Choosing your tools

You do not need many tools. A small, well understood set beats a pile of apps you barely use. For most students, this is enough:

• One AI chat assistant for brainstorming, explaining, and editing
• A search tool like Google Scholar for finding real sources
• A citation manager for storing and formatting references
• Your writing tool with version history turned on

A few reminders that apply to every tool:

• Free tools are fine. You do not need to pay to do this well.
• Never paste confidential or personal data into an AI tool
• Keep your own master document as the single source of truth

The tools change often. The habits in this course do not.

Practice

Write down the four tools you will use for your dissertation, one per category above. Note your account or install status for each.