Your first essay

From the dashboard, create a new essay and set the basics you already know: title, template, target word count, due date, and citation style. If you are starting from a prompt instead of a finished title, that is fine too. You can refine everything later.

If your professor gave you a prompt, rubric, or PDF handout, paste it into the assignment brief or add it when you create the essay. EssayGenius uses that context for suggestions, review tools, and exports that need paper details. The brief stays attached to the essay.

The center is your draft. The left sidebar has Structure, Sources, and Notes. The assistant opens on the right. Structure shows the live outline from your headings, Sources holds this essay's sources plus Library, Find papers, and Zotero, and Notes holds quotes, claims, counters, and questions. Writing voice lives in Settings > Writing voice.

Open Sources in the sidebar. You can search academic records from Find papers, browse your reusable Library, import from Zotero, paste a DOI, ISBN, URL, or citation, upload a file, or add a source manually. Add notes from the Notes tab, pull out quotes, and use Citation Map or Citation Review at the bottom of Sources to inspect source coverage.

Start writing in the editor. Ghost text can complete sentences as you type, the floating toolbar can improve or cite selected text, and the assistant can help with thesis work, flow, citations, source use, or draft support. If you have past essays, create a voice profile and enable voice matching before you ask the AI to rewrite anything.

Before submitting, run Review mode or Deep Analysis to catch structural, citation, and clarity issues. Then export from the header for DOCX, PDF, or copy-to-clipboard, or open essay settings for Pro-level Markdown, HTML, plain text, bibliography, and source-library exports.