Beginner

Writing an Essay with Word 2007

Introduction
This document covers the basic techniques necessary in Microsoft Word to write a simple
essay. It has some advice on typing and using the keyboard for complete beginners, and
thereafter reference information on the functions necessary to layout a document and
enter references.
Prerequisites
This document assumes that you are familiar with the use of a computer keyboard and
mouse and have a working knowledge of Microsoft Windows

Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. The basics 2
3. Typing Text 3
4. Select, cut, copy and paste 4
5. Correcting text 6
6. Formatting text 7
7. Save and retrieve a document 8
8. Using the Header and Footer 10
9. References 11
10. Next steps 12

About this Document

Will need to be typed or chosen from a menu
Words in bold
or window
Small capitals – e.g. ALT Indicate keys that you press
Bulleted lists Are guidelines on how to perform a task
Press KEY1 + KEY2 Press both keys together
Press KEY1, KEY2 Press each key consecutively
Show menu commands – in this case, choose
Choose Insert - Picture the option Picture from the Insert menu at the
top of the screen
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1. Introduction
1.1 Opening Word
Birkbeck‟s computers have Word 2007 installed on them. To start the
program, click on

Start
Programs
Microsoft Office
Word 2007

1.2 Terminology used

The Cursor is the flashing bar on the screen that marks where text will
appear when you type. Moving the cursor, by using the arrow keys or
clicking the mouse button, allows you to insert text in the middle of a
sentence.
Selected text is text you have marked on the screen so as to carry out a
function on it, for instance, deleting it, cutting or making it bold.
The mini toolbar appears when text is selected, and is a quick way to
apply different formatting to it.
Formatting means changing the appearance of text – making it larger, or
in a different font.
A Ribbon is the toolbar at the top of the screen, containing icons on
which you click to access different functions.
Within the Ribbons, different tools are contained within toolgroups,
whose name appears below the group.

2. The basics
Objectives A checklist of the essentials for word processing

2.1 Essentials
A few rules and techniques that you may know already;

Don‟t press return at the end of every line – allow text to flow,
Word will automatically wrap it around at the end of the line
Use page breaks to jump to a new page (rather than pressing
return) – Insert – Page Break
Use Word‟s page numbers to label pages where needed (Insert –
Page Number)
After working through this document you will also know how to use

Keyboard
Line spacing
Footnotes
Headers and footers

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3. Typing Text
3.1 The keyboard
This guide cannot teach you to type, but some pointers on keyboard use
are below.

Keyboard layout

Tab: Moves
cursor along, Deletes letters
or into the to the right
next box (e.g.
from username
to password Deletes letters
box) to the left

Shift: press and

hold either key
for upper case Enter: end paragraph. Also
letters used to confirm – press
instead of clicking OK

Enter key Note that you should only press this key to end a paragraph,
not at the end of every line. The computer will automatically
move text onto the next line once you reach the end.
Shift keys The two shift keys allow you to enter capital letters, and to
type the symbols on the top half of keys, e.g. the ! on the
number 1 key, or ? on top of the /.
Ctrl keys The two ctrl keys are used for keyboard shortcuts (e.g. hold
ctrl and press s to save your work).

Typing
Whatever you type will appear wherever the cursor (a flashing vertical line)
is positioned within the document. Move the cursor by using the arrow
keys or by moving the mouse and clicking.

Practice is the most important thing, and you will become quicker over
time. However, if you have the time to practice the correct hand position
you may find you can become an accomplished typist. The website
http://www.sense-lang.org/typing/ offers free typing lessons.

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4. Select, cut, copy and paste

Objectives To learn some essential techniques and apply them to rearrange
text within your document

4.1 Select text

“Selecting” text means marking it on screen. Any text that is selected
may then have another action applied to it, allowing you to cut that text
out and move it around your document, make it bold or italicised or
delete it.

You may select text with either the keyboard or the mouse. There is one
important difference – if you use the keyboard, Word will assume you
are minimising use of the mouse and therefore will not show the mini
toolbar (which requires use of the mouse). Try selecting with the mouse
at first but if you find you do not need the mini toolbar, try using the
keyboard.

To select with the mouse;

Click before the text to be selected

Hold the mouse button
Drag the mouse over the text you want to select
You may do this in reverse instead – click after the text to be
selected and drag the mouse backwards to select text.

To select with the keyboard

Move the cursor so it is before the text to be selected, using the

mouse or the arrow keys
Hold the SHIFT key
Use the arrow keys to select text
Each press of the right arrow will select one more character to
the right of the cursor. To select a whole word, hold down the
CTRL key as well.

4.2 Cut and copy

Once text is selected, use one of these functions to store that text in the
computer‟s memory so that you can either move or repeat it elsewhere
in a document. Cut removes the text, copy takes a copy to repeat that
text.

In either case you use the paste command to insert the text into the
document.

Both functions are on the Home Ribbon, within the Clipboard tool
group.

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To copy text, select it and then click copy

To cut text, select it and then click cut

4.3 Paste
Once text is cut or copied, you should paste it into the document. The
text will be pasted wherever the cursor appears, so make sure you move
that to wherever you want the text to appear using either the mouse or
the arrow keys.

Move the cursor (vertical flashing line) to the correct point in

your document. Note that if you cannot move it beyond the very
last line in your document you should press the RETURN key
Click the paste button

You may paste text more than once, regardless of whether it was
originally cut or copied.

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5. Correcting text
Objectives To correct text wrongly typed

5.1 Spelling mistakes

Word will attempt to help you with spelling and other formatting
mistakes by underlining words it thinks are typed wrongly.

A red squiggly underline indicates a spelling mistake (this may include text
separated by a comma but no space, such as „and,so‟)
A green squiggly line indicates a grammatical „mistake‟. This may just be
where you have used the passive voice, common in academic writing, but
sometimes Word has spotted an extra space mark or similar.

To edit mistakes you need to

Move the cursor (flashing line) to where the mistake is

Enter text or remove the mistake

There are two different keys to rub out mistakes

Backspace removes character to left of cursor

Delete removes character to right of cursor

There is also a delete key on the numeric keypad, bottom-right of the

keyboard.

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6. Formatting text
Objectives To change the appearance of text as desired

6.1 Change Font and control line spacing

You need only use a few commands to layout text as required by an
essay. You may want to change the font, increase the size and use bold
for headings and italicise text for bibliographies. All these commands may
be found on the Home Ribbon or the mini toolbar.

To use any of these tools, you should

Two groups of tools are of most use here – Font and Paragraph. Both
are next to each other on the Ribbon but are shown separately below.

The Font group allows you to change the font‟s appearance. Use the B to
change text to Bold, I to italicise text and U to underline (note that this is
considered archaic for headings – those would more normally be made
bold and appear in a larger font). All those tools are toggles – click once
to switch on, click again to switch them off.

The icons at the bottom left of the Paragraph group allow you to change
text alignment – the icon lit up shows that text is currently aligned with
the left of the page.
The single most useful icon here is the , which is used to change the
line spacing (e.g. from single to double line spacing).

6.2 Double-space an entire document

Using the icon allows you to make the current paragraph double-
spaced. To save you repeatedly clicking that icon for each paragraph it is
possible to apply the same line spacing throughout a document.

On the Home Ribbon, find the Editing

tool group on the right-hand side
Click on Select
Choose Select all
Click on the line spacing icon
Choose 2.0

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7. Save and retrieve a document

Objectives To save a document and find it again once you have closed it

7.1 Saving a document

Although it is possible to type a document in one go and then print it,
doing so without saving means that you will lose your work if the
computer encounters an error or there is a power cut.

Instead, you should save your document regularly. You will also be able
to return to a saved document at a different time or on a different day.

To save your document, click on the blue disk icon at the top left
of the screen, to the right of the Office button, as shown

The first time you save a document, a window will pop up in

which you can type the name of your document – Word will
automatically choose the first line, but you may type a different
name if you prefer – just make sure it is meaningful to you
Check that Word is saving the document in your “My
Documents” folder by checking the location next to Save In, as in
the screenshot below

If anything else is displayed there, click on My Documents on the

left-hand side to make Word save the document there
Click Save

Once you have saved the document for the first time, just click the blue
disk again regularly to save the newer version in the same place – it will
automatically replace the older one.

7.2 Retrieving a document

If you close a document, or are opening Word again having just logged in,
you will need to open a document again to work on it. There are several
ways to do so, two are listed below;

Use the Recent Documents list

Word keeps a list of the last few documents you have opened. Click on
the Office button to see it. Although they appear on that list in order
(most recent at the top), you can prevent an item from slipping off the

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list by clicking on the pin icon to the right of the file-name – particularly
useful if you will be working on a document over time.

Office button Pin

Use the Open command

To search your My Documents area or other storage device such as a
memory stick, you should use the Open command. Again, that is found
on the Office button.

Click that button and you will be taken to the open document dialog box,
which will show the contents of the last file location you browsed
(usually the My Documents folder).

Find the file, click it once and then click Open to see the contents.

Note that you should double-click (click twice in quick succession) to

open a folder and see its contents.

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8. Using the Header and Footer

Objectives To add information such as student number and page numbers to
every page of a document

8.1 Page Numbers

To add page numbers to every page, choose the Insert Ribbon, click
Page Number and choose an option from the menu that drops down.
It may be worth checking your course handbook in case it mandates
where page numbers should appear, but otherwise putting them at the
bottom of the page leaves space for other things at the top.

Page numbers will automatically appear on each page of the document,

including any pages added after you insert the page numbers.

8.2 Adding other information

Any other information to appear at the top of the page may be typed in
manually. Adding text to the header makes it appear on every page of the
document.

The header is the blank area at the top of each page – anything you type
will not normally appear in here.

To move the cursor into the header so you can add text there, double-
click anywhere in the top inch of the page. You can also click on the
Header icon (shown above) and choose Edit Header from the bottom
of the list.

Aligning text

To align all text in the header to the right, use the icon in the Paragraph
tool group on the Home Ribbon.

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9. References
Objectives To add references using footnotes or in-text citations and
understand how to format text appropriately

9.1 Format
Your course handbook will normally suggest a style of referencing for
you to use, and you should follow the advice therein or ask your lecturer.
If you are given a choice, between say short in-text citations (Smith,
2000) or longer footnotes, make sure you pick a system and stick with it
for that piece of work.

The formatting required for references is straightforward – you may not

need to use all the techniques below.

To italicise text, select it (click and drag with the mouse) and then click
the button, which can be found on the Home Ribbon and the mini
toolbar.

To underline text, select it and then click the button, found next to
the italic icon, above.

To embolden text, select it and then click the button, found next to
the italic icon, above.

9.2 Add a footnote

The footnote icon is found on the References Ribbon. Not all Schools
require that you use them for references – check your course handbook
for guidance.

To add a footnote, click on the References Ribbon

By clicking with the mouse, move the cursor to where you want
the footnote to go
Click the Insert Footnote button

Footnotes are automatically numbered (and re-numbered if you add them

in front of existing footnotes).

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10. Next steps

Objectives To point out other useful sources of information in order to
improve your Word skills

10.1 Other useful documents

Long Documents with Word

Although you need only use the basic functions of Word to write an
essay, there are more involved features that may be useful should you
come to write a longer document, such as a dissertation. This document
introduces the most essential features.

Writing long documents with Word

(http://www.bbk.ac.uk/its/help/documentation/pdf/public/5-165.pdf)

Reference manager
Word has an inbuilt reference manager. Not recommended for
beginners, but it offers a relatively straightforward way to organise
references and make sure that they appear in a consistent format within
your document.

Word 2007‟s reference manager

(http://www.bbk.ac.uk/its/help/documentation/pdf/public/5-162.pdf)

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