozens of platforms for checking the grammar of your work. It is very helpful when you are working on some text for so long, your eyes lose freshness of vision and you do not notice some mistakes. But these platforms do not usually help you with language load.
Glavred is an online text editor that helps you clean up unnecessary words, simplify phrases, and make your writing more laconic. There are 2 features which can help you: checking the clarity and readability of your text. Glavred usually highlights how many “water” words are used or some cliches. Also, the service gives your text a “clarity score”, encouraging you to make your text better.
I first met Glavred on the first course during Russian seminar classes. I was really amazed by how my texts were loaded. I did not even realize that there were a lot of unnecessary constructions and cliches. Thanks to this service, now my text language is much better.
Text formatting
Continuing the theme of the form of the text, we sometimes forget about a visual part of it. Extra spaces, wrong quotation marks, hyphens instead of dashes, and other minor mistakes can ruin the impression of the text. Typograph is a digital proofreader, which will put the text in order according to the rules of Russian and English typography.
Typograph is very useful while working on big text projects. I was working on a project for my Russian seminar with my groupmates and the problem was that each of us formatted text in different ways. This service saved a lot of our time and also brought our text to a common style.
The Link Wizard
If you have ever formatted references according to Russian academic standards (GOST), you know it is a nightmare. Punctuation, commas, and brackets have to be exactly right. The craziest thing is to write citations manually. So, to ease our suffering, there are services such as designing your citations online from Open Resource.
This service allows you to refer to various sources such as books, Internet-sources, laws, articles from collections. The process is really simple: you fill in all necessary gaps like the author, title, year, and publisher and that's it — your link is ready and it is designed correctly.
I was really grateful to this service while I was writing my coursework last year. I had dozens of Internet-sources such as TikTok and I did not know how I needed to format the links to TikToks according to GOST rules. And now I am confident in this sphere as I know what you should do.
How to present your work
After finishing writing the text we are getting ready to prepare a presentation. Creating a visually compelling presentation is a skill that would be useful at HSE, but not all of us are graphic designers. We always want to create a catchy, pretty and informative presentation, but designs in PowerPoint or in Google Slides are not so attractive.
Slidesgo offers free presentation templates for PowerPoint, Google Slides and Canva. There are dozens of templates for different themes such as business, history, technology and so on. Also you can filter templates by industry, style or color.
My favourite case connecting with this platform is when I was preparing a presentation for my English seminar. I was presenting my Telegram channel as my final project. It was related to the Christmas theme and I found a perfect template for this presentation. You can see a screenshot below.
Do not lose your focus
HSE students are the real digital multitaskers, you can do your tasks, work or chat with your friends and listen to the tutor at the same time. That means Telegram, VK, and TikTok are always one tap away. Forest is a mobile app that helps you focus by turning study sessions into a small game: every time you stay off your phone, a digital tree grows. If you leave the app, the tree dies.
It sounds simple, but it works. When I was preparing for my literature exam, I used Forest during 30-minute Pomodoro sessions. My tiny forest of green pines became a result of my work. This service helps to concentrate and motivate yourself to be more involved in work.
The interesting part is that in partnership with the real-tree-planting organization Trees for the Future, Forest enables users to plant actual trees. When users spend their app virtual coins on tree planting, the Forest team donates to partners and facilitates the creation of planting orders.
Conclusion
Using these tools does not mean that your work suddenly becomes “perfect”. What these digital services truly offer is structure, clarity and creative space. They take care of the mechanical part of studying like citations, formatting, file conversions, or visual design, so that your mind can focus on what really matters: ideas, analysis and critical thinking.
At our university, where the pace is intense and deadlines seem endless, such helpers become a kind of invisible academic support system. HSE encourages independence and intellectual freedom, but that also means students must manage their time and workload responsibly. These smart tools can help you with it. They allow us to spend less time struggling with technicalities and more time actually learning.
References
- https://miro.com/app/dashboard/
- https://www.mendeley.com/
- tools.pdf24.org/ru/
- https://glvrd.ru/
- https://typograf.github.io/?ysclid=lxcyqj6edp270028497#!text=
- https://slidesgo.com/
- https://slidesgo.com/theme/christmas-style-personal-organizer#search-Christmas&position-48&results-208
- https://www.forestapp.cc/
- https://trees.org/sponsor/forest-app/
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