Link to Microsoft Word Information Page

Word is probably the most used Microsoft software for business or for school.

For those who are unfamiliar with Microsoft Office Word 2007 because it was difficult transitioning from an older Microsoft Word you were comfortable with, here are some tips to help you out:

• To save your document, click the large bubble at the top left of the window. From there you can “save” or “save as”. Preferably if you are saving the document for the first time, then you should click “save as” and choose where your document will be saved so you can access again in the future.
• Notice the New layout of the program; it uses tabs rather than the standard toolbar that used to sit at top. Allowing to easily accessing frequently used options and expanding to more possibilities
• The home tab has all the most basic tools you need to create your document. From font to heading styles and the common cut, copy and paste.
• The insert tab is a new option that one can easily add a cover page. You can add illustrations ranging from pictures to charts as well as Internet links and headers and footers for those MLA style papers.
• Page layouts tab give one the ability to edit their margins of their document and overall look of their pages.
• The references tab would mostly be used for citing other works and adding a table of contents if your document is large.
• The mailings tab can help users create documents to be mailed out physically rather than an email.
• The review tab allows the documents to be checked over for spellings and grammatical errors and allowing proofreading.
• The last tab which is the view tab lets users control how their document is viewed whether you are creating a book, a web page, an outline, or simply just a draft.

With the upgrade from Microsoft Word 2003 to 2007, come a lot of new additions that have mostly gone overlooked. One such change is the increased ease in adding citations of various citation styles to your paper. No longer will you need to use third party websites to figure out how your MLA format citations need to be on your citation page or how the in-text APA citation needs to look for Word 2007 will do all of that for you with the simple use of a drop down menu.

When typing up your paper in Word 2007 and you come to a point where you need to add a citation simply follow these steps (with visual aids)

At the top of the window you will see a collection of tabs, the one that you are looking for is the one labeled References.

This will open up a new set of options, one of which being Citations and Bibliography

Select which style of citations you need to use by changing the drop down menu next to “Style” (Note: changing this at any time will make any and all relevant changes to any citations currently in use).

After you have selected the style, click on the “Insert Citation” button and select either “Add New Placeholder…” if you do not have the citation information readily at hand or “Add New Source…” if you do (Note: the “Search Libraries” option will only open reference books. (i.e. dictionary, thesaurus, translations, etc.))

If you selected the “Add New Source…” option, then Word will prompt you for all the relevant information needed to make the citation as well as where the source material is from and the appropriate fields for said source material.

Fill out the form to the best of your abilities, but know that you are able to edit the information for your sources at any time by selecting “Manage Sources” highlighting the one you need to change and clicking on “Edit”.

After pressing “OK” the appropriate in-text citation will appear where your cursor was. From here on to cite from the same source, click on the “Insert Citation” and it will be one of the options to choose from on the drop down menu.

At the end of your paper, you can input the entire bibliography by selecting the “Bibliography” option. Be sure to use this on a blank page or else it will insert it wherever the cursor is. Enjoy writing with citation ease.

Some fun but frequently unused features on the Microsoft Office Word 2007 software are the Comments, Tracking, and Changes options located under the Review tab. For this part,

The purpose of these three features is to edit a paper without having to worry about deleting something that you did not mean to. The first feature to be looked at is Comments. This option is used to input statements, comments or suggestions that correlate to a portion of the text. To use this, find a spot or area (highlighted text) that you would like to add your comment box and press New Comment. This will create a line from the space or text leading to a bubble on the right side of the page. Now type in your comment into the appropriate box and your comment is now readable.

(Note: Comments can be edited or removed at anytime by simply changing the comment text or by using the Delete function in the Comments section)

Comments are useful when you want to pose a question or make changes without altering the original text. This feature is most practical when used sparingly for it can become quite confusing and cluttered if too many are used in a small area.

The other three features are fairly self explanatory:
Delete: This option will delete the currently selected comment by default. You can also use the drop down menu to delete all comments on any viewable page(s) or all comments in the document.
Previous/Next: These two options will scroll through any and all comments in the document

Summary:
1. Select the Review tab
2. Select a place where you want to add a comment
(Either from the cursor or highlighting the selecting text)
3. Click on New Comment
4. Add your comment
5. -You can edit the comment text at any time by clicking on the comment text on the right margin of the screen OR
-scroll through the comments in the text by using the Previous or Next option OR
-delete comments by using the Delete option