Using Microsoft Word Tools to Improve Undergraduate and Graduate Student Writing

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Using Microsoft Word Tools to Improve
Undergraduate and Graduate Student Writing
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Owed to a Spell in Checker
I have a spelling checker,It came with My PCIt
plane lee marks four my revueMiss steaks eye can
knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it.You sure reel glad
two noIts vary polished in it's weigh,My
checker tolled me sew.
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The Process Approach

• Prewriting activities
• Organized peer review
• Multiple drafts
• Assessment

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Stages of Writing

• Idea Generation
• Drafting
• Revising
• Editing

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Idea Generation
The cure for writer's cramp is writer's block. -
Inigo DeLeon

• Listing
• Freewriting
• Blindwriting
• Looping
• Clustering

Brainstorm
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Listing

• List of of ideas
• All ideas down on paper
• Open several windows and type related items into
  each window

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Listing
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Freewriting

• Writing freelyabout a topic or idea
• Avoid self-editing or evaluating ideas
• Produces extended text containing elaborated ideas

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Blindwriting

• Open a document
• Turn off/down monitor and free write
• Difficult to self-edit or critique your text

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Looping

• Generate and refine ideas
• How to loop
• Write for 5-10 minutes
• Read what youve written and highlight the most
  important idea or passage
• Copy the text youve highlighted into a new
  window and freewrite whatever comes to mind
• Repeat

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Clustering

• Explore ideas more easily
• Great for visual learners
• Examples

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Drafting

• Compose first, worry later. -Ned Rorem

• Outline
• Splitscreen
• Version Control

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Outlining

• Organize information
• Assess support for key points
• See relationship between ideas
• View overall structure of document
• Prewriting or used later in process
• Example

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Splitscreen

• Useful when comparing an overview with a section
• points in the same order as in overview
• View different sections that should follow same
  organizational principle
• View different parts of same document by
  splitting window
• Example

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Version Control

• Problem of disappearing text
• Snapshots taken at various stages of writing
  process
• Keep track of changes in your document
• Limitation increases size of file
• Example

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Version Control Self-Assessment

• Have students save document as version
• At the end, read each version in succession,
  reflecting on
• what they improved
• how they approached their work
• what they might do differently next time

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Revising

• The beautiful part of writing is that you don't
  have to get it right the first time, unlike, say,
  a brain surgeon. - Robert Cormier

• Highlighting
• Outlining
• Comments
• Print Preview

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Highlighting

• Mark text for subsequent revision
• Different colors for different kinds of revisions
• green for additional support
• red for better address audience
• Used with ZOOM, allows you to identify kinds and
  amounts of revision needed
• Example

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Comments

• Anyone can view comments
• Can hide during printing process
• Early in process can restrict peer review to
  comments
• Example

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Print Preview

• Paragraphs same length?
• Need more development?
• Any paragraphs disproportionately long?

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Editing

• Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to
  write "very" your editor will delete it and the
  writing will be just as it should be. Mark
  Twain
• Return Key
• Track Changes and Add Comments
• Document Statistics
• Find

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Return Key

• Are sentences the same length?
• Do they all start the same way?
• Copy file and hit Return Key after each sentence

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Track Changes

• Allows document to be edited by many reviewers
• Indexed by color and labeled with reviewers name
• Author decides which changes to act upon and
  which to delete
• Example

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Document Statistics
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Document Statistics
Word Preferences Spelling and Grammar
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Find

• Use FIND to eliminate wordiness
• Recast passives
• Release trapped verbs
• Remove There are and other constructions

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Passives

• Passive The food was eaten.
• Active The dog ate the food.
• Passive The eraser was thrown by Mitch.
• Active Mitch threw the eraser.
• Tell you what was done, if they tell you who did
  it, its in a by phrase

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Passives

• Use FIND to locate
• is was were
• have has had

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Grammar and Style Checking
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Nominalizations

• Nominalization A noun made from either a verb or
  an adjective.
• Draft The committee is in the fifth hour of its
  discussion on the rules.
• Recast The committee has discussed the rule
  changes for five hours.
• (Example from Palmquist and Zimmerman)

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Nominalizations

• Draft Denver, Colorado, is conducting an
  experiment with a clean-needle-replacement
  program to control AIDS among drug addicts.
• Recast Denver, Colorado, is experimenting with a
  clean-needle-replacement program to control AIDS
  among drug addicts.
• (Example from Palmquist and Zimmerman)

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To release trapped verbs

• Use FIND to locate words ending in
• -tion
• -al
• -ance
• -ence
• -ment
• -ure

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There are and other constructions

• There are
• There is
• These are (have)
• It has been reported that
• Draft There are five dogs in the pen.
• Recast Five dogs are in the pen.
• OR
• The pen holds five dogs.
• (Example from Palmquist and Zimmerman)

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Summary
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Summary
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References

• Palmqueist, Mike and Donald E. Zimmerman.
  (1999). Writing with a Computer. Allyn Bacon,
  Needham Heights MA.
• Finding your Focus the Writing Process. (2000).
  Online, Nov. 8, 2004. http//owl.english.purdue.ed
  u/workshops/pp/index.html Purdue University
  Writing Lab.
• Creating and Publishing research Documents
  Using Word 2003. Online, Nov. 8, 2004.
  http//www.microdoft.com/education/Word2003Tutoria
  l.aspx

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Thank You!

• Lee Fulmer
• WESTOP Research and Technology Committee
• lee_fulmer1_at_yahoo.com