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Write It

Roundup

The best Chrome extensions for students

Eight extensions that earn their place in the toolbar, sorted by what they actually save you, and a note on what you are agreeing to when you install one.

Write It teamUpdated 2 min read

A toolbar full of extensions slows your browser down and quietly hands a lot of people access to what you read. This list is short on purpose.

For writing assignments

  • Write It. Runs inside Google Docs: types text character by character, rewrites AI-flavored phrasing, scores your draft for AI-sounding text, finds sources, and inserts a formatted Works Cited. Also works in Microsoft Word on the web. Free tier available.
  • Grammarly. The most mature grammar and style checker, and it works in every text field in the browser rather than only in documents.

For research and citations

  • Zotero Connector. Click once on any article, catalog record, or PDF and it lands in your free Zotero library with the metadata already parsed. If you write research papers, this is the highest-value free install on the list.
  • Unpaywall. When you hit a paywalled academic article, it checks for a legally free version the authors posted. Saves a lot of dead ends.

For reading and focus

  • A reader-mode extension. Strips ads and sidebars from an article so you can actually read it. Several good free options exist; pick one with a clear privacy policy.
  • A site blocker. Blocks specific sites during set hours. Unglamorous and more effective than most productivity systems.
  • A tab manager. If you routinely have forty tabs open during research, something that groups and suspends them will make your laptop usable again.

The permissions question

This is the part that gets skipped. An extension that helps you write in Google Docs necessarily has permission to read Google Docs. An extension that works "on all sites" can see every page you visit.

That is not automatically bad — it is how the functionality works — but it is worth being deliberate about.

  1. Read the permissions dialog

    Chrome tells you what an extension is asking for before you install. If a note-taking tool wants to read and change all your data on all websites, ask why.

  2. Check who made it

    A real company with a website, a privacy policy, and a support channel is a different risk profile from an anonymous developer with 200 users.

  3. Prune every semester

    Open your extensions page and remove what you have not used. Old abandoned extensions get sold and repurposed, and that is a real thing that happens.

Start with the one that does the most

Install Write It free and cover drafting, typing, humanizing, research, and citations with one extension.

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Frequently asked questions

Do Chrome extensions slow down my laptop?
Some do, especially ones that run on every page. Keeping four or five useful extensions and removing the rest makes a noticeable difference on older hardware.
Are Chrome extensions safe?
Extensions in the Chrome Web Store are reviewed, but review is not a guarantee. The practical safeguards are reading the permissions before installing, preferring extensions from identifiable companies, and removing ones you no longer use.
Does Write It work outside Google Docs?
Write It runs in Google Docs with the full toolkit, in Microsoft Word on the web, and in Google Slides with a lighter feature set.
Is there a free version?
Yes. A free account gets 5,000 tokens once at signup, plus one run of Write It Max and a first Apollo conversation on us. There is no card required to start.

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