AlekhniDraft 1 · p. 1

Writing is only
the first step.
Revise, Collaborate, Reflect, Think, Think more, Keep thinking

Alekhni is a rich text editor and academic workspace designed for academics and scholars (unlike most writing software, which is virtually designed for Wall Street).

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AlekhniDraft 2 · p. 2

Why did we create Alekhni?

3 comments resolved · version 2

Welcome to our writing cult.

No. 01

Thanks to the “AI Crisis”. Transparency, finally.

Thanks to AI, academics and universities are finally realizing the value of transparency in academia. Let’s keep the flow going and make academic research and writing more transparent with our tools.

Fig. 1Progress page. Words written each day, time spent writing, and upcoming due dates.
The Progress page with weekly stats and a chart of words written over four weeks.

Fig. 1Progress page. Words written each day, time spent writing, and upcoming due dates.

Fig. 3Suggested edits. Teachers suggest changes. Students accept or reject them.
The review panel listing a suggested edit, a box for overall feedback and a comment thread.

Fig. 3Suggested edits. Teachers suggest changes. Students accept or reject them.

v1 · Mon 09:12

Social media is bad for students.

Supervisor: What do you mean by “bad”? Narrow it down.
Fig. 2Comments. Teachers comment on a sentence and students reply.
A highlighted reference in a paper with the teacher comment and the student reply beside it.

Fig. 2Comments. Teachers comment on a sentence and students reply.

Fig. 4Classes. Assignments with files and due dates, and a list of who has turned them in.
A class page with its join code, tabs for classwork, submissions and members, and an assignment with a rubric attached.

Fig. 4Classes. Assignments with files and due dates, and a list of who has turned them in.

No. 02

Let’s actually make writing fun. Process over product.

Staring at the blank white page has haunted generations of academics. Let’s actually incentivize the process of research and writing instead of the final product.

Fig. 5The editor. Pages look the same as when printed. The Check panel asks questions about the writing and does not change it.
The Alekhni editor with a student paper on a printed page and the Check panel open on its rhetoric tab.

Fig. 5The editor. Pages look the same as when printed. The Check panel asks questions about the writing and does not change it.

Fig. 7Citation styles. Citations and reference list in APA, MLA, Chicago or another style.
A reference list formatted in APA 7 with hanging indents and italic journal titles.

Fig. 7Citation styles. Citations and reference list in APA, MLA, Chicago or another style.

Writing is a set of thinking processes that a writer orchestrates while composing (Flower & Hayes, 1981).

ReferencesFlower, L., & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32(4), 365–387.
Fig. 6Zotero. Your Zotero library in a side panel, with a Cite button for each source.
The Citations panel showing a Zotero library, the APA 7 style and sources with Cite buttons.

Fig. 6Zotero. Your Zotero library in a side panel, with a Cite button for each source.

Fig. 8LaTeX. LaTeX source on one side and the page preview on the other. It can be downloaded or opened in Overleaf.
LaTeX source on the left and the typeset page preview on the right.

Fig. 8LaTeX. LaTeX source on one side and the page preview on the other. It can be downloaded or opened in Overleaf.

No. 03

We’d better stop adult supremacy now. Youth voice in academia.

Young people are conditioned to follow a level-based learning model, which restricts their growth and keeps them from engaging with complex literature, research and writing early on. Let’s empower youth voice in academia.

Fig. 9Guide for students. An optional guide for school students. It asks questions about the paper and does not write any of it.
The Gamified Guide elephant beside an empty page, asking what topic the student wants to research and why.

Fig. 9Guide for students. An optional guide for school students. It asks questions about the paper and does not write any of it.

Fig. 11Works offline. Writing continues without internet and saves when the connection is back.
The Notes page with a list of notes and a lab note with a bullet list and a checklist.

Fig. 11Works offline. Writing continues without internet and saves when the connection is back.

Online · synced
Fig. 10Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. Open files from cloud storage, or save a paper there as a Word file or PDF.
The Cloud panel with This device, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox and iCloud Drive.

Fig. 10Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. Open files from cloud storage, or save a paper there as a Word file or PDF.

Fig. 12My Documents. Your papers, each with a small preview.
My Documents in thumbnail view, showing the first lines of seven papers.

Fig. 12My Documents. Your papers, each with a small preview.

Most user-friendly writing app in the world (pinky promise).

The student dashboard with recent documents, classes and the Gamified Guide.
DashboardsStudent dashboard. Recent papers, classes and the guide.
MemoryMemory cards. Write cards on one side and practise them on the other.
The Planner board with To-do, Doing, Stuck and Done columns of cards.
PlannerPlanner. A board of to-do cards. Teachers and collaborators can read and comment on them.

A famous academic tool (we won’t name) gives teachers a [false] positive percentage to judge their students. Alekhni gives teachers and students a transparent space to collaborate and understand each other.

Graded on the final draft

“We checked the assignment your students turned in, and our non-transparent AI detector, trained on non-transparent data, will tell you how much of it is AI-generated.”

A popular AI detection tool

Guided through every draft

“Oh, don’t worry, your students are working like humans. See the versions for yourself.”

Alekhni (we “turn out” to be better at maintaining transparency and academic integrity)

A new era for human writing.

In 2024, after 25 years, the Goi Peace Foundation held the last round of its International Essay Contest for Young People. It cited “the evolution of AI technology” among its reasons.

Soon there may be no way to tell AI-generated text from a human manuscript. That is fine for paywalled news and adverts (nobody wants to read those anyway; the robots can write them for each other). It is a disaster for education and academia, where the point of writing is not production but learning. If students cannot show that they understand what they wrote, or take responsibility for their words, education becomes even more symbolic than it already is, and students lean on AI a little more every term.

Some of the blame is ours. We have graded perfection and grammar for so long that students are scared to even try. No red pen in history has ever made anyone braver. So let’s normalise mistakes, messy first drafts and sentences that start three times. Let’s make writing transparent, so everyone can see how an idea takes shape and how a perfect manuscript grows out of a terrible paragraph that once began “In today’s society…”.

Alekhni wants to be a small catalyst for that change in this new era. We cannot promise masterpieces. We can promise that every one of them will come with its version history. Even Shakespeare had a draft 1; we assume it opened with “To be, or something.”

The Alekhni team

We want to support academic reading, research and writing in every way we can: by building the best software made for academic work, and by making research accessible to everyone, especially young people.

  • Academic-first software

    Built around theses, essays and supervision, not quarterly reports.

  • Research within reach

    Runs in any browser, on any device, even offline.

  • Young researchers first

    Tools for all students and a transparent journal, inculcating good habits early.

Our dialogic journal

Our non-profit journal takes a new approach to submissions. Every author receives feedback, and students are judged on how they developed their idea, not only on the final draft.

  • Every author receives written feedback
  • Progress and process count, not only the final draft
  • Run as a non-profit, for students
Visit alekhni.org
  • APA 7
  • MLA 9
  • Chicago 18
  • Harvard
  • IEEE
  • Vancouver
  • OSCOLA
  • Nature
  • Zotero
  • Google Drive
  • OneDrive
  • Dropbox
  • DOCX
  • PDF
  • LaTeX
  • Markdown

Every good paper starts as a rough draft.

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