read your essay to you

#1 Text To Speech (TTS) Reader Online

Proudly serving millions of users since 2015

Type or upload any text, file, website & book for listening online, proofreading, reading-along or generating professional mp3 voice-overs.

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Play Text Out Loud

Reads out loud plain text, files, e-books and websites. Remembers text & caret position, so you can come back to listening later, unlimited length, recording and more.

Create Humanlike Voiceovers

The simplest most robust & affordable AI voice-over generating tool online. Mix voices, languages & speeds. Listen before recording. Unlimited!

Additional Text-To-Speech Solutions

Turns your articles, PDFs, emails, etc. into podcasts, so you can listen to it on your own podcast player when convenient, with all the advantages that come with your podcast app.

SpeechNinja says what you type in real time. It enables people with speech difficulties to speak out loud using synthesized voice (AAC) and more.

Battle tested for years, serving millions of users, especially good for very long texts.

Need to read a webpage? Simply paste its URL here & click play. Leave empty to read about the Beatles 🎸

Books & Stories

Listen to some of the best stories ever written. We have them right here. Want to upload your own? Use the main player to upload epub files.

Simply paste any URL (link to a page) and it will import & read it out loud.

Chrome Extension

Reads out loud webpages, directly from within the page.

TTSReader for mobile - iOS or Android. Includes exporting audio to mp3 files.

NEW 🚀 - TTS Plugin

Make your own website speak your content - with a single line of code. Hassle free.

TTSReader Premium

Support our development team & enjoy ad-free better experience. Commercial users, publishers are required a premium license.

TTSReader reads out loud texts, webpages, pdfs & ebooks with natural sounding voices. Works out of the box. No need to download or install. No sign in required. Simply click 'play' and enjoy listening right in your browser. TTSReader remembers your text and position between sessions, so you can continue listening right where you left. Recording the generated speech is supported as well. Works offline, so you can use it at home, in the office, on the go, driving or taking a walk. Listening to textual content using TTSReader enables multitasking, reading on the go, improved comprehension and more. With support for multiple languages, it can be used for unlimited use cases .

Get Started for Free

Main Use Cases

Listen to great content.

Most of the world's content is in textual form. Being able to listen to it - is huge! In that sense, TTSReader has a huge advantage over podcasts. You choose your content - out of an infinite variety - that includes humanity's entire knowledge and art richness. Listen to lectures, to PDF files. Paste or upload any text from anywhere, edit it if needed, and listen to it anywhere and anytime.

Proofreading

One of the best ways to catch errors in your writing is to listen to it being read aloud. By using TTSReader for proofreading, you can catch errors that you might have missed while reading silently, allowing you to improve the quality and accuracy of your written content. Errors can be in sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar, but also in your essay's structure, order and content.

Listen to web pages

TTSReader can be used to read out loud webpages in two different ways. 1. Using the regular player - paste the URL and click play. The website's content will be imported into the player. (2) Using our Chrome extension to listen to pages without leaving the page . Listening to web pages with TTSReader can provide a more accessible, convenient, and efficient way of consuming online content.

Turn ebooks into audiobooks

Upload any ebook file of epub format - and TTSReader will read it out loud for you, effectively turning it into an audiobook alternative. You can find thousands of epub books for free, available for download on Project Gutenberg's site, which is an open library for free ebooks.

Read along for speed & comprehension

TTSReader enables read along by highlighting the sentence being read and automatically scrolling to keep it in view. This way you can follow with your own eyes - in parallel to listening to it. This can boost reading speed and improve comprehension.

Generate audio files from text

TTSReader enables exporting the synthesized speech with a single click. This is available currently only on Windows and requires TTSReader’s premium . Adhering to the commercial terms some of the voices may be used commercially for publishing, such as narrating videos.

Accessibility, dyslexia, etc.

For individuals with visual impairments or reading difficulties, listening to textual content, lectures, articles & web pages can be an essential tool for accessing & comprehending information.

Language learning

TTSReader can read out text in multiple languages, providing learners with listening as well as speaking practice. By listening to the text being read aloud, learners can improve their comprehension skills and pronunciation.

Kids - stories & learning

Kids love stories! And if you can read them stories - it's definitely the best! But, if you can't, let TTSReader read them stories for you. Set the right voice and speed, that is appropriate for their comprehension level. For kids who are at the age of learning to read - this can also be an effective tool to strengthen that skill, as it highlights every sentence being read.

Main Features

Ttsreader is a free text to speech reader that supports all modern browsers, including chrome, firefox and safari..

Includes multiple languages and accents. If on Chrome - you will get access to Google's voices as well. Super easy to use - no download, no login required. Here are some more features

Fun, Online, Free. Listen to great content

Drag, drop & play (or directly copy text & play). That’s it. No downloads. No logins. No passwords. No fuss. Simply fun to use and listen to great content. Great for listening in the background. Great for proof-reading. Great for kids and more. Learn more, including a YouTube we made, here .

Multilingual, Natural Voices

We facilitate high-quality natural-sounding voices from different sources. There are male & female voices, in different accents and different languages. Choose the voice you like, insert text, click play to generate the synthesized speech and enjoy listening.

Exit, Come Back & Play from Where You Stopped

TTSReader remembers the article and last position when paused, even if you close the browser. This way, you can come back to listening right where you previously left. Works on Chrome & Safari on mobile too. Ideal for listening to articles.

Vs. Recorded Podcasts

In many aspects, synthesized speech has advantages over recorded podcasts. Here are some: First of all - you have unlimited - free - content. That includes high-quality articles and books, that are not available on podcasts. Second - it’s free. Third - it uses almost no data - so it’s available offline too, and you save money. If you like listening on the go, as while driving or walking - get our free Android Text Reader App .

Read PDF Files, Texts & Websites

TTSReader extracts the text from pdf files, and reads it out loud. Also useful for simply copying text from pdf to anywhere. In addition, it highlights the text currently being read - so you can follow with your eyes. If you specifically want to listen to websites - such as blogs, news, wiki - you should get our free extension for Chrome

Export Speech to Audio Files

TTSReader enables exporting the synthesized speech to mp3 audio files. This is available currently only on Windows, and requires ttsreader’s premium .

Pricing & Plans

• Online text to speech player
• Chrome extension for reading webpages
• Premium TTSReader.com
• Premium Chrome extension
• Better support from the development team

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Sister Apps Developed by Our Team

Speechnotes

Dictation & Transcription

Type with your voice for free, or automatically transcribe audio & video recordings

Buttons - Kids Dictionary

Turns your device into multiple push-buttons interactive games

Animals, numbers, colors, counting, letters, objects and more. Different levels. Multilingual. No ads. Made by parents, for our own kids.

Ways to Get In Touch, Feedback & Community

Visit our contact page , for various ways to get in touch with us, send us feedback and interact with our community of users & developers.

Read My Essay to Me: FREE Text-to-Speech Tool

Our online text-to-speech tool transforms any typed text into audio. It is absolutely free!

By clicking Read My Essay to me you agree to our Terms

We Can Turn Your Paper Into a Perfect One

Read my essay out loud to me, what is an essay reader tool.

Now let’s explain what these tools that read my essay aloud are. The technical term for the app is a text to speech tool, abbreviated as TTS. As assistive technology, Read My Paper to Me will voice over any written text you paste into the provided form.

Another advantage of these tools is that they run on various digital devices, including cell phones, tablets, and PCs. Moreover, specialized apps allow any mobile operating system (typically Android or iPhone) to load the tool. All browsers can open the free essay reader without problems and can even transform entire websites into speech.

Websites like PapersOwl feature various free tools to help clients improve their paper composition skills. They can also write your college essay for a fee. Once you receive the ordered piece, you can check its flow and consistency by uploading it in the field specified for text reading.

If you wonder how the Read Me My Essay app works, you should know that your device will generate the sound through TTS. You can adjust the speed according to your needs and select a speaker. Though some voices are robotic, the quality is superior and humanlike in most cases.

As the machine read essay, words get highlighted. Advanced variants can also read wording from images. This technique is known as OCR or optical character recognition. Overall, these tools assist people in tracking reading and are super convenient for mastering a foreign language.

Why Use Our Essay Reader Aloud?

Some of you may doubt the use of these tools, so we wanted to pinpoint their purpose. According to scientists, reading out loud affects other brain segments and is more objective than reading the text silently. Our minds react to auditory stimuli differently, depending on who reads the material. Thus, we can see the essay from another perspective and identify what is missing.

The key reason to use our Read My Essay to Me is the ability to spot typos and mistakes that slipped through your fingers. For instance, you might have missed a preposition or written the same word twice. When looking at texts, we tend to neglect these errors, which is not the case with speech.

Another advantage of Read My Paper to Me is that it enhances readability. Sometimes, we write lengthy sentences and disregard their complexity. When someone unfamiliar with the topic will read your paper out loud, they might struggle to grasp your points. Long and complicated sentences and paragraphs impede reading, and that’s not what you want to achieve with your writing. Hence, you’ll get the chance to fix the format and emotional impact to make your work legible and easy to understand.

Any written work must sound logical and have a seamless flow of thought. But even if you pay to do your essay , unintentional mistakes can occur. In the case of complex reports, focusing on delivering your arguments and examples can blur the paper’s readability. The TTC will help you improve your transitions and evaluate your explanations.

Finally, the text to speech converter can ease the lives of the disabled. For example, for those who have problems with writing or dyslexia, assistive technology can be of exceptional help. It can make the process more comfortable and facilitate comprehension and fluency.

Online Essay Reader – How to Use?

Advanced essay readers are incredibly practical in this high-tech era. Since this assistive technology is relatively new, we wanted to explain how it works. Below, we list the steps you must take to listen to your essay:

• Open our website and find the blank area provided for your essay. Copy and paste or type your text into the window, and the app will read out loud the written piece. Note that you can insert up to 5,000 characters in one go.
• Select preferred type of voice. You can choose between a few variations, including male and female voices, and adjust the reading speed.
• Locate the button READ MY TEXT and press it. The machine will start producing speech instantly.
• If you want to hear it once again, request another reading. Or paste a new essay and repeat the same procedure. You also have the option to download the audio version.

Read my Essay Out Loud: Key Benefits

Using our Read My Paper to Me aid is ideal for proofreading and editing your words. Here are some of the critical benefits:

Error Detection

Our online essay reader helps writers to spot and correct typos and mistakes. PapersOwl is also a website that writes essays for you on any subject matter you need for college. It is a one-stop-shop place for all your academic worries. Now, you no longer have to beg your friend to proofread your papers so you can polish them.

Coherence and Attractiveness

When working on an essay, distractors such as typing, noises, citing, research, and fact-checking might impede the cohesion of the paper. Focusing on one aspect may produce a poor piece in terms of meaning and readability. Since you’re multitasking when you write, clicking read my essay is an excellent opportunity to polish your text.

Auditory Learners

Many students prefer to use audiobooks in high school and college. These tools are an ideal solution for auditory learners having problems with visual focus. They can insert almost any text into the online texttospeech app and listen to it while cooking or relaxing. Indeed, these learning machines open a whole new world of possibilities.

Foreign Languages

Typically, you can’t learn a language unless you hear it constantly. And besides speaking, the best way to memorize new words and phrases is to listen to them. You can choose the voice in your app depending on your learning style.

READ MY ESSAY TO ME: FAQ

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Why is reading aloud important, what is the best online essay reader.

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Read and Listen to Text Documents Online

Easily hear your text documents as audio books and experience the joy of hands-free reading. Start listening to your favorite text documents online today with ReadLoudly.

Select a Text file

Max file size 100MB.

Read and Listen to Text to Speech Online

Listening to your Text files hands-free is simple with ReadLoudly. Here's how to get started:

Select the text file, or write anything you want to listen to. Our website allows you to easily upload and select the text document you want to listen to.

Once the text file is loaded, navigate to the page you want to listen to. Our intuitive interface allows you to quickly and easily navigate to any page in your document.

Click the play button to start listening. Our advanced text to voice technology will read your document out loud, allowing you to sit back, relax, and enjoy your documents hands-free.

With ReadLoudly, you can enjoy your favorite Text file without having to read them yourself. Start listening today and experience the joy of hands-free reading.

Read and Listen Anywhere

ReadLoudly.com offers a convenient platform for uploading various text files and converting them into flipbooks. Additionally, users can compose new text and instantly listen to it from any location and at any time. The platform also includes an integrated text to speech feature, enabling users to listen to their documents on any device.

Safe and Secure

We take your privacy seriously, which is why we never store any documents on our server or share them without your permission. Rest assured that your data is safe and secure with ReadLoudly.com.

Customizable Reading Experience

ReadLoudly.com offers a personalized reading experience that allows for customization of font sizes, colors, and backgrounds. Additionally, our user-friendly interface facilitates seamless navigation between pages and sections.

Share with Ease

Once you're done reading or listening to a document, you can easily share the flipbook with anyone via email or social media. Spread awareness and enjoyment in no time!

No Downloads Required

You don't need to download any software or plugins to use ReadLoudly.com. It's a hassle-free way to read and listen to eBook online.

Customizable Text-to-Speech

Choose from a range of voices, customize the speed and pitch to your liking, and let ReadLoudly.com read your text document to you. Personalize your reading experience with our customizable text-to-speech feature.

Site News and Updates

May 11th, 2024.

We're thrilled to introduce link parsing, offering a seamless navigation experience within PDF documents. Now, effortlessly explore internal and external links within your PDF files. Click on linked text to swiftly navigate to your desired destinations, enhancing your reading journey.

March 3rd, 2024

Exciting news! We've enhanced our OCR capabilities, providing more accurate text recognition. Now, with OCR, we offer support for over a hundred languages, making your reading experience truly global. Explore a world of literature in your preferred language!

Say goodbye to language barriers! With our new language change option, navigating through diverse literary landscapes is now hassle-free. Choose your preferred language and immerse yourself in a seamless reading experience.

Discover a refined reading experience with our latest design changes on the most viewed viewer page. Enjoy a smoother user experience, cleaner reading interface, and cool icons that enhance your interaction with the content. Immerse yourself in the world of literature with style and simplicity!

January 24th, 2024

Embark on a seamless reading journey with our new Text Viewer—an immersive experience designed to focus solely on the textual content of PDFs. Enjoy features such as highlighting, bookmarking, and effortless reading, all tailored to enhance your interaction with the written word.

For the PDF Viewer, take control with precision using zoom in and zoom out buttons. In the Text Viewer, elevate your reading experience by customizing font sizes with easy-to-use buttons. Your preferences shape your unique reading adventure!

Explore the power of Text-to-Speech with our new caption section! Enable captions to view the current sentence you're reading or listening to. Dive into the immersive experience where each spoken word is highlighted with a distinct color. Experience reading in a whole new way!

December 12th, 2023

Tired of straining your eyes during late-night reading sessions? We've got you covered! Introducing our new Dark Mode feature—because your comfort matters. Enjoy a soothing, eye-friendly interface while delving into your favorite documents.

Exciting news! Now, you can share the joy of reading seamlessly. Whether it's a captivating PDF, an engaging eBook, or a valuable textbook, sharing is caring! Head to your dashboard's book section, hit the share option, enter your friend's email, and voilà—spread the reading love!

But wait, there's more! Our Share Option isn't just about sharing; it's your personal storage haven. Safeguard your cherished documents while creating a vibrant reading community. Update your experience now and let the reading revolution begin! 🚀

Nov 22th,2023

A new version for added flexibility. Store and access multiple books effortlessly, eliminating the need to upload the same book repeatedly. Enjoy reading or listening whenever you want!

• Login : Experience a streamlined and secure login process, ensuring easy access to your personalized features and content.
• Personal Dashboard : Your customized hub for an organized and efficient user experience, providing quick access to all your account settings and activities.
• Book Storage : Store and manage multiple books effortlessly, eliminating the need to re-upload, and enjoy a clutter-free reading environment.
• Highlight and Bookmark : Enhance your reading experience by highlighting and bookmarking specific sections, making it easy to revisit and engage with key content.
• Preference : Personalize your reading experience with color customization for highlights and bookmarks, allowing you to tailor the visual aspects to your preferences.

Sep 27th,2023

We're thrilled to introduce a game-changing update to the ReadLoudly PDF viewer that promises an even smoother reading experience. 📚

• Each page is now processed on our powerful servers, significantly reducing the load on your browser.
• Enjoy lightning-fast page loading and navigation, no matter the size of your PDF document.
• Say goodbye to slow rendering and hello to a seamless reading experience.

Sep 19th,2023

Enhance your reading experience with our new Text-to-Speech page. Now, you can easily convert written text or upload a TXT file and listen to it being read aloud. Whether it's articles, notes, or your own writings, our text-to-speech technology brings content to life, making it accessible and engaging.

Introducing our convenient Page Selection option! We've made it even easier to read books and documents. You can now select the specific pages you want to read, resulting in faster load times for larger books. Customize your reading experience and access content more efficiently.

Sep 13th,2023

We've added a handy option to Repeat a Single Sentence. Now, you can easily replay a specific sentence or passage while listening, ensuring you never miss a word of your favorite content.

Our team has been hard at work, addressing issues to improve your audio playback experience. Say goodbye to audio player glitches and enjoy smoother, uninterrupted listening.

Sep 6th,2023

We're excited to unveil our fresh, new logo! It represents our commitment to providing you with innovative and user-friendly reading and listening experiences.

Introducing the eBook Reader Page, where you can now listen to your eBooks directly. Immerse yourself in your favorite eBooks with our text-to-speech technology.

Transform your eBooks into interactive flipbooks effortlessly. Visit our eBook to Flipbook Page to view your eBook files in an engaging flipbook format.

Essay Reader: Online Text-to-Speech Tool

If you’re a college or high school student, you might constantly struggle with writing assignments. Whether it is homework or a task in the classroom, you can use the essay reading tool to write a better paper.

❓ Essay Reader: How to Use

• 🤔 Why Using the Tool?
• 💬 Reading out Loud Strategies
• 🔍 References

Essay readers are a part of assistive technology. You might be wondering how this online text speech tool works. So, here’s how to use it.

• Paste your essay to the window. Copy your essay sample (or a part of it) and paste it into the window. Our essay reader allows you to insert up to 5,000 characters at once.
• Choose the preferable voice. We have different variations of voices to read your essay. The options include choosing between male and female voices, picking the timbre, and setting the reading speed.
• Press the “READ MY ESSAY” button. Once you’ve clicked it, the tool will read your text for you.
• New essay. In case you want to listen to one more essay, press the button below. Alternatively, you can download the audio for the current text using the according link.

🤔 Why Using Our Essay Reader?

How does reading out loud benefit your essay? Reading something aloud makes the text appear differently in our minds. We can see it from different perspectives and identify what is lacking. Most people are used to hearing and pronouncing English rather than reading and writing it.

First, there might be typos or mistakes that are hard to identify. Although we don’t intend it, we might also miss a word or write it twice. If we look through the text, we tend to skip those mistakes. On the other hand, if you read it out loud, you’ll easily spot them.

It is also easier to check your paper’s readability if you read it aloud. Sometimes the sentences and the paragraphs are too long and complicated, which makes them hard to understand. Reading them out loud can help to fix the format, style and make your paper readable.

Your essay should make sense overall. If your essay is very informative or complicated, you might be focusing on delivering your points rather than its readability . So, check if your transitions from topic to topic are smooth and if your explanations make sense by reading them aloud.

Let’s find out how you can use our free essay reader to make your paper even better!

💬 Reading out Loud: 7 Best Strategies

If you have already tried reading the paper out loud but still don’t identify all the mistakes or typos, you probably have been doing it wrongly. Our mind tends to correct minor errors naturally. We gathered these strategies that you can follow for the best result.

• Try reading from a printed copy. It is easier to make notes by hand on a printed copy. These notes can help identify the most crucial parts of your paper so that you can spend more time on them.
• Follow the text by pointing at it. Following the text as you read helps to concentrate. Reading significant amounts of texts, you might quickly lose focus. By following the text pointing at it with your finger, you can also focus on grammar.
• Don’t read too fast. Try not to hurry while reading. The faster you read, the more mistakes our brain misses. Slow reading doesn’t mean spending more time. If you read fast, you might need to reread the same passage several times. So, slow reading can save you time.
• Read from the end to start. If you want to focus on scanning your essay for mistakes and typos, try reading from the end so you won’t focus on the whole paper but each sentence.
• Cover everything except for the passage you’re working on. If you still find it hard to concentrate on reading your paper, try covering the parts you are not working on at the moment. That can help you concentrate on a specific passage.
• Ask someone to read for you. Another option you can use is to ask someone to read it aloud. Another person can take a look at it from another perspective. Since you are the one who is working on the paper, you might get used to it and not see something others see. Try to make notes as they read it for you.
• Use technology. Technology helps us with our studying a lot these days. There are online timers, graders, grammar correctors, etc. If you don’t want to bother others, you can use text-to-speech technology to read the essay for you. It has a list of advantages. First, unlike humans, it doesn’t miss any mistakes. You can also control the speed, the number of reading times, and where to start or to finish.

Online Text-to-Speech Tool: How to Choose?

Here’s what you should take into account when choosing an online tool:

• Speed control. Can you adjust the speed or pause the reader? It may be crucial, especially if your text is long.
• Voice. Can you choose between the voices? Don’t they sound robotic? You can also switch between the voices so that you won’t get tired of listening to it several times.
• Text control. How does the software work? Can you upload the documents? Can you highlight the crucial parts?
• Accessibility. Does it work offline? Do you need to download and install it?
• Tool speed. How long do you need to wait to hear the result? What’s the volume of an essay that the tool can convert at once?

If you are wondering, “Where can I have an essay read to me?” you can check our essay reader out for free and see if it’s suitable for you!

✏️ Online Text-to-Speech Tool: FAQ

• You can spot typos, misspellings, and mistakes.
• You can check the paper’s readability.
• You can see if it is informative.

Try our essay reader to listen to your essay for free!

Updated: Oct 25th, 2023

🔗 References

• Teaching Techniques: Reading Aloud Artfully! | Scholastic
• 7 Powerful Public Speaking Tips From One of the Most-Watched TED Talks Speakers
• 10 Tips for Reading Aloud with Children
• What Are the Benefits of Reading Aloud? An Instructional
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The tool available here is designed to turn any text into speech. You can choose the voice type and its timbre to make it sound just the way you like. The tool can be useful for when you need to know how long it will take to red through your speech, how it sounds live, or when you need a quick voiceover.

Read My Essay to Me: Text-to-Speech Tool

Read My Essay to Me is a text to speech tool that transforms any typed text into audio. It is absolutely free.

How many times have you received a bad grade for a silly mistake? You’ve proofread the text several times, but a sentence or two are inconsistent with the rest of the text. You cannot notice it because you know your trail of thoughts. Reading aloud helps to evaluate the overall text quality. But when you read by yourself, it is hard to focus on the details.

Who will read my essay out loud? If you're looking for a free text-to-speech tool, you're in the right place! Try this "Read My Essay to Me" converter. Choose the voice you love and enjoy!

• 🤔 How to Use the Tool?

💬 How Do Essay Readers Work?

• ✅ The Key Benefits
• 🤗 Who Can Use Text to Speech?

🔗 References

🤔 read my essay to me: how to use.

Below is a short instruction that explains how to use the text-to-speech tool above.

Copy the text from your document and insert it into the respective field.

Select the voice you prefer to vocalize your text from the drop-down list box.

Once you’ve pasted the text and selected the natural reader, press the “Listen” button.

If you need to go back and listen to a different text, there is a special button for this purpose.

You’ve probably heard of online and offline tools that can read a text aloud. So, what is Text to Speech in technical terms? Text to Speech (often abbreviated as TTS) is a form of assistive technology . Read My Essay to Me is one of TTS systems used to voice over any printed text online.

The Text to Speech tool works on any personal digital device. There are applications designed for each mobile operating system (that work on iPhone or Android). Alternatively, you can use an online tool in Chrome or any other browser you prefer. These tools can even read web pages aloud.

The computer generates the voice in TTS, but you can select the reading speed and the speaker. There are several variants of male and female voices entitled by the respective names. The voice quality depends on the tool, but many of them sound human. Some even feature a child’s voice for you to listen to. There are even robot voices that sound like children speaking.

The tool highlights the words as they are read aloud. It allows you to track the reading and is especially beneficial for foreign language learners.

Some Text to Speech tools can read out loud from an image. This technology is called optical character recognition or OCR. For example, you can take a photo of a street sign or a public notice and listen to it through the TTS app or website.

As we have mentioned before, Text to Speech tool can help people who learn a foreign language. But it can also facilitate the lives of those who have problems with writing, editing, and focusing. According to computer science research , such assistive technology is helpful for people with dyslexia. It motivates them to read by making the process more enjoyable and comfortable. The case study performed during the same research indicated an improved fluency and comprehension in the control group.

✅ Read My Essay: the Benefits

We suggest you try out Read My Essay to Me while proofreading your writing. This TTS tool has critical benefits, notably:

A few more benefits:

• It helps to detect and correct mistakes. It is always better to give your already-written paper to a friend or relative to read it for typos. Imagine you have a friend who always can find a half-an-hour to read your work aloud for you. Amazing, right? How many A+’s have you missed due to poor proofreading? Insert your essay into this TTS tool and listen to it while cooking or cleaning. Your ear will pick the places that deserve corrections.

It helps to evaluate the plot attractiveness or the content consistency. In the course of creating an essay, you get distracted by the need to type on a keyboard or write on paper. You look up the right words and return to the introduction to check your thesis statement . In a word, you do a whole lot of things that distract you from the beauty of the text. The only way to make it sparkle is to reread it.

Still, you are familiar with what you wanted to say. Our mind tricks us into believing that other people will understand us just as intended. But if you listen to your essay read by a different person, you will find many passages that require rewriting .

• It shows if the argumentation is clear and sufficiently grounded. In the follow-up to the previous point, argumentation must be complete. Read My Essay to Me can show you where your evidence is insufficient or needs more substantial arguments.

🤗 Read My Essay to Me: Who Can Use the Tool?

Who else should find out how to use a Text to Speech converter? We believe that anyone can find a practical application to this tool, but the following groups of people will find it helpful strait away.

• Auditory learners. If it refers to you, 100% that you are aware of it. People with a well-developed auditory perception memorize information better when they listen to it (rather than read, write down, or see it as a phenomenon). Listen to your reading assignment via the tool and upgrade your academic performance!
• People with dyslexia. Such people have problems with reading, although they are normally intelligent. They are affected to various degrees. Still, TTS tools can help people with problems in spelling words, low reading speed, “sounding out” words in their heads, or pronouncing them while reading aloud.
• People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other emotional disabilities. Autism Speaks reported that almost 25% of people with ASD are low-functioning or non-verbal communicators. They can use TTS as a voice dictation tool for writing assistance or a real-life conversation simulator.
• Those who lack time for traditional reading. Have you been assigned a 300-page book by the next week? If it is in the public domain, you can upload it into Read My Essay to Me and listen to it while doing your domestic chores. It will be handy for literature that is unavailable in audiobook format.

❓ Read My Essay FAQ

❓ how can i get my essay read to me.

• Copy your essay from the file on your device.
• Paste it into the respective field of Read My Essay to Me tool.
• Select the voice (male or female in some variations) you’d like to listen to.
• Press the button below the text to convert it into an audio version.

❓ How can I convert text to audio for free?

To convert text into audio, you have to have an internet connection and any browser installed on your computer or mobile device. Go to Read My Essay to Me and insert the text in question into the blank field. Press the Read My Essay button to listen to its audio version.

❓ What is the best text to speech tool?

There are dozens of Text-to-Speech tools available for all sorts of mobile devices and computers, including all possible operational systems. Still, the best free TTS tool is Read My Essay to Me. It is relatively simple. It has the widest choice of voices and an unlimited number of words in the text.

❓ Is there a website that will read a text to me?

Read My Essay to Me will read any typed text of any length for you. It is intuitively clear for a user of any experience level. You can choose the preferred voice that will vocalize your essay. You can insert any text, from a one-page paper to a hundred-page book, since words are limitless.

• Enhancing the learning process through text-to-speech technologies
• What are some types of assistive devices - National Institute of Health
• Types of Assistive Technology | Web Access
• Strategies for Teachers - Dyslexia Help - University of Michigan
• What Is Auditory Learning Style? Definition and Strategies

Read My Paper to Me. Text-to-Speech Online Tool for Free

Do you find yourself drifting off when reading academic papers? Do you prefer audiobooks? Are you a big fan of podcasts? If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions, we have great news for you! You came to the right place.

You have probably noticed that reading your work out loud helps you improve. It’s easier to find mistakes and decide if your words sound good. However, doing it yourself ruins concentration. What if you miss important details?

If you don’t have a friend nearby to help out, you can always use Read My Paper to Me!

• ️🙌 5 Key Benefits
• ️⚙️ How to Use
• ️🎓 Text to Speech in Learning

🙌 Read My Paper to Me: 5 Key Benefits

New perspective

Get a completely different angle on your work. Imagine as though you are listening to a story narrator – does it sound good?

Evaluate your flow

The ‘flow’ is the sequence of ideas and arguments in your text. Hearing your points presented back to you allows you to evaluate the logic in them. If your ideas are sound, the words will flow seamlessly.

Hear your mistakes

You write a sentence, read it over, and you think it looks alright. Then you say the words out loud, and you realize you’ve made at least three errors. Listening to your work will help you identify mistakes quickly and easily!

Get ready for your oral presentation

Maybe you don’t have an essay to write – instead, you have to give a speech. Hearing someone else read it out to you is extremely important. You’ll know immediately if it sounds engaging, and if there are things you need to change!

You don’t need anyone else!

Instead of waiting around for a friend to spare you some time, just use Read My Paper to Me. It’s fast, it’s simple, and it’s free!

⚙️ How to Use Text-to-Speech Tool?

It couldn’t be easier!

• Insert your text. Copy the text you want to be read and paste it into the window. Unlike many other tools that you will find on the internet, there is no word limit.
• Choose a voice. Click on the drop-down menu and select your preferred narrator . Each will give your text a slightly different feel!
• Listen! When you are ready, press the “Play” button. Now all you need to do is enjoy your experience! Remember, you can pause at any time.
• Need to listen to a new text? Press on the “Read New Text” button. You can also delete your first text and replace it with a new one. Both options are available!

🎓 Text-to-Speech Online Tools in Learning

We believe that education should be accessible for all. With the development of the internet more and more learning methods are becoming available. Online text-to-speech tools are one of those methods.

So how are text-to-speech tools revolutionizing learning everywhere?

Well for one, they are opening up new horizons for those who previously struggled with reading texts. For example, people with dyslexia now have a quick and easy way of checking their work for mistakes. There is no more need to struggle in search of the right reading fonts. Now they can easily listen to their words with the press of a button.

Text-to-speech tools change the education system for many more. Those suffering from impaired vision can enjoy texts previously inaccessible. Foreign language learners have a tool to help them practice their listening skills. And the truth is, some of us simply don’t have the time to sit down and read. Now even those always on the move can access the wealth of information online. Text-to-speech tools are especially useful to those of us who are auditory learners . If that caught your attention, you might want to refer to the information provided below.

Tips & Strategies for Auditory Learners

Do you remember the questions from the very beginning? Here, let us ask you again – do you find yourself drifting off when reading academic papers? Do you prefer audiobooks? Are you a big fan of podcasts? If you find yourself answering ‘yes’ to these, we think it is safe to say that you are an auditory learner. What does that mean, you ask?

Every single one of us has a particular learning style that suits us most. Some find it easier to watch documentaries, while others would greatly prefer to read a book. And then some are very good at remembering spoken information. There are very many learning styles and learning style models. However, generally speaking, there are three main ones – visual, kinesthetic, and auditory.

The three styles reflect three of the human senses – sight, touch, and hearing. Though being an auditory learner does not mean that you have particularly good ears. It simply means that you are better at retaining information that you have received through listening.

If you think that this sounds like you, you will find these learning tips particularly helpful!

• Record your classes. Next time you go to your lecture or class, set your phone to silent and turn on the recording software. This way you can always get back to it later. Just make sure that it’s alright with your teachers first!
• Ask questions. This can be intimidating, but asking questions is one of the best ways for auditory learners to remember information. Engaging in conversation will also be a great learning experience.
• Use text-to-speech tools. Whether you are proofreading your own work or reading an article, you will find it much easier to listen to the words. You can even comment along as you listen. No one will judge.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat! Auditory learners memorize information best after hearing it. Use text-to-speech tools to replay texts back to you several times. This way you will comprehend them way better!

❓ Read My Paper to Me: FAQ

❓ how does reading aloud improve writing.

When you hear your work read to you out loud, you find yourself in the position of your audience. This is where you will figure out if you can connect with your text, or if it still needs work. Reading out loud also allows you to check your rhythm and pace, find skipped words and sentences, and hear mistakes.

❓ Is there a site that reads text to you?

There are plenty of websites online that are made specifically for this purpose. Of course, some are better than others. Some have a wide range of features, while others have only the basics. Some require a subscription to unlock extra options. Only you can decide which site to use.

❓ Are there apps that will read to you?

As with websites, many apps are made for reading texts. There are programs designed for use on your computer, also known as desktop apps. There are also apps that you can find for your tablet or mobile device. You can find both free and paid text-to-speech apps.

❓ What is the best text to speech tool?

You can find a lot of text-to-speech tools on the internet these days. The selection is far and wide – so why should you use Read My Paper to Me? For one, there is no character or word limit. You can have the entirety of War and Peace read to you in one sitting. There is also a large selection of voices that you can use. After all, your auditory experience should be of the highest quality!

📍 References

• What makes Text-to-speech technology so effective?
• Speech Synthesis for Educational Technology
• The Use of Synthetic Speech in Language Learning Tools
• What Is Auditory Learning Style? Definition and Strategies
• The Auditory Learning Style - ThoughtCo

Read My Essay: Text-to-speech tool

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Table of contents, how to use read my essay, what is text-to-speech, read my essay benefits, read my essay to me: who can use the tool, read my essay alternatives, why use speechify, how to get started with speechify.

Read My Essay is a simple tool you can use to convert your text into speech. Learn more below.

Read My Essay is an online text-to-speech tool many people use to hear how their essay sounds. The AI is able to convert text into speech, and it can be more than useful for language learners and proofreading . 

Read My Essay is a simple essay reader tool you can use to convert your text into speech. Unlike the majority of apps you can find on the market, Read My Essay is an online tool, and you won’t need to download anything. And using it is as simple as it can be. 

All you need to do is open the web page, paste the text, and choose the voice. There are a couple of different options for the read-aloud voices, and they sound quite good. The voices have different names like Andy, Tom, Sophia, James, and others. 

As a result, you will need to go through them to hear which one is your favorite. Once you select everything, the only thing left for you to do is hit the “read my essay to me” button. One of the primary reasons users love the website is its simplicity. It doesn’t require any installations, settings, or adjustments, and you can enable it in no time. But text-to-speech readers can offer so much more.

Text-to-speech is a speech synthesis tool that allows users to convert any type of text into speech or an audio file. The app uses samples of the real human voice and analyzes them to synthesize a natural-sounding speech. 

Artificial intelligence, deep learning, and machine learning are all essential parts of the technology. TTS tools and apps are designed to assist people with reading difficulties and improve accessibility across numerous devices. 

It is a simple way you can turn any type of text into an audiobook, but it also allows you to hear how your essay sounds. This will allow you to approach the subject more objectively, and let you proofread it with ease. 

You can find these tools built-in as a form of assistive technology, and almost every operative system has it today. This includes Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android, macOS, and others. It is just one of many ways to add different options to the program.

At the same time, you can find apps that are designed to be text-to-speech tools and download them separately regardless of your OS. 

One of the first and most noticeable benefits of Read My Essay is that it can save so much time. It gives you an opportunity to hear your essay from a different perspective, which is a unique chance to see it in a whole new light. 

If some part of the text doesn’t work, you will have an easier time spotting it once you start listening to the essay. It is also a great way to proofread the text and see whether there are parts of it that require changes. Having the option to hear any type of written content can also allow you to listen to it while on the go. You can write the essay, put on your headphones, and listen to it when you go out. Furthermore, since many users prefer audiobooks and listening to the content, using text-to-speech can allow you to multitask. You are free to do anything else, and Read My Essay will allow you to double-check everything. 

The tool can be quite useful for those who struggle with reading, and make the entire process a bit faster. So, if you dislike having to go through the entire document word by word, you can always check out Read My Essay and simplify the process. 

Finally, Read My Essay can be quite helpful if you are looking to learn about the dynamics of a foreign language, and the app will help you understand how it should sound. It is a perfect option for auditory learners. 

Anyone can use Read My Essay as long as they have an internet connection. Since this text-to-speech app is tied to a website, you won’t be able to access it without Wi-Fi or the internet. Otherwise, there are no limitations. 

The majority of these tools are designed to improve accessibility. Many people have dyslexia or reading disabilities, and having to go through an entire text can be tedious. With text-to-speech converters, they won’t need to worry about it. 

At the same time, many people use text-to-speech technology with speech-to-text tools. This means that they don’t need to type at all, and everything they say will be converted into text. Once the document is finished, they can listen to it without even touching the keyboard. It is also a nice way to avoid spending a lot of time on finding typos, making it good for editors.

Those who want to get something more out of their text-to-speech app can try a couple of alternatives. And there are pretty good apps out there you can check out. 

Let’s start out with Speechify . This is probably the best option on the list and an incredible alternative for Read My Essay. It is available on all types of devices, as a Chrome extension, and it is perfect if you’re looking for flexible software. You can choose between fourteen different languages, accents, and natural voices, and the quality is exceptional. It’s easy to use thanks to its intuitive UI, and high-quality voices are undoubtedly the main advantage of the app. 

Next is the the TTS Tool. You will see that many people talk about TTS tools, but this is also the name of the app you can find online (with a capitalized T). TTS Tool allows you to export files in mp3 format, and there are numerous languages you can use. It is still an online website, and it requires an internet connection, it is not as versatile as some other entries on the list. 

Murf AI is another option if you are looking for a voice generator . It offers numerous customization options, and you can easily navigate through the app. You can also choose between numerous different voices based on gender and age. 

The question on people’s minds is probably why use Speechify, and the answer is simple. It is the best text-to-speech tool you can find on the market. There are so many customization options and settings you can find, and they will all enhance your experience. 

You can adjust the reading speed, language, and so much more. But at the same time, Speechify is so versatile that you will never need another TTS app. It is able to use texts from various different sources. 

Whether you want the app to read PDF , epub, or even text from the image , Speechify can do it. And yes, you read that right. Speechify can use OCR to recognize letters from the photo of the page and read the text to you in just a couple of seconds. 

It is also available on any imaginable device. You can use it on iPhone, iPad , Mac, PC , Android, and anything else. 

The first thing you will need to do is download the app based on the device you plan on using. What is great is that you can make an account on the app, and sync all devices with it. This way, you can continue reading on another app since it will track progress. 

After that, all you will need to do is input the text, and let the app convert the original paper for you. Naturally, you can choose a type of voice you want to use, and one of the best things is that you can check out Gwyneth Paltrow as the voice of the app. 

The app is also available in different languages, and you can export the audio once the process is done. Speechify also offers different pricing based on the subscription plan, but you can also use the app for free . 

The 5 best text to speech Chrome extensions

Everything to Know About Google Cloud Text to Speech API

Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

Essay Reader out Loud for Students

Follow the 4 simple steps below to use the tool:

• Select the voice you prefer.
• Select the audio speed.
• Paste your text in the field provided.
• Click the tab “Read essay.”

Do you want your essay to be read aloud? Try our free text-to-speech tool and proofread your academic paper efficiently.

This essay reader out loud allows you to hear your essay being read aloud and correct silly mistakes you may have missed during editing. Hearing how your paper sounds helps you analyze the general quality. When reading by yourself, it may be difficult to focus on detailed aspects of your paper.

🔊 Why Read an Essay out Loud?

• 💬 Reading out Loud: 6 Tips
• 📻 How to Choose a Text-to-Speech Tool?

🔗 References

After completing your academic paper or article, you should always read it out aloud. It is a part of editing your work since you will easily listen to how your paper sounds.

Why is it good to read aloud?

There are many benefits to revising your paper this way:

• You will know if there are logical gaps or inconsistent arguments .
• At times, your paper might be too wordy or have grammatical errors. Reading it aloud will highlight such issues while setting the right tone.
• Your brain will process the text from a new perspective , and you will notice other silly mistakes you might have left out.
• Listening to your paper makes it easy to understand the flow of ideas . Flipping pages back and forth is cumbersome, and you may miss detailed information that needs correction. But listening allows you to identify gaps and paragraph transitions that need to be amended.
• The voice will give you an idea of how your readers will perceive your article .

💬 Reading out Loud: 6 Best Tips

Below are some strategies of reading out loud that you can use if you are a college or high school student.

However, you can eliminate the hassle of the entire reading process and take advantage of our free tool.

Our text-to-speech converter functions well with your smartphone, PC, tablet, or laptop .

It is an advantageous option that presents your text as it is without sugar-coating the errors.

📻 Essay Reader Aloud: How to Choose It?

When it comes to choosing a text-to-speech tool, it is imperative to consider some parameters. Knowing your options helps you identify the right tool that works effectively.

Here are some aspects you need to think about when choosing an essay reader aloud for your paper:

• Online access . Is the tool accessible online, or do you need to upload the entire file? The online tool requires a stable Internet connection since it functions within a web page.
• Free or paid . Another factor is to establish if the tool is free or if you must pay a subscription fee to use it. Students prefer free tools to get accurate results at no cost.
• Registration . Does the tool require registration? Many students don't like the registration process because it is time-consuming. So, you can go for an easily accessible online tool where you can copy and paste your text on the go without the hassle of registering your personal details.
• Volume . Check if the tool has volume control features ad if there is a pause or rewind button.
• Voice . Can you select a male or female voice? Are the voices natural or contain pitch variations?
• Speech tempo . How long does the tool take to read text per minute? Can you alter the speed to your preference?
• Pop-up ads . Some tools might have annoying pop-up ads, which can be distracting. So, you can choose a converter tool with zero to fewer ads.

Thank you for reading this article!

Note that you can also use our free essay reducer , paraphraser , and title generator at different stages of work on your assignment.

❓ Essay Reader FAQ

❓ how do i get my essay to read out loud.

If you want to read your essay out loud, you can ask a family member or friend to help you read your essay aloud. The most effective option is our free text-to-speech tool, and your essay will be read aloud in a voice you love. Just paste your text into the field, select your preferred voice and speed, and press the 'read essay' button.

❓ Is there any free text-to-speech tool?

Essay reader out loud is a free text-to-speech tool that converts your academic paper into audio. It is effective, and you can select a specific voice to vocalize your paper at a convenient speed.

❓ How long will it take to read my essay?

This tool reads 50-60 words per half-minute and 100-120 words per minute. It uses a natural oral speech tempo, but you can select a higher or lower speed. Therefore, the completion time for reading largely depends on your paper's length.

❓ How to choose an essay reader out loud?

There are several aspects to consider when selecting an essay reader out loud. Is it a free tool or paid subscription? Do you have to register before using and does it have annoying ads? Choose a tool that allows selecting a voice, processes large text volumes, and gives speech tempo options.

• Enhancing the learning process through text-to-speech
• Does Use of Text-to-Speech and Related Read-Aloud Tools Improve Reading Comprehension for Students with Reading Disabilities?
• The Benefits of Speech-to-Text Technology in All Classrooms
• Reading Aloud - UNC Writing Center
• University Writing Center (UWC) - Reading Aloud
• How Does Reading Aloud Improve Writing

Read My Essay to Me: Free Tool for Students

Follow 4 simple steps to convert any text into audio:

• Insert your text into the box.
• Choose the reader's voice from the list.
• Select the comfortable reading speed.
• Press the button.
• 🚀 Our Tool's Benefits

💬 What Is Text-to-Speech Technology?

• 🎓 Reasons to Use Our Tool
• 💡 Who Will Benefit from It?
• 🎁 Tips for Auditory Learners

🔗 References

🚀 benefits of read my essay to me free tool.

Do you want to improve your grades? Wouldn't it be awesome to have a handy tool to help you in your studies? We’ve got one just for you! Our Read Me My Essay tool is text-to-speech software that can voice any text so you don't have to read it.

So, what makes our tool stand out?

• It's 100% free and has no hidden paywalls.
• It's customizable : you can choose a reading voice and adjust the speed.
• It's unlimited and can be used as many times as you want!

Text-to-speech, also known as "read aloud," is a type of assistive technology that turns text from a written form into audio.

Text-to-speech apps are compatible with almost all devices, such as laptops, phones, and tablets. They can read out loud any type of text file, including .docx and .txt documents. They’re also capable of voicing web pages online.

A computer generates the voice in a text-to-speech tool, and its reading pace can be sped up or slowed down. Although some of the voices may sound robotic, many of them are very human-like.

🎓 Reasons to Use Text-to-Speech Tool

Text-to-speech apps have numerous functions that make them great tools for students. Here's what they allow you to do:

💡 Who Will Benefit from Using the Tool?

Having a text-to-speech tool will benefit anyone, but it's especially valuable for the following types of students:

• Auditory learners . Auditory learners study better with their ears by perceiving sounds and voices. If you consider yourself an auditory learner, text-to-speech might become one of the most prominent tools in your arsenal.
• Multitaskers . Some people love doing several things simultaneously. Are you one of them? Then you should check out our text-to-speech tool! It frees your hands and eyes and allows you to take on more activities. Just don't overextend yourself!
• Students who lack time . If you’re in a rush and need to finish many things, then a text-to-speech converter is the right tool for you. You can cook, clean your room, or walk your pet while listening to your essay.
• People with reading disabilities . Dyslexia is a learning disability that causes various difficulties associated with reading. A text-to-speech tool can be a great help here. Just paste the text, and let the app read it.
• Readers with visual impairments . Our Read Me My Essay tool will be useful if you have vision problems. Or, if you just went through an eye surgery but still want to read something, just use the text-to-speech converter and enjoy receiving information through sound!

🎁 Helpful Tips for Auditory Learners

If you’re an auditory learner, consider following these simple tips. You’ll notice how your studies become even more successful!

And that's it! We hope you'll enjoy using our Read Me My Essay tool. This free unlimited text-to-speech software will surpass all your expectations! We recommend checking out our other writing tools — they will definitely make your studies easier and more enjoyable.

❓ Read Me My Essay FAQ

❓ is there a website that will read my essay to me.

Yes, there is! Many websites, apps, or programs can voice a text for you. We recommend AssignZen's Read Me My Essay tool. It will allow you to listen to your text online without having to pay or download anything to your device.

❓ How can I get my essay read to me?

You can use any text-to-speech app, such as AssignZen's Read My Essay for Me free tool. Just paste your text and choose the voice and the reading speed you like. Afterward, press the button, and this app will read your text out loud.

❓ Is there a free program to read text aloud?

Yes, there is one! AssignZen's Read Me My Essay is a free program that can read any text aloud, should it be an essay, an article, or anything else. AssignZen's Read Me My Essay allows free and unlimited usage, so try it out!

❓ Why read your essay out loud?

Reading an essay out loud helps in many ways. For example, you can see your own text from another perspective—not as an author, but as somebody from the audience. It also helps you prepare for an oral presentation by checking the coherence and readability of your texts.

Updated: Apr 9th, 2024

• A Guide to How Text-To-Speech Works: Data Science Central
• A Guide to Text-To-Speech on Your Computer or Mobile Device: Business Insider
• Using Text-To-Speech Technology to Assist Dyslexic Students: Forbes
• Auditory Learning Strategies and Characteristics: ThoughtCo

• Personal Listen to your documents
• Commercial Create voiceovers for professional use
• EDU Group plans for personal use
• Mobile For Android and iOS
• Chrome Extension Listen to webpages directly
• AI Voices Realistic voices using deep learning and neural networks
• LLM Voices Next generation AI voices using large language models
• Voice Cloning Synthetic voice replication using LLM
• AskAI ChatGPT-powered assistant
• PDFAI Smart document filtering

Read My Essay: Free Speech Tool

Sometimes when you finish working on your paper, you want to hear someone reading it aloud. The reason for that is because you want to make sure it sounds as good as it reads. Our free and easy-to-use Read My Essay tool can help you with this task. It’s straightforward:

• You just copy and paste your essay into the box of our free speech tool;
• Click the button;
• Now listen to your work and evaluate how it sounds using Read My Essay tool.

Read My Essay: Q&A

Text-to-speech converters in learning.

Not everyone is born to be a natural reader. Text-to-speech converters help many students in learning because they can open new horizons for those who have difficulty reading or learning:

✅ Those with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a common learning difficulty that causes problems with writing, spelling, and reading. So, listening to books and texts can be a great alternative to task.

✅ Those learning a new language. When you improve your listening skills, you will better understand the native speaker. Plus, by listening and imitating someone else’s speech, you can significantly improve your pronunciation.

✅ Those with impaired vision . This group of people can also benefit from text-to-speech converters. Listening to tasks, text, books can allow a visually impaired person to participate in the learning process normally.

✅ Auditory learners. Recent studies show that people can develop learning preferences. Nevertheless, most people can use both methods. Those who better understand information by listening are called auditory learners . These types of people can use audio materials to boost their learning abilities.

We have some recommendations to assist in learning:

• Choose the voice that you like and can understand better: simply because it can get challenging to absorb information and enjoy listening if the agent is unpleasant.
• Listen to the text more than once. Ideally, you should try to listen to it at least two times while focusing on structure, argumentation, formation of sentences.
• Listen to other people's essays and audiobooks because it is the best way to widen your overall knowledge and get new information while combining it with other errands.

Text-to-Speech Converters: History

It might seem that computers appeared not so long ago, or it belongs to the far future with robots and other futuristic objects. Nevertheless, it can even be challenging to determine if it is a voice recording or a speech synthesizer. Indeed, technology develops quickly. However, speaking machines have an extensive history starting in the 18th century. Here’s a brief timeline for the speech synthesis technology:

1769: Wolfgang von Kempelen created one of the first mechanical speaking machines . It used the bagpipe to produce noises similar to human speech.

1770: A scientist from Christian Kratzenstein builds a mechanical version of the human vocal system. He later wrote a book called Mechanism of Human Language with a Description of a Speaking Machine.

1837: English physicist inventor Charles Wheatstone rediscovered a version of the von Kempelen speaking machine. He was fascinated with music and sounds.

1928: American scientist Homer W. Dudley develops a speech analyzer called Vocoder . Dudley later turns Vocoder into Voder, a speech synthesizer operated with the keyboard.

1940: Frank Cooper developed a system called Pattern Playback. It can generate speech sounds from their frequency spectrum.

1953: American scientists Walter Lawrence creates PAT, the synthesizer that makes speech sounds by combining four, six, and later eight frequencies.

1958: MIT scientist George Rosen created the first text-to-speech synthesizer. The 1960s/1970s: A scientist from Bell Laboratories named Cecil Coker dedicates his time to better speech synthesis methods.

1978: Texas Instruments came up with a TMC0281 speech converter toy called Speak&Spell.

1984: Apple computer creates a Macintosh with a built-in MacInTalk speech synthesizer .

2001: AT&T produced Natural Voices. The technology is used in online applications and websites that can read emails out loud.

2011: Apple introduces the Siri app to iPhones, an intelligent voice helper to their smartphones. Currently, Siri is available on most Apple devices - Macbook, iPad, iWatch, etc.

2014: Microsoft releases Skype Translator that can automatically translate speech from English to 40 languages.

2015: Amazon comes up with a voice software called Alexa .

2016: Google releases Google Assistant. Google later incorporated it into smart Google Home technology.

Updated: Apr 5th, 2024

References:

• What Are the Benefits of Reading Aloud? An Instructional
• The Evolution of Text-to-Speech Voice Assistive Technology
• History and Development of Speech Synthesis
• Does Use of Text-to-Speech and Related Read-Aloud Tools Improve Reading Comprehension for Students with Reading Disabilities? A Meta-Analysis
• What makes Text-to-speech technology so effective?

How it works

• Copy your text and paste it in the textarea.
• Select preferred voice.
• Press “Read My Essay” button. Now you can play or pause reading of a text.
• “Read new essay” button allows you to reload the form, so you can read new essay.

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Reading Aloud

What this handout is about.

This handout explains some of the benefits of hearing your writing read aloud. It offers tips on reading your draft yourself, asking a friend to read it to you, or having it read by a text-to-speech program or app.

Why read out loud?

If you come to the Writing Center for a tutoring session, you will probably hear your tutor say, “We always read papers out loud—would you like to read yours, or would you like to hear me read it?” Reading aloud has many benefits that we want to share with writers. Most people have far more experience listening to and speaking English than they do reading and editing it on the printed page. When you read your draft out loud or listen to someone else read it, your brain gets the information in a new way, and you may notice things that you didn’t see before.

As listeners, we need the order of ideas in a paper to make sense. We can’t flip back and forth from page to page to try to figure out what is going on or find information we need. When you hear your paper read out loud, you may recognize that you need to re-order the information in it or realize that there are gaps in your explanation. Listeners also need transitions to help us get from one main idea to the next. When you hear your paper, you may recognize places where you have moved from one topic to another too abruptly.

You may also hear errors in your sentences. Sometimes we leave out a word, mess things up as we copy and paste text, or make a grammatical mistake. These kinds of errors can be hard to see on the page, but sentences that contain them are very likely to sound wrong. For native speakers of English (and some non-native speakers, too), reading out loud is one of the most powerful proofreading techniques around.

Sometimes sentences aren’t grammatically incorrect, but they are still awkward in some way—too long, too convoluted, too repetitive. Problems like these are often easily heard. Hearing your paper can also help you get a sense of whether the tone is right. Does it sound too formal? Too chatty or casual? What kind of impression will your voice in this paper make on a reader? Sometimes hearing your words helps you get a more objective sense of the impression you are creating—listening puts in you in something more like the position your reader will be in as they move through your text.

What are some strategies for reading out loud?

Reading your paper out loud has a lot of benefits, but it presents a few challenges, too. One issue is that a lot depends on how you read. It is very easy to read too quickly or to let your brain automatically “smooth over” mistakes, fill in missing words, and make little corrections without you ever becoming consciously aware that it’s happening. If you don’t read exactly what is on the printed page, you won’t get an accurate sense of what is in your paper. Here are some strategies to help you read out loud effectively:

• Try working from a printed copy. This will allow you to make marks at places where something sounds wrong to you so you can return to them later.
• As you read, follow along with your finger, pointing at each word. This can help you stay focused and not skip anything.
• Try to read at a moderate pace.
• If you are proofreading, consider reading your paper out loud one sentence at a time, starting at the end and working back to the beginning. This will help you focus on the structure of each sentence, rather than on the overall flow of your argument.
• Try covering up everything but the section or sentence you are working on at the moment so you can concentrate on it and not get lost.

Another great strategy to try is to ask a friend to read your paper out loud while you listen. Make sure that your friend knows to read exactly what is on the printed page. Pay close attention to places where your friend seems to stumble or get lost—those may be places where you need to make things clearer for your readers. As your friend is speaking, you can jot notes on a printed copy of the paper. You don’t have to be in the same room to do this—you could email a copy of your paper to your friend and ask them to call you and read to you over the phone.

How can technology help?

You don’t necessarily need to recruit a friend to read to you. There are a number of text-to-speech software applications and web-based services that will help you get your computer, smartphone, tablet, or e-book reader to read your paper out loud to you. One advantage of this approach is that an automated reader will definitely not cover up any errors for you! You can also control where it starts and stops, speed it up or slow it down, and have it re-read the same paragraph as many times as you want.

If you decide to experiment with this approach, there are many free text readers available. MS Word has a text-to-speech feature built in. Recent Android and iOS phones also have text-to-speech capabilities, which you can find under accessibility settings. You may also find text-to-speech software among your Windows or Mac computer’s accessibility features.

If you decide you want to acquire specialized software, “text to speech,” “TTS,” and “text reader” are search terms that can help you find what is available.

Here are some differences to keep in mind as you choose the best reader for you:

• Voice quality and selection: how many voices can you choose from, and how natural do they sound?
• Controls: can you determine the speed and pitch of the speaker, where the reading starts and stops, etc.? Is there a pause button?
• Applicability:  can you convert your text file into an audio file, download it, and listen to it on your phone or music player?
• Text handling:  does the software highlight each word as it is read (which may be especially helpful for non-native English speakers and students with reading/writing disabilities)? Do you need to copy text and paste it into a new window, or can the program work directly within an application (like Word or Powerpoint), or does it just read the text on your screen?
• Speed:  how many pages of text or words can be converted to voice at once? How quickly does the conversion happen?
• Type of program:  do you need an active internet connection to use the program, or can you run it without internet access once it has been installed?

While synthetic voices continue to improve, they will likely not sound completely natural to you. But you may find that if you choose a favorite voice, you can get used to its intonation and pacing over time.

I feel kind of silly doing this…

Reading aloud (or listening to your writing being read) takes some getting used to, but give it a try. You may be surprised at how much it can speed up your revision process!

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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How-To Geek

How to make your computer read documents to you.

Since the beginning of the computer age, people have always enjoyed making computers talk to them.

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Have adobe reader to read pdf documents to you, have microsoft word to read word documents to you, adjust voice settings.

Since the beginning of the computer age, people have always enjoyed making computers talk to them. These days, that functionality is built right into Windows and you can easily use it to have your PC read documents to you.

Using the text to speech functionality of your computer can save you a lot of time if you need to study for tests, read books, review reports, or if you are just feel like listening instead of reading. While the voice may sound computer generated, there is always the option of downloading new SAPI-compatible voice profiles from various sites on the Internet, though most of them aren't free.

Most Windows PCs are equipped with at least two American English voices (one male, one female). Many computers also offer a variety of voices that are fluent in different languages. By accessing the settings through your control panel, which we will discuss later on, you can adjust the pitch, speed, and volume of your computer’s SAPI voice.

In this article, we're going to cover how get your PC to interpret the two most common types of documents most people use---PDFs and Word documents---and speak their contents to you. We'll also talk a bit about fine-tuning your PC's voice.

Adobe Reader is the default choice for many people for viewing PDF files. While it Adobe Reader became bloated over the years, recent versions are better and fairly pleasant to use. Adobe Reader can also read documents to you. If you don't already have Reader installed, head to the Adobe Reader download page . Make sure to uncheck their optional McAffee downloads, and then click the "Install Now" button.

Related: How to View and Disable Installed Plug-ins in Any Browser

Note: Adobe Reader also installs browser plugins to integrate PDF tools into your browser. If you prefer not to use that, you can follow  these steps for disabling plug-ins in your web browser of choice , disabling the “Adobe Acrobat” plug-in.

When you've installed Reader, open up a PDF file that you'd like the computer to read to you. Open the “View” menu, point to the "Read Out Loud" submenu, and then click the "Activate Read Out Loud” command. You can also hit Ctrl+Shift+Y to activate the feature.

With the Read Out Loud feature activated, you can click a single paragraph to have Windows read it aloud to you. A progress bar appears on screen to let you know how far through the selection you are.

You can also choose other options by returning to the View > Read Out Loud menu. There, you can have Reader read the current page, read from the current location to the end of the document, or pause, stop, and play the reading. You can also deactivate the Read Out Lout feature if you're done with it.

If you have .doc, .docx, or .txt files that you want your computer to read to you instead, you can do that right in Microsoft Word.

It's easiest to start by adding the Speak command right to the Quick Access toolbar at the top of the Word window. Click the small down arrow at the right of the Quick Access toolbar, and then click the “More Commands" option.

In the “Word Options” window, click the "Choose Commands From" dropdown, and then choose the “All Commands” option. On the list of commands, scroll down, and then select the "Speak" command. Click the "Add" button, and then click "OK" to close the window.

If you look at the Quick Access toolbar, you'll see that the Speak command has been added (the small “message box” icon with a play symbol).

In your Word document, select some text. You can select a word, paragraph, entire page, or just hit Ctrl+A to select the whole document. Click the "Speak" button you added to have Word read your selection to you.

If your computer’s speech sounds too computer generated, or if it speaks too quickly, you can adjust the settings. Hit Start, type “Narrator” into the search box, and then click the result.

Note: While you have the Narrator tool open, Windows will read out loud everything you do---every thing you click or type, window titles, everything. If it bugs you while you're configuring settings, just mute your PC.

In the "Narrator" window, click the “Voice Settings” option.

On the "Voice" page, you can set the voice speed, volume, and pitch to your liking. You can also choose different voices you have installed.

When you're done, close the Narrator tool (so that it's not reading everything to you) and go test it out in your PDF or Word document.

You can also use Narrator to read other types of documents (like web pages) to you. It can be a bit clunky to work with, since it wants to read everything (including interface text) to you, but you might find it useful at times.

How to Make Google Docs Read to You: A Step-by-Step Guide

Google Docs can read your documents out loud for you, making it easier to absorb information or multitask. You just need to use the built-in text-to-speech feature. Let’s get started!

Step by Step Tutorial on How to Make Google Docs Read to You

Before we dive into the steps, it’s important to note that this feature can help with proofreading, learning a new language, or just for listening to your document as you rest your eyes.

Step 1: Open your Google Doc

Open the Google Docs document you want to be read to you.

Opening your document is the first step. Make sure you’re logged into your Google account and navigate to the Google Docs home page. From there, select the document you wish to have read aloud.

Step 2: Click on “Tools” in the menu bar

In the top menu of Google Docs, click on “Tools”.

The “Tools” menu is located between “Insert” and “Add-ons” on the top menu. This is where you’ll find the option to activate the text-to-speech feature.

Step 3: Select “Accessibility settings”

From the dropdown menu, choose “Accessibility settings”.

In the “Accessibility settings” menu, you’ll find options that make Google Docs more user-friendly for people with different abilities.

Step 4: Click on “Turn on Screen Reader Support”

You should tick the box next to “Turn on Screen Reader Support”.

By enabling this option, you’ll activate the Google Docs text-to-speech function. A message may pop up confirming that you’ve turned on screen reader support.

Step 5: Use the Speak command

Go back to the “Tools” menu, hover over “Accessibility” and then click on “Speak”.

After you’ve turned on screen reader support, the “Speak” option will be available under the “Accessibility” menu. This is the feature that will read your document out loud.

Step 6: Choose what you want to be read aloud

Select “Speak selection” to read the highlighted text or “Speak from the cursor location” to read from a specific point in the document.

Highlight the text you want to be read aloud and choose “Speak selection”, or place the cursor where you want the reading to begin and select “Speak from cursor location”.

After completing these steps, Google Docs will start reading your document out loud. You can pause or stop the reading at any time by going back to the “Tools” menu and clicking on “Accessibility” to find the pause or stop options.

Tips for Making Google Docs Read to You

• Ensure that your device’s volume is turned up so you can hear the reading.
• Use headphones for better sound quality and to avoid disturbing others.
• Customize the voice and speed of reading in your device’s text-to-speech settings for a personalized experience.
• Use the “Speak from the cursor location” option to start reading from a specific point in the document.
• Remember to turn off Screen Reader Support when you’re done, especially if you share the computer with others who might not need this feature.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can google docs read to me in different languages.

Yes, Google Docs can read to you in different languages, but you need to configure your device’s text-to-speech settings to the desired language.

Is the text-to-speech feature available on mobile devices?

Yes, the text-to-speech feature is available on the Google Docs app for mobile devices.

Can I adjust the reading speed?

Yes, you can adjust the reading speed in your device’s text-to-speech settings.

Is this feature free to use?

Yes, Google Docs’ text-to-speech feature is completely free to use.

Can I use this feature offline?

No, you need an internet connection to use Google Docs’ text-to-speech feature because it relies on cloud-based processing.

• Open your Google Docs document.
• Click on “Tools” in the menu bar.
• Select “Accessibility settings”.
• Click on “Turn on Screen Reader Support”.
• Use the Speak command from the “Tools” menu.
• Choose “Speak selection” or “Speak from cursor location”.

In today’s fast-paced world, having tools that can help you multitask and improve efficiency is a game-changer. And when it comes to Google Docs, the ability to have your documents read to you is one of those game-changing features. Whether you’re proofreading, learning, or simply want to rest your eyes, the text-to-speech capability of Google Docs is there to make your life a bit easier. Remember, technology is meant to work for you, and with this feature, you’re able to harness the power of Google Docs to its fullest. So, why not give it a try and see how it can improve your workflow? After all, sometimes, it’s just nicer to listen.

Matthew Burleigh has been writing tech tutorials since 2008. His writing has appeared on dozens of different websites and been read over 50 million times.

After receiving his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science he spent several years working in IT management for small businesses. However, he now works full time writing content online and creating websites.

His main writing topics include iPhones, Microsoft Office, Google Apps, Android, and Photoshop, but he has also written about many other tech topics as well.

Read his full bio here.

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.

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The Hidden-Pregnancy Experiment

By Jia Tolentino

Shortly after I became pregnant with my second child, in the fall of 2022, I decided to try a modest experiment. I wanted to see whether I could hide my pregnancy from my phone. After spending my twenties eagerly surveilling and sharing the details of my life online, I had already begun trying to erect some walls of technological privacy: I’d deleted most apps on my phone and turned off camera, location, and microphone access for nearly all of the ones that I did have; I had disabled Siri—I just found it annoying—and I didn’t have any smart devices. For the experiment, I would abide by some additional restrictions. I wouldn’t Google anything about pregnancy nor shop for baby stuff either online or using a credit card, and neither would my husband, because our I.P. addresses—and thus the vast, matrixed fatbergs of personal data assembled by unseen corporations to pinpoint our consumer and political identities—were linked. I wouldn’t look at pregnancy accounts on Instagram or pregnancy forums on Reddit. I wouldn’t update my period tracker or use a pregnancy app.

Nearly every time we load new content on an app or a Web site, ad-exchange companies—Google being the largest among them—broadcast data about our interests, finances, and vulnerabilities to determine exactly what we’ll see; more than a billion of these transactions take place in the U.S. every hour. Each of us, the data-privacy expert Wolfie Christl told me, has “dozens or even hundreds” of digital identifiers attached to our person; there’s an estimated eighteen-billion-dollar industry for location data alone. In August, 2022, Mozilla reviewed twenty pregnancy and period-tracking apps and found that fifteen of them made a “buffet” of personal data available to third parties, including addresses, I.P. numbers, sexual histories, and medical details. In most cases, the apps used vague language about when and how this data could be shared with law enforcement. (A 2020 FOIA lawsuit filed by the A.C.L.U. revealed that the Department of Homeland Security had purchased access to location data for millions of people in order to track them without a warrant. ICE and C.B.P. subsequently said they would stop using such data.) The scholar Shoshana Zuboff has called this surveillance capitalism , “a new economic order that claims human experience as free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales.” Through our phones, we are under perpetual surveillance by companies that buy and sell data about what kind of person we are, whom we might vote for, what we might purchase, and what we might be nudged into doing.

A decade ago, the sociology professor Janet Vertesi conducted a more rigorous form of the hidden-pregnancy experiment. Using an elaborate system of code words and the anonymous browser Tor, she managed to digitally hide her pregnancy all the way up to the birth of her child. In an article about the experience, for Time , she pointed to a Financial Times report, which found that identifying a single pregnant woman is as valuable to data brokers as knowing the age, gender, and location of more than two hundred nonpregnant people, because of how much stuff new parents tend to buy. She also noted that simply attempting to evade market detection—by, for example, purchasing stacks of gift cards in order to buy a stroller—made her and her husband look as though they were trying to commit fraud.

I wasn’t going to do anything so strict or elaborate. I’d allow myself to text and send e-mails about my pregnancy, and to talk about it with my phone nearby. I assumed that, eventually, it would notice; I’d just wait and see when a diaper ad popped up on Instagram. I liked the idea of establishing a buffer zone between my psyche and the object that most closely monitors it. I found it almost shocking to remember that this was possible.

Pregnancy tends to erode both your freedom and your privacy. Past a certain point in your second trimester, strangers will begin reaching toward your stomach and telling you about the real difference between boys and girls. But I had eluded this during my first pregnancy, because COVID hit before I started showing. In the months that followed, I began to feel the difference between witnessing something and surveilling it, and to recognize that the most pleasurable moments in my life had occurred out of the reach of any oversight. I had felt then an almost psychedelic sense of autonomy; time was dilating, and the slow bloom inside me was beyond anyone’s reach. I wanted to see if I could feel anything like that again.

During pregnancy, and in the early days of parenthood, one is both the object and the conductor of intense surveillance. Last year, the artist and filmmaker Sophie Hamacher co-edited an anthology of writing on the subject, called “ Supervision ,” which was published by M.I.T. Press. “As I became absorbed with tracking and monitoring my child,” Hamacher writes in the preface, “I was increasingly aware that I was a subject of tracking and monitoring by others: advertisers, medical professionals, government entities, people on the street. I began to wonder about the relationship between the way I watched her and the ways we were being watched.” Surveillance encompasses both policing and caretaking, Hamacher notes. In practice, its polarized qualities—“beneficial and harmful, intimate and distanced”—intertwine. Baby monitors use technology developed for the military. Many contemporary models run on CCTV.

Most American households with young children use baby monitors or trackers; two recent surveys put market penetration at seventy-five and eighty-three per cent, respectively. (Both surveys were conducted by companies that make these devices.) And there are now countless other ways that technology will help you to observe and scrutinize your child: nanny-cam Teddy bears, G.P.S. stroller accessories, scales that track your baby’s weight over time, disks that can be affixed to diapers and which will notify you if your baby rolls onto his stomach while he’s asleep. Increasingly, such products use A.I. to detect signs of distress. “The need to know whether a child is safe and well is perfectly natural, which makes the nature of such surveillance appear innocent,” the writer and scholar Hannah Zeavin notes in “Family Scanning,” one of the essays in “Supervision.” But, she adds, “these technologies conceal the possibility of false positives, disrupted emergency services, and of collaboration with state forces—wittingly or unwittingly—all in the name of keeping children safe.” As a general rule, these devices don’t lead to better outcomes for the babies they monitor. More often—like social media, which promises connection as a salve for the loneliness created by social media—parenting tech exacerbates, even calls into existence, the parental anxieties that it pledges to soothe.

This has become a common pattern in contemporary life. Nearly a fifth of U.S. households are estimated to use doorbell cameras, many of them from Ring, the Amazon-owned company that has expanded its reach through police partnerships and a dedicated app that encourages users to post footage of strangers. Ring cameras haven’t made neighborhoods measurably safer, but they have made users measurably more paranoid, and placed more people, sometimes with grave outcomes, in contact with the police. Until recently, police could readily access surveillance footage from the Ring network without a warrant by posting requests on the app. It also gave its own employees and third-party contractors “ ‘ free range ’ access” to view and download videos from users’ homes.

In 2015, the company Owlet started selling a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Smart Sock, which monitored babies’ heart rates and oxygen levels, and alerted parents if these figures were abnormal. Although the company insists that it has made clear that the product is not intended to “treat or diagnose” sudden infant death syndrome—and there is no evidence that it reduces the risk of SIDS occurring—such devices are sometimes referred to as “ SIDS monitors.” But, in 2017, an opinion piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association cautioned physicians against recommending the product. “There are no medical indications for monitoring healthy infants at home,” the authors wrote. The device, they noted, could “stimulate unnecessary fear, uncertainty, and self-doubt in parents about their abilities to keep their infants safe.” The following year, a study in the same journal found “concerning” inaccuracies in oxygen readings. When Owlet went public, in February, 2021, the company had a valuation of more than a billion dollars; later that year, the F.D.A. issued a warning letter that the Smart Sock wasn’t an authorized medical device, and the company pulled it off the market. A million units had already been sold. The following year, Owlet launched a new version, called the Dream Sock, which would receive F.D.A. approval. Most of the reviews for the Dream Sock exude profound gratitude. Parents write about the peace of mind that comes from knowing the baby is being constantly monitored, about not knowing what they would do if the device didn’t exist.

Surveillance capitalism, Zuboff writes, “aims to impose a new collective order based on total certainty.” But little is certain when it comes to babies. The control that we feel when we’re engaged in surveillance almost always proves illusory, though the control, or at least the influence, that others exert on us through surveillance is real.

It is not a coincidence that Roe v. Wade, a ruling grounded in the right to privacy, was overturned at a time when privacy in the U.S was on its conceptual deathbed. There are other legal principles that might have served as a stronger foundation for abortion rights: the right to equal protection, or the right to bodily integrity. As Christyne Neff wrote, in 1991, the physical effects of an ordinary pregnancy and delivery resemble those of a severe beating—flesh lacerated, organs rearranged, half a quart of blood lost. Can the state, she asked, rightfully compel a person to undergo this?

Since Roe fell, two years ago, fourteen states have claimed that power in absolute terms, banning abortion almost completely. Two states have successfully passed abortion-vigilante laws, which confer the power of carceral supervision on the public. Indiana’s attorney general has argued that abortion records should be publicly available, like death records; Kansas recently passed a law that would require abortion providers to collect details about the personal lives of their patients and make that information available to the government. Birth control and sex itself may be up next for criminal surveillance: the Heritage Foundation , last year, insisted, on Twitter, that “conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.”

For many women in America, pregnancy was a conduit to state surveillance long before the end of Roe. Poor women, especially poor nonwhite women, are often drug-tested during pregnancy, and sometimes during labor and delivery, without their informed consent. Women who take drugs during pregnancy have been charged with child abuse or neglect, including in cases in which the drugs were legal; women who have miscarried after taking drugs have been charged with manslaughter, even homicide, even when no causal link was proved. Sometimes this happens because the woman in question had responded to billboards and service announcements promising to help pregnant people who are struggling with substance use. In multiple states, women have been taken into custody when the safety of the fetus was called into question. “To be pregnant and poor in the United States is to play a game of roulette with one’s privacy, presumed confidential relationship with medical providers, and basic constitutional and medical rights,” the law professor Michele Goodwin writes in “ Policing the Womb ,” from 2020.

Goodwin describes the case of a woman in Iowa named Christine Taylor, who, in 2010, as a twenty-two-year-old mother of two, was accused of attempted feticide after she fell down the stairs while pregnant. Part of the evidence cited by the police was that she reportedly told a nurse that she hadn’t wanted the baby. (Ultimately, prosecutors decided not to press charges.) The carceral surveillance of pregnancy entails the criminalization of ambivalence, the inspection of these innermost desires. But the deepest truths about motherhood seem to me to be rooted in conflicting, coexisting emotions: nightmare and rapture in the same moment during labor, the love and despair that box each other at night in the weeks that follow, the joy of cuddling my nine-month-old undergirded by the horror of knowing that other babies are starving and dying in rubble. Before I had my first child, I had badly wanted to get pregnant. I had planned for it, prepared for it, hoped for it. Still, when I saw the positive test result, I cried.

My modest experiment went surprisingly smoothly. Because I’d had my first child not long before, this time I didn’t need to buy anything, and I didn’t want to learn anything. I smooth-brained my way to three months, four months, five; no diaper ads. I called up a lawyer and data-privacy specialist named Dominique Shelton Leipzig to get her perspective. Globally, she told me, we generate 2.5 quintillion bytes—that’s eighteen zeroes—of data per day. “The short answer is, you probably haven’t hidden what you think you have,” she said. I told her about the rules I’d set for myself, that I didn’t have many apps and had bought nothing but prenatal vitamins, and that Instagram did not appear to have identified me as pregnant. She paused. “I’m amazed,” she told me. “If you didn’t see any ads, I think you might have succeeded.” I congratulated myself by instantly dropping the experiment and buying maternity pants; ads for baby carriers popped up on my Instagram within minutes.

I had felt little satisfaction hiding from the ad trackers—if anything, I’d only become more conscious of how much surveillance I was engaged in, as both subject and object, and how much more insidious the problem was becoming. We rarely have a clear understanding of what we’re doing when we engage in surveillance of ourselves or others. Life360, an app that’s used by more than sixty million people and is marketed as an easy way to track your child’s location via their smartphone, was found in 2021 to be selling raw location information to data brokers. (The company said it now sells only aggregate data.) In a Pew survey from 2023, seventy-seven per cent of Americans said they had very little to no trust in how social-media executives handle user data, and seventy-one per cent were concerned about how the government uses it. In another survey, ninety-three per cent of Americans said they wouldn’t buy a doorbell camera if it sold data about their family. People just want to be safer. I had wanted security, too, and affirmation—and I had wanted to be a writer. I had disclosed so much of my life to people I’ll never know.

My husband and I had not bought a baby monitor for our first child, a choice that satisfied his desire to not buy things and my desire to insist that certain aspects of experience are fundamentally ungovernable. But shortly after the second child was born she developed eczema, and started scratching her sweet, enormous cheeks in her sleep. One morning, my husband went to her and found that she’d clawed her face open, leaving blood smudged all over her sleep sack and smeared all over her face. “We need a video monitor!” I wailed, already Googling options. “We need to buy a video monitor today.”

We didn’t buy one, but for weeks I regretted it and second-guessed myself. And I surveilled the baby with technology in other ways all the time. In the early weeks, I relied on an app to tell me how much milk she’d drunk and how many soiled diapers she’d had that day—activities that I myself had witnessed just hours before. I felt like a Biblical angel with a thousand eyes, somehow unable to see anything. I took pictures because I knew I would have no memory of the precise contours of this exact baby in a month. When she didn’t seem hungry enough, I panicked, obsessing over every feed.

“What’s the line between pathological self-surveillance and care for a newborn? Is there one?” Sarah Blackwood, an English professor at Pace University, asks, in “Supervision.” Blackwood contrasts the “fantasy of efficiency and sterility” built into parenting tech with the “psychic state of watchfulness so many mothers find themselves in”—a state that is “metastatic, fecund, beyond.” One afternoon, my husband took the baby from me: she was sobbing, and I was incoherently frantic, trying to get her to eat. She was O.K., he told me; she’d eat when she needed to. But I know what’s good for her, and it’s my job to make her do it, I thought, furious. Around the fringes of my consciousness, I felt a flicker of understanding about how this idea that everything was controllable had become so ubiquitous, how we had confused coercion with care. ♦

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What is ChatGPT? Here's everything you need to know about ChatGPT, the chatbot everyone's still talking about

• ChatGPT is getting a futuristic human update. 
• ChatGPT has drawn users at a feverish pace and spurred Big Tech to release other AI chatbots.
• Here's how ChatGPT works — and what's coming next.

OpenAI's blockbuster chatbot ChatGPT is getting a new update. 

On Monday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o for ChatGPT, a new version of the bot that can hold conversations with users in a very human tone. The new version of the chatbot will also have vision abilities.

The futuristic reveal quickly prompted jokes about parallels to the movie "Her," with some calling the chatbot's new voice " cringe ."

The move is a big step for the future of AI-powered virtual assistants, which tech companies have been racing to develop.

Since its release in 2022, hundreds of millions of people have experimented with the tool, which is already changing how the internet looks and feels to users.

Users have flocked to ChatGPT to improve their personal lives and boost productivity . Some workers have used the AI chatbot to develop code , write real estate listings , and create lesson plans, while others have made teaching the best ways to use ChatGPT a career all to itself.

ChatGPT offers dozens of plug-ins to those who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus subscription. An Expedia one can help you book a trip, while an OpenTable one will get nab you a dinner reservation. And last month, OpenAI launched Code Interpreter, a version of ChatGPT that can code and analyze data .

While the personal tone of conversations with an AI bot like ChatGPT can evoke the experience of chatting with a human, the technology, which runs on " large language model tools, " doesn't speak with sentience and doesn't "think" the way people do. 

That means that even though ChatGPT can explain quantum physics or write a poem on command, a full AI takeover isn't exactly imminent , according to experts.

"There's a saying that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually give you Shakespeare," said Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University who studies copyright implications for training and using large language models like ChatGPT.

"There's a large number of monkeys here, giving you things that are impressive — but there is intrinsically a difference between the way that humans produce language, and the way that large language models do it," he said. 

Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by large amounts of data and computing techniques to make predictions to string words together in a meaningful way. They not only tap into a vast amount of vocabulary and information, but also understand words in context. This helps them mimic speech patterns while dispatching an encyclopedic knowledge. 

Other tech companies like Google and Meta have developed their own large language model tools, which use programs that take in human prompts and devise sophisticated responses.

Despite the AI's impressive capabilities, some have called out OpenAI's chatbot for spewing misinformation , stealing personal data for training purposes , and even encouraging students to cheat and plagiarize on their assignments. 

Some recent efforts to use chatbots for real-world services have proved troubling. In 2023, the mental health company Koko came under fire after its founder wrote about how the company used GPT-3 in an experiment to reply to users. 

Koko cofounder Rob Morris hastened to clarify on Twitter that users weren't speaking directly to a chatbot, but that AI was used to "help craft" responses. 

Read Insider's coverage on ChatGPT and some of the strange new ways that both people and companies are using chat bots: 

The tech world's reception to ChatGPT:

Microsoft is chill with employees using ChatGPT — just don't share 'sensitive data' with it.

Microsoft's investment into ChatGPT's creator may be the smartest $1 billion ever spent

ChatGPT and generative AI look like tech's next boom. They could be the next bubble.

The ChatGPT and generative-AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'

Insider's experiments: 

I asked ChatGPT to do my work and write an Insider article for me. It quickly generated an alarmingly convincing article filled with misinformation.

I asked ChatGPT and a human matchmaker to redo my Hinge and Bumble profiles. They helped show me what works.

I asked ChatGPT to reply to my Hinge matches. No one responded.

I used ChatGPT to write a resignation letter. A lawyer said it made one crucial error that could have invalidated the whole thing .

Read ChatGPT's 'insulting' and 'garbage' 'Succession' finale script

An Iowa school district asked ChatGPT if a list of books contains sex scenes, and banned them if it said yes. We put the system to the test and found a bunch of problems.

Developments in detecting ChatGPT: 

Teachers rejoice! ChatGPT creators have released a tool to help detect AI-generated writing

A Princeton student built an app which can detect if ChatGPT wrote an essay to combat AI-based plagiarism

Professors want to 'ChatGPT-proof' assignments, and are returning to paper exams and requesting editing history to curb AI cheating

ChatGPT in society: 

BuzzFeed writers react with a mix of disappointment and excitement at news that AI-generated content is coming to the website

ChatGPT is testing a paid version — here's what that means for free users

A top UK private school is changing its approach to homework amid the rise of ChatGPT, as educators around the world adapt to AI

Princeton computer science professor says don't panic over 'bullshit generator' ChatGPT

DoNotPay's CEO says threat of 'jail for 6 months' means plan to debut AI 'robot lawyer' in courtroom is on ice

It might be possible to fight a traffic ticket with an AI 'robot lawyer' secretly feeding you lines to your AirPods, but it could go off the rails

Online mental health company uses ChatGPT to help respond to users in experiment — raising ethical concerns around healthcare and AI technology

What public figures think about ChatGPT and other AI tools:

What Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and 12 other business leaders think about AI tools like ChatGPT

Elon Musk was reportedly 'furious' at ChatGPT's popularity after he left the company behind it, OpenAI, years ago

CEO of ChatGPT maker responds to schools' plagiarism concerns: 'We adapted to calculators and changed what we tested in math class'

A theoretical physicist says AI is just a 'glorified tape recorder' and people's fears about it are overblown

'The most stunning demo I've ever seen in my life': ChatGPT impressed Bill Gates

Ashton Kutcher says your company will probably be 'out of business' if you're 'sleeping' on AI

ChatGPT's impact on jobs: 

AI systems like ChatGPT could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, with administrative and legal roles some of the most at risk, Goldman Sachs report says

Jobs are now requiring experience with ChatGPT — and they'll pay as much as $800,000 a year for the skill

Related stories

ChatGPT may be coming for our jobs. Here are the 10 roles that AI is most likely to replace.

AI is going to eliminate way more jobs than anyone realizes

It's not AI that is going to take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI might, economist says

4 careers where workers will have to change jobs by 2030 due to AI and shifts in how we shop, a McKinsey study says

Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Meta are paying salaries as high as $900,000 to attract generative AI talent

How AI tools like ChatGPT are changing the workforce:

10 ways artificial intelligence is changing the workplace, from writing performance reviews to making the 4-day workweek possible

Managers who use AI will replace managers who don't, says an IBM exec

How ChatGPT is shaping industries: 

ChatGPT is coming for classrooms, hospitals, marketing departments, and everything else as the next great startup boom emerges

Marketing teams are using AI to generate content, boost SEO, and develop branding to help save time and money, study finds

AI is coming for Hollywood. 'It's amazing to see the sophistication of the images,' one of Christopher Nolan's VFX guy says.

AI is going to offer every student a personalized tutor, founder of Khan Academy says

A law firm was fined $5,000 after one of its lawyers used ChatGPT to write a court brief riddled with fake case references

How workers are using ChatGPT to boost productivity:  

CheatGPT: The hidden wave of employees using AI on the sly

I used ChatGPT to talk to my boss for a week and she didn't notice. Here are the other ways I use it daily to get work done.

I'm a high school math and science teacher who uses ChatGPT, and it's made my job much easier

Amazon employees are already using ChatGPT for software coding. They also found the AI chatbot can answer tricky AWS customer questions and write cloud training materials.

How 6 workers are using ChatGPT to make their jobs easier

I'm a freelance editor who's embraced working with AI content. Here's how I do it and what I charge.

How people are using ChatGPT to make money:

How ChatGPT and other AI tools are helping workers make more money

Here are 5 ways ChatGPT helps me make money and complete time-consuming tasks for my business

ChatGPT course instruction is the newest side hustle on the market. Meet the teachers making thousands from the lucrative gig.

People are using ChatGPT and other AI bots to work side hustles and earn thousands of dollars — check out these 8 freelancing gigs

A guy tried using ChatGPT to turn $100 into a business making 'as much money as possible.' Here are the first 4 steps the AI chatbot gave him

We used ChatGPT to build a 7-figure newsletter. Here's how it makes our jobs easier.

I use ChatGPT and it's like having a 24/7 personal assistant for $20 a month. Here are 5 ways it's helping me make more money.

A worker who uses AI for a $670 monthly side hustle says ChatGPT has 'cut her research time in half'

How companies are navigating ChatGPT: 

From Salesforce to Air India, here are the companies that are using ChatGPT

Amazon, Apple, and 12 other major companies that have restricted employees from using ChatGPT

A consultant used ChatGPT to free up time so she could focus on pitching clients. She landed $128,000 worth of new contracts in just 3 months.

Luminary, an AI-generated pop-up restaurant, just opened in Australia. Here's what's on the menu, from bioluminescent calamari to chocolate mousse.

A CEO is spending more than $2,000 a month on ChatGPT Plus accounts for all of his employees, and he says it's saving 'hours' of time

How people are using ChatGPT in their personal lives:

ChatGPT planned a family vacation to Costa Rica. A travel adviser found 3 glaring reasons why AI won't replace experts anytime soon.

A man who hated cardio asked ChatGPT to get him into running. Now, he's hooked — and he's lost 26 pounds.

A computer engineering student is using ChatGPT to overcome learning challenges linked to her dyslexia

How a coder used ChatGPT to find an apartment in Berlin in 2 weeks after struggling for months

Food blogger Nisha Vora tried ChatGPT to create a curry recipe. She says it's clear the instructions lacked a human touch — here's how.

Men are using AI to land more dates with better profiles and personalized messages, study finds

Lawsuits against OpenAI:

OpenAI could face a plagiarism lawsuit from The New York Times as tense negotiations threaten to boil over, report says

This is why comedian Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT

2 authors say OpenAI 'ingested' their books to train ChatGPT. Now they're suing, and a 'wave' of similar court cases may follow.

A lawsuit claims OpenAI stole 'massive amounts of personal data,' including medical records and information about children, to train ChatGPT

A radio host is suing OpenAI for defamation, alleging that ChatGPT created a false legal document that accused him of 'defrauding and embezzling funds'

Tips on how to write better ChatGPT prompts:

7 ways to use ChatGPT at work to boost your productivity, make your job easier, and save a ton of time

I'm an AI prompt engineer. Here are 3 ways I use ChatGPT to get the best results.

12 ways to get better at using ChatGPT: Comprehensive prompt guide

Here's 9 ways to turn ChatGPT Plus into your personal data analyst with the new Code Interpreter plug-in

OpenAI's ChatGPT can write impressive code. Here are the prompts you should use for the best results, experts say.

Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, has a global deal to allow OpenAI to train its models on its media brands' reporting.

Watch: What is ChatGPT, and should we be afraid of AI chatbots?

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When Someone You Manage Isn’t Following the Return-to-Office Policy

• Rebecca Knight

How to strike a balance between enforcing company mandates and supporting the needs of your team.

What should you do if some of your team members still don’t want to come into the office after your company has imposed a mandate? How do you strike the right balance between following company policies and understanding the needs of your employees ? In this article, the author shares advice from two experts on how to navigate this complicated situation. 

Ever since the first return-to-office mandates emerged in 2021 , managers have grappled with the delicate task of balancing organizational policies with the preferences of their employees. The pressure from higher-ups to bring people back to their cubicles has been building over the years, and as a manager, you need to tow the company line.

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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To the moms all alone on Mother's Day, I see you and you are enough.

Most of my 14 years of motherhood felt like Mother’s Day was spent alone, including some of the years I was married.

Every May, when the second Sunday in May comes around, I think of the women who are where I was in multiple places of my mother journey: scared, alone and envious of the moms with a supportive partner at home.

This year, I've written a letter to every single mother struggling to celebrate herself today, who feels inferior to the other families she sees.

When the flowers don't come, when there are no "thank yous," when there is no one posting our picture, I want us to remember where our gift truly lies.

To our kids, this is the life and this love is enough. So, we can raise our glass.

Dear, single mom on Mother's Day

Maybe you woke up a little early today to give yourself the gift of solitude. There is no one to tag in at the end of the day. It’s exhausting.

You might get a few minutes before feelings of inadequacy come flooding in. You are reminded of all the things you can't do, never seeing all that you have. You wonder how a single-parent home is affecting your kids, who will be down in a matter of moments.

Then, the day will begin just like any other day.

Maybe there were once flowers waiting for you. Maybe there were never flowers at all. You may find crumpled up Mother's Day art in your kids' backpack today, but they may not recognize that there should be anything to celebrate.

You will prepare every meal, answer every request, create every moment, wipe every tear and calm every fear. But your requests will be left unmet, your moments 60 seconds at a time, your tears wiped by your own hand and your fears, ever ponding.

Yet every day you show up and you do it, maybe with a little envy for the two-parent home down the street, because it's hard to be a full-time parent and a full-time provider. You can't possibly do either perfectly well.

If you're feeling discouraged today, seeing only your lack, look inside.

You are the creator of all the good that you see.

Tonight, when you tuck in your kids, witness your gifts.

There may have not been anything on the table this morning, you may have cleaned up the house and cooked every meal, but there is peace in the room. There is joy on their faces. There is a tangible love providing security like the blanket wrapped around their feet.

Your family is not inferior.

You are enough. Your kids know it, and some day someone else will too.

But it has to start with you.

My son was feeling left behind: What kids with autistic siblings want you to know.

Your married friend may be struggling, too

Single mothers should know that married mothers aren't necessarily better supported. Sure, they may have flowers, but just like you, they have learned how to water themselves.

There were Mother's Days when all I felt was hollow. There were flowers, photos, dinners and lots of hugs, but it obscured a darker reality. Presence doesn't equal support. Lonely doesn't equal alone.

Knowing my "enoughness" led me back into singleness and back to the mother I've always been. So, cherish where you are and never trade your peace for support. Recognize yourself and celebrate this day.

Last year, I bought myself a bouquet of wildflowers, and this year, I bought myself a few.

My gift is this home I've created and the peace I feel at night. Sure, it may be a little messy, but it is far from inferior.

When I release my kids into the world, they will take this love that they've been given and begin planting it in places of their own, definitely better than if they had grown up in our broken two-parent home.

Yet I know that you, like me, may have a desire to share your life with someone. Just make sure that they are a seer too, a seer of your worth and your "enoughness," on more than just this special day.

Essay Writer - AI Writing App 17+

Write a book, story, homework, designed for ipad.

• Offers In-App Purchases

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Description.

Introducing AI Writer, the leading iOS app that brings advanced artificial intelligence technology to the world of writing. Whether you need to create an essay, compose an email, formulate an engaging resume or a compelling narrative, "AI Writer" gives you all the tools you need to succeed. With an advanced AI-based chat system, "AI Writer" becomes your personalized texting assistant. The app also acts as a universal translator, ensuring perfect understanding in different languages. In addition, "AI Writer" helps you generate code, inspire business ideas, compose messages, create engaging paragraphs and even develops you in writing short stories, jokes, songs, poems, recipes and workout plans. Enhance your writing skills and discover new possibilities with "AI Writer", your trusted writing companion on iOS. In-app purchase: You can become a premium user by auto-renewing your subscription. - Payment will be charged to your iTunes account when you confirm your purchase. - Subscription will automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the expiration date. - Subscription length: one week, one month, one year. - If you renew your subscription within 24 hours before the end of the current period, your account will be charged the amount corresponding to the renewal price. - Subscription cost: one week - $4.99, one month - $9.99, tree month - $29.99. - Subscriptions can be managed by the user, and auto-renewal can be disabled by going to User Account Settings after purchase. - Cancellation of the current subscription during the active subscription period is not allowed Privacy Policy: https://appslabs.org/privacy-policy/ Terms of Use: https://appslabs.org/terms-of-service/

App Privacy

The developer, Apps Labs , indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .

Data Used to Track You

The following data may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies:

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Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese

• Essay Writer $4.99
• AI Text $39.99
• Write For Me $79.99
• AI Text Generation $29.99
• AI Writing Assistant $9.99
• AI Writing $7.99
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