essay jack

Our Review of EssayJack: Help Your Students Write Better Essays

By Helly Douglas

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Is there anything more soul destroying than reading your students’ essays? All that amazing teaching you did. The note taking, discussions, and revision. Then you read what they’ve submitted and want to cry. Where did it go wrong?

The problem your students are having isn’t with the knowledge. It’s how they get those thoughts down into a well-organised essay. All too often they’re paralysed by fear of the blank page.

That’s where EssayJack comes in. It’s a web-based tool that helps students write academic essays and develop critical thinking skills. They use prompt questions, sentence starters, and tips to fill text boxes for each section of the essay.

Developed by experienced educators with an impressive 7 degrees and 2 postdoctoral fellowships between them, it’s ranked as one of the top English Language teaching digital innovations in the world by the British Council and Cambridge English.

As a teacher, I couldn’t wait to try it. Could this help me teach essay writing and support my learners to write effectively?

When you first log on to EssayJack, a short welcome video pops up from Dr. Lindy Ledohowski, the CEO. This helps you get started immediately without wasting time getting familiar with the platform. After the 30 second video, you’ll know exactly where everything is.

The left-hand bar is where you’ll find all the navigation choices. You can add students to assignments and select essays to review.

Look here to create:

• Essay templates
• Assignments

The centre dashboard gives you bird's-eye view of your data.

When you click an icon, the screen display will change, but the familiar layout remains. The left section always helps you navigate, whilst the centre is working space. Any tips or information will appear on the right-hand side. I found it very easy to find everything with just one or two clicks.

EssayJack lets you quickly create a complete essay template. Everything is customisable, and you can reuse templates again for multiple courses. Perfect for busy teachers who don’t want to reinvent the wheel.

There are lots of different choices for types of essays. Scroll down the list and select the one you want.

The default layout provides you with everything you need. Press the blue button next to each sub-point to turn it on or off.

You have complete control over the choices. Take the sentence starters. Just remove any you don’t want, or return to the default with one click.

Building Courses

EssayJack lets you build courses. This helps you keep on top of student submissions, review their work, and mark all essays in one place.

If you work collaboratively, you can add other managers to each course using their email address.

EssayJack has rubric-based review and individual commenting options. You can use both for ongoing assessment and formative support, or for feedback after final submission.

When I review essays, I’m easily overwhelmed with all those open documents. I can see how EssayJack would significantly speed up and simplify the marking process.

After logging in, students start drafting within seconds.

They’ll use the left-hand side to move between sections of their writing. But this is far more than the navigation bar on Word. EssayJack breaks everything down further into subsections.

The centre area displays a text box to fill. They can select from the sentence starters and use prompt questions, with a live word count to keep them on track. On the right of the display, students see explanations and tips to make sure they are writing exactly what they need.

Referencing sources is always a challenge. I love how EssayJack helps. Students select which type of source they are using.

Then use the pop-up box to fill in the details.

Reviewing Their Work

Students select ‘split screen composing’ to see how their essay is being built and get a full preview.

They can send work to you for review within the platform. But if they’re using EssayJack and their teacher isn’t, they can also export as a document or email it to themselves.

Teachers are rightly wary of programs that write students’ essays for them. That’s where EssayJack stands out.

It’s far more than a ‘paint-by-numbers’ approach. All the thinking comes from the student. EssayJack not only provides the structure, but also teaches them how to organise their ideas and write critically.

Technology doesn't have to take over. You can use programs like EssayJack to enhance your students' writing abilities. They're learning how to open their paragraphs, how to structure their ideas, and what they need to include to write the best essay they can.

ProWritingAid takes a similar approach. Once a student has written their essay in EssayJack, they can run it through ProWritingAid to edit it. Like with EssayJack, your students will learn as they edit. ProWritingAid doesn't just make suggestions like a spellchecker. It includes articles and videos to explain to your students why they're making the changes they are.

EssayJack and ProWritingAid work beautifully together to keep students learning as they write.

Personalised Support

I love how much control I have over the essay templates, making it suitable for all ages and abilities.

Some students will use the structure prompts as guides, others will rely heavily on the sentence starters and prompt questions. You can offer as much or as little support as you want.

Increasing Grades

EssayJack is a great tool for teaching critical thinking, so it’s no surprise this results in improved student grades.

They’ve completed five rounds of research studies from Grade 8 through to University level, and each one shows an increase in student grades. They’re currently writing this up into a peer-reviewed paper.

Flexible Purchasing

You’re not tied-in with EssayJack. By offering a monthly or yearly purchase options, you can choose how to use it. Some schools buy it for a few crucial months each year. Perfect for squeezed budgets. The larger the number of student accounts, the lower the price.

Others suggest it as a resource for parents to purchase, like a digital textbook. You can still make custom changes by connecting your account with theirs.

Teaching essay-writing is always difficult, however old your students are. The minds behind EssayJack know the challenges because they’ve experienced it first-hand. They know what teachers are looking for with essay writing support, and this delivers everything you’ll need.

Younger students will need training to use this platform, but the results will be worth the effort. Well-structured, thoughtful essays with accurate citations and clear conclusions – what’s not to love?

EssayJack teaches students how to write critically and organise their ideas into effective essays.

Your students will be able to put your lessons into practise using software that supports and reinforces your teaching. Before long, you'll be seeing well organized, well supported essays, leaving you more time to focus on teaching content and improving their writing even further.

Quick disclaimer. When we find a software we love, we often reach out to the company and ask if we can help promote it. As such, this review contains affiliate links. This means if you buy EssayJack, ProWritingAid receives a small commission at no extra cost to you. It's a great way to help our team keep improving the editing technology you love.

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Helly Douglas

Helly Douglas is a UK writer and teacher, specialising in education, children, and parenting. She loves making the complex seem simple through blogs, articles, and curriculum content. You can check out her work at hellydouglas.com or connect on Twitter @hellydouglas. When she’s not writing, you will find her in a classroom, being a mum or battling against the wilderness of her garden—the garden is winning!

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Wize Acquires EssayJack to Enhance Its Full-Suite Learning Tool to Further Support Student Success

VANCOUVER, BC, July 20, 2021 - Wize, a full-suite EdTech offering for secondary and postsecondary students announces its acquisition of EssayJack, an award-winning, patented software solution for academic writing, founded by two professors.

Wize has helped over 100,000 students excel in STEM subjects, and EssayJack has helped over 30,000 students master academic writing, everything from book reports to persuasive speeches to academic essays. Together, Wize and EssayJack will support students in building lasting numeracy and literacy skills which will carry them through high school, university, and into the economy.

"Our acquisition of EssayJack rounds out our core, curricular content by complementing our robust STEM offering with a world-class literacy tool," said Cyrus Moradian, Wize's CEO. "We know that students and educators alike are hungry for resources that build students' knowledge and confidence - not just take a shortcut to the answer," Moradian said. He continued: "our combined platform will help students understand, critically evaluate, and effectively communicate in STEM, English and beyond."

As part of the acquisition, Dr. Lindy Ledohowski, EssayJack's CEO, joins Wize's leadership team as Vice President of Operations. "This pandemic has changed education," stated Ledohowski, a former high school English teacher and university professor who also served 8 years on the Board of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. "When Cyrus and I first met, it was our mutual goal of seeing all students succeed that started us on a path to joining forces. With the huge learning loss unequally experienced by students in North America, we knew now was the time to combine our efforts to most effectively support student and educator success."

Moradian said: "I'm particularly excited by how the addition of EssayJack increases the value and reach of our offering in advance of our new All-Access Pass on-demand subscription launching this 2021-2022 academic year. With the inclusion of EssayJack's tools, we will have the most cost effective and impactful STEM and literacy supplemental learning offering in the Market."

The combination of Wize and EssayJack creates a Canadian powerhouse ed-tech company ready to come alongside students and educators in North America to fulfill student potential.

Wize and EssayJack will be launching in schools, colleges, and universities across Canada and the United States this August 2021. The Wize and EssayJack content will be available to students through the All-Access Pass for one low monthly fee.

For more information on this acquisition or details of what you can expect in the Wize "all access pass," please contact below.

Follow us on below social media -

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wizeprep

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/wizeprep/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/25070493/

Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@wizeprep

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_PXdjw6d2o1KcTMUtcDgoQ

Media Contact -

Rylan Kinnon,  Chief Strategy Officer WIZE [email protected]

SOURCE: WIZE

M&A Platform Newsletter

First time here?

For founders, how to sell your business, for m&a advisors, submit a tip, two professors built a saas that helped 30,000 students tackle academic writing, essayjack acquired by wize.

Lindy Ledohowski and Rueban Balasubramaniam, co-founders of EssayJack

Here's the Deal

Type of company : saas, year sold : 2021, founders : lindy ledohowski and ​​rueban balasubramaniam, year founded : 2015, why we're watching.

Who said you need tech skills to build a SaaS company? These founders were humanities professors when they noticed a need — and went on to create a product that helped tens of thousands of students.

During their years of teaching English, writing and law, Drs. Lindy Ledohowski and ​​Rueban Balasubramaniam encountered a recurring problem: Their students were creative, driven and intelligent, but they didn’t seem to be equipped to deal with the demands of scholarly writing.

The two wanted to address the challenge with technology but struggled to come up with a solution… until Balasubramaniam found inspiration in an unlikely place.

“Rueban had the opportunity to tour a massive scaffolding factory and seeing the connecting bits and pieces of scaffolding inspired him,” wrote Ledohowski . The two professors, who are married, decided to “build scaffolding for writing.”

Founded in 2015 in Toronto, EssayJack is a SaaS platform that helps college and post-secondary students in writing-intensive courses understand the conventions of academic writing. Its interactive writing templates and prompts support students as they learn to write better and more efficiently.

To build the app, the co-founders hired software development firm Hivekind , which is based in Malaysia. Ledohowski also cultivated her own tech skills with the partnership, as Hivekind offered her an informal “apprenticeship” through which she learned how to run a development team with Agile and Scrum methodologies .

“I learned a whole heck of a lot about software development,” Ledohowski told us. “So while not a techie by training, I’m definitely a techie by trade at this point.”

An unexpected offer to acquire EssayJack

Over six years, Ledohowski and Balasubramaniam used EssayJack to help over 30,000 students with academic writing ranging from book reports to speeches to scholarly essays, Ledohowski told They Got Acquired. The company’s website drew in more than 20,000 unique visitors each month.

By 2021, EssayJack’s success compelled Ledohowski and Balasubramaniam to pursue venture capital to fuel the company’s growth. But in the midst of fundraising, the co-founders began receiving interest from buyers. They hadn’t seriously considered selling until they received an offer from a strategic buyer — the ed tech firm Wize — that appeared to be a great fit, Ledohowski said.

“I was still pretty committed to raising venture capital and growing the company ourselves, but yet also curious about whether or not this acquisition would work,” Ledohowski said. “We gave ourselves a tight 30-day timeline to complete the due diligence and negotiations. It was intense to say the least.”

Despite the tight window, the two parties signed paperwork and Wize cut a check within 30 days, Ledohowski said. While Ledohowski couldn’t share the value of the sale, she said it was a combination of cash and shares in Wize.

Based in Vancouver, Wize is an education technology platform that offers access to university course tutorials, exam-prep sessions, tutors and other study tools. The company serves students and schools throughout North America.

Ledohowski now serves as vice president of operations for Wize, and Balasubramaniam is an associate professor at Carleton University teaching the philosophy of law.

We conduct original reporting whenever possible. Other sources we relied on for this story:

• Wize Acquires EssayJack to Enhance Its Full-Suite Learning Tool to Further Support Student Success (AccessWire)
• Ottawa edtech startup EssayJack acquired by Vancouver’s Wize (Ottawa Business Journal)
• New classmates: Wize acquires Ottawa-based startup EssayJack (Vancouver Tech Journal)
• Getting Acquired with Lindy Ledohowski from EssayJack (FoundersBeta on YouTube)

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