Word Processing Activity 00 Introduction

Essential Question: Why is it important to understand the basics of creating a word processing document?

Lesson Essential Questions:

• How can Microsoft Word be beneficial for citing sources?

• Why is it important to be able to change margin sizes, styles, paragraph spacing, etc?

• How can I document research and summarize the material in my own words?

Word Processing Basics

Computers have made typing papers a breeze for those of us who do not know how to type! We can make mistakes left and right and be able to fix them on the computer before we print the paper. We can save a paper as a file on a diskette and keep it for future reference. We can modify papers in a flash and we can even include pictures in our papers.

When using a word processor you should be aware that you can move an entire paragraph or simply one word very easily in your paper. You can also include a new paragraph, a new sentence or just a new word anyplace within your paper. This ability to manipulate your text is the prime advantage and difference between using a word processor and a typewriter. The word processor also allows you to make modifications relatively easily.

Most word processors are similar, so I want to introduce you to some of the things in general that can be done using a word processor. What I want to stress is the correct way to use a word processor, which is by following the basics that are listed in Figure 1. Anyone can sit down at a computer and type in a paper, but not everyone knows how to type in the paper correctly. If you ever need to modify the paper in some way it will be easier to do if you have followed the basic guidelines.

This introduction lesson, please open a blank word document. Type the following formula and hit enter. The computer will create a random paper with five paragraphs and five sentences in each paragraph.

=rand(5,5)

Terminology

Let’s start with a little word processing terminology so that we are all working from the same reference point.

Cursor / Insertion Point - The cursor, or insertion point, is a flashing vertical bar on the screen. This is where your text will appear when you start to type. The mouse pointer will be an I-beam on your document window and can be used to move the insertion point by clicking the left mouse button.

Word-wrap - When using a word processor we want to take advantage of word-wrap. When you reach the end of the line, the computer will automatically go to the next line; this is called word-wrap. If you were trained to use a typewriter, your most common mistake will be hitting the carriage return key at the end of every line. In word processing, we only want to hit the return (enter) key at the end of the paragraph.

Paragraph - A paragraph is defined as going from one enter key stroke to the next time you hit the enter key. So, every time you hit the enter key, you create a new paragraph.

Formatting - With word processing, you can change the appearance of your text by formatting the text. There are two kinds of formatting features:

1. Features that effect characters or only what is highlighted.

2. Features that effect the entire paragraph.

Highlighted or Selected - Generally speaking, whatever you have highlighted will be affected by the formatting feature that you do, or will be deleted, or will be moved, or will be copied, etc. Highlighted text appears with text in the background color (usually white) and the background color as the text color (usually black). You can highlight text by clicking with the mouse (holding down the left mouse button) and dragging the mouse cursor over the text. Oftentimes when highlighting text in this manner, you may let go of the mouse button too early and miss a letter or two. No problem. Simply hold the shift key down and press the arrow keys to move the highlight in the direction that you want. In fact, you can use any of the cursor movement keys (Figure 2) combined with holding down the shift key to highlight text. Also, if you place the mouse pointer on the extreme left side of the document window you can then click to highlight the entire line.

Toggle - Many features in word processing work as a toggle, which means it is a switch that can be turned on or off. If you decide you do not like the option you simply turn it off. Some of the toggle options include BOLD, Underline, and Italics. These can all be turned on or off. If you have something bold and you do not want it bold, you simply highlight the text and then click the bold switch to turn it off.

Insert mode/over type mode - In “insert mode”, when you type, the text will automatically be pushed forward. In “over type mode” you will type over the text, thereby deleting the text. This is also a toggle and can be changed by pushing the Insert Key on the keyboard. To tell which mode you are in, look at the status bar (Figure 5) of the document window. If OVR shows up on the status bar you are in “over type mode”.

Font - The style of character that your text is in. I am using Arial at the moment. You can have as many fonts in a document as you want. In fact, you can make each letter a different font! One very important point about fonts is, the fonts that you have available to you are dependent on the printer that you have. So if you don’t see any of the fonts that I have here, that simply means your printer does not have those fonts. You can buy fonts for your printer and then you would be able to use them in your documents. You should also know that you can make your computer think it has a laser printer (has a lot of fonts) by just setting the option as if you had that printer. Your computer will not know the difference. You will not be able to print them on your computer but you can save the file on a disk and bring it to a computer that does have that printer. The bottom font is Wingding. In fact if you type a lower case L and change the font to Wingding you will get a bullet .

Font Size - The size is how big or small your text is. The larger the number selected the larger the size. Some fonts have more sizes available to them. Again size, just like font, is printer dependent. You can also use as many sizes as you feel like in your papers.