Microsoft Word’s new feature called “Researcher” makes research paper writing easier

While the tool helps you start a paper, another new one, Editor “assists you with the finishing touches by providing an advanced proofing and editing service”, the company says. Editor is powered by machine learning, natural language processing, and input from Microsoft’s team of linguists.

As a cloud based service which will analyze what changes people accept and which ones they reject, Editor will get better as more people begin using it and teaching it the difference between good writing and bad.

Researcher and Editor are new to Microsoft Word.

The new feature helps users research information while also staying within the Word document, which avoids the dreaded toggling back and forth between an Internet browser and Word document. Researcher uses the Bing Knowledge Graph to pull in the appropriate content from the web and provide structured, safe and credible information. This also will be improved further with the addition of more sources that include history databases, renowned encyclopedias, and health centers and national science.

You can also specifically search for something which is not present inside the suggested material.

Available starting today for Windows desktop users with Word 2016 and a subscription to Office 365, Researcher will also roll out for mobile devices “soon”, Koenigsbauer said. Otherwise, the mobile versions of Office will get the feature at some point in the future. More specifically, it will automatically add citations in your bibliography when you add source material.

Redmond notes that Editor will use a gold dotted line to underline sentences which need attention in terms of writing style, along with the traditional red and blue underlining for spelling and grammar issues respectively.

“Over time, you get fewer and fewer notifications”, Alexander says. Word might feel feature complete right now, but Microsoft isn’t giving up on adding new and interesting features.

Email junkies should look out for two updates to Outlook coming this month: Focused Inbox on Windows, Mac, and Outlook on the Web, and @mentions on Windows and Mac for Office 365 subscribers. For those unfamiliar with the tool, it splits your inbox in two, separating your most important emails into your “Focused” tab, while everything else lands in “Other”.

Finally, PowerPoint has seen the introduction of Zoom, a feature which lets users easily create fully interactive and non-linear presentations. Presenters will be able to show their slides in any order they want at any time. Microsoft said it will apply its cloud intelligence to bring more clarity to your writing-for example, replacing wordy phrases with more concise alternatives.