Between balancing coursework, exams, finances, mental health, and social life, every student can understand the pressure and stress university can bring! Thankfully, we live in the world of the internet and students can access millions of online resources like eBooks and videos, and study tools to help them get through university life that little bit easier.

Here are our 5 essential (and cost-effective!) online study tools that we believe students need this semester:

Kortext
To no one’s surprise, we first recommend our very own platform at Kortext! Through Kortext, there are many perks to help you get through exam season. With access to a vast array of study tools, you can highlight and annotate within your eBook, create citations and copy and paste quotes directly into your assignments.And that’s not all, you can cater Kortext to your needs by customising the font size, style, and background colour of any digital textbook you use, as well as choosing the Read Aloud option if you’d rather listen to your eBook. Whether on your laptop or on the go on your phone, your course texts are available to you 24/7 so you can study effectively anytime, anywhere!
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Grammarly
For those taking essay subjects, Grammarly is a great study tool to ensure the best quality of writing. Going beyond grammar and spell checks, Grammarly is able to make overcomplicated sentences much more readable and concise. You can run it on basically any device, and gives you suggestions on your writing as you go. While they offer multiple packages, their most basic one is free, and still very handy! In fact, many universities recommend and even offer Grammarly as a tool to help students succeed.
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Motion
Feeling overwhelmed with busy deadlines, revision sessions, course reading and life appointments? If you’re nodding fearfully right now, we recommend the Motion app which is powered by AI. It helps to ease the stress of life by providing structure to prioritise tasks and boosting your productivity. With Motion, your calendar gets a smart overhaul based on your priorities,  acting as you own personalised life assistant. For example, you can establish a consistent reading schedule by setting recurring times across the week to hit the books.It can schedule up tasks like reviewing class notes, working on problem sets, or reading assigned chapters. Motion takes care of generating these tasks regularly and works with you to help you develop your perfect study routine.
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TimeTree
If you struggle with remembering the dates of your exams or deadlines, or even knowing when to study, then use a calendar app to help balance your exams, practicals, and deadlines. Apps such as TimeTree or even Google Calendar will allow you to colour code and differentiate your lectures, exams, and really anything of your choice to keep confusion to a minimum and help you keep track of different aspects of university. Especially useful for visual learners, this allows you to split up your studying into bits instead of cramming it all at the last minute. It basically gives you the opportunity to keep on top of everything!
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Forest
A time management tool with a difference. Forest helps you commit to your schedule, whilst also allowing you to take appropriate breaks. There’s no point in putting in all this effort if you’re just going to be burnt out after a week! It’s best in the long run to refresh your brain every so often by taking breaks, as the benefits of this can include increased energy and focus. On top of this, Forest has partnered up with real tree planting organisation “Trees for the Future” to plant real trees on Earth. The idea is to plant a tree when you want to start a study session and over time the tree will grow (however, if you get the app partway through, then the tree will die, so keep studying!).Users can spend virtual coins they earn over the course of their study sessions to plant real life trees. Over time you will be able to grow a large forest on the app to showcase all your hard work! For those who potentially struggle with sticking to a timetable, this is the study tool for you, and it will be great for your eco-friendly conscience!

Try out these study tools and tips to see what works for you. Happy studying!