There are some amazing tools available today to help you create and edit your own work  if you know where to look. In this two-part series we will gather some of the best of the many choices for your review.

D. Offer writes for Write4Kids. Offer manages the popular Facebook emoticons and Facebook smiley website Emoinstaller.com. Emoinstaller can add hundreds of additional Facebook chat emoticons into your Facebook account in just a few clicks.

Even the most successful authors will agree there is a lot more to the writing business than just the writing. Sites like Write4Kids can be a great way to learn about the world of query letters, agents, publishing houses, and proposals. To be successful you’ll have to learn to master this strange, new world.

And yet, the writing is still the main thing – and the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

To help improve your work we’ve searched the internet to bring you some amazing tools that can be had for little or nothing – if you know where to look. In this post, we’ll review some tools to help make researching your work a little easier and discuss Google and Microsoft’s attempts to bring word processing to the Cloud.

Research Tools

Today’s readers are increasingly more sophisticated, and they demand a high level of realism and authenticity in their fiction. Being true to the facts is critical, and errors can derail the credibility of your story with the reader. A careful attention to the details is necessary regardless of the genre  and that means doing the necessary research.

We’ve gathered the best tools available that will make research as painless, and productive as possible. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and as with any tool it is important you pick the one that fits you best.

Microsoft OneNote  (Windows/Mac)  $64 to $120

Although we’ve mostly eliminated commercial applications from our list, OneNote by Microsoft offers amazing flexibility and a rich set of features, making it simply too good to ignore. Microsoft describes OneNote as “a digital notebook that provides a single place where you can gather all of your notes and information, with the added benefits of powerful search capabilities” and this handy little program easily lives up to the hype.

First it can store almost every type of file imaginable, including electronic copies of your handwritten notes, emails, text messages, photos, music, videos, and even audio recordings from your cell phone’s voice notes function. The search capability includes being able to recognize words within pictures as well as in audio and video files, making finding what you need even easier.

Keeping your notes organized in notebooks can save countless hours looking for lost documents and files. A “Send to OneNote” option is added to your right mouse click buttons that makes sending anything to your notebook incredibly simple. And a feature called a Side Note can open a blank notebook page that can be used to jot down ideas as the come to you, minimizing the interruption to your work flow. You can find OneNote for around $64 or get is as part of Microsoft Office Home & Student addition which will also give you Word, Excel and PowerPoint for less than $120 if you do a little shopping. If you’re on a budget you may want to consider some of the other programs listed, but OneNote is an incredibly powerful program and the clear category leader.

EverNote  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

With many of the features, EverNote is a good alternative to OneNote and the basic version is offered at no charge. A free download gives you a powerful note-taking app for your desktop that integrates easily with a web-based version, allowing you to take notes on any computer and sync them to your home machine later. The basic version offers most users everything they will ever need to easily do research and take notes for later use.

The interface is well designed and makes organization easy and intuitive. Multiple notebooks can be created and you can easily switch between them. EverNote excels at capturing entire webpages for later reference but you can also access a feature that allows you to “clip” the section of the page you want and leave the rest.

EverNote offers a premium edition that costs $5/month to access. It allows you the ability to store Office documents that is not offered in the free edition as well as greater file size. While EverNote continues to add features and is closing in on OneNote in value, if you are going to invest in a program OneNote offers the best value.

Zootool  (Window/Mac/Linux)  Free

Although not designed with research specifically in mind, an internet bookmarking app call Zootool will let users capture and organize information from across the internet. According to its developers: “Zootool is about collecting, organizing and sharing your favorite images, videos, documents, and links from all over the internet.”

Zootool is really more of a social networking site than a digital notebook, but it will allow you to easily capture and store the information you find across the web. For many writers this is all they really need, and sometimes simple is best.

Quick Note  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

If you favor a no-frills approach, Quick Note may be for you. It does require you to use either the Google Chrome or Firefox internet browser, but if you want a quick way to store links to pages and a great way to take notes as you are working Quick Note may be the choice for you. In fact, even if you choose one of the other apps featured, you may want to consider adding Quick Note to your toolbox anyway. The cloud-based app makes taking notes and outlining ideas quick and simple.

Installation also adds a Quick Note link to your right-mouse key that lets you open a new note easily, jot down your idea, and quickly get back to work.

Word Processing – Cloud Edition

A good word processing application is without a doubt the most important tool in a writer’s toolbox. In Part II of this series we’ll examine some desktop applications that will meet the needs of almost every writer. We’ve started by listing two of the major cloud-based apps that are being offered by Google and Microsoft that are worth taking a few moments to review.

Microsoft Word  (Windows/Mac/Linux)  Free

Microsoft is offering a stripped down version of Word as part its recent Web Apps initiative. Known as Office Web, users are given access to versions of the popular Microsoft Office suite of productivity programs with reduced functionality, but which are probably more than adequate for most writers. You will need to sign-up for a free Windows Live account that includes free email and access to a SkyDrive account that is used to store your work. You want to consider the wisdom of keeping all of your work on any single, Cloud-based site however.

Google Docs  (Windows/Mac/Linus)  Free

Like Microsoft, Google is offering a word processor as part of its cloud-based challenge to Microsoft Office called Google Docs. You’ll also need to sign up for a free Google account that will also give you access to a free email account, a calendar for scheduling, a YouTube account, and generally any and all things Google. The features are more than most writers will ever need, and like Web Apps your documents are stored in your account on the cloud. You’ll want to make a back-up of your work though, just-in-case.

That does it for tools to help you with doing research on the web and a quick look at the new cloud-based, web processing options from Google and Microsoft. Next time we’ll take a look at desktop word processing programs – the most important tool in the Writer’s Toolbox.