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changes.mady.by.user Verna Holcomb

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Warning

Please consult your school or reading committee for the specific formatting requirements that apply to your paper and adjust the following directions where needed.

These instructions were written using Word 2013. If you use a different version of Word - especially a version of Word for Mac - your options may be found in a different place, though they will almost always go by the same name. Visit support.office.com to learn more about any setting you cannot find.

Page Outline and Quick Links

Table of Contents
minLevel2

Paragraph Marks

Paragraph marks can be helpful to see when something is not responding to formatting the way you expect it to. These can be turned on and off by clicking the paragraph marks symbol, , in the Paragraph group on the Home tab of the ribbon.

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  • Learn about using styles to save yourself time formatting your chapter titles or subtitles. 
  • Be cautious copying and pasting text in Word, even from one Word document to another
    • To clear all formatting on selected text, on the Home tab, in the Font group, choose Clear All Formatting.
       
  • Watch your white space: What you see as empty, Word may read as information
    • To start a new page, use the Insert>Page Break option (or CTRL+ENTER on the keyboard) rather than hitting Enter multiple times
  • Remember to save constantly as you work, and to save copies of the updated file(s) to all of your backup locations after each time working on your document
  • Don't worry about page numbers or your Table of Contents until you are mostly finished writing
  • You can use PDF-XChange Editor, found in CloudPC, to combine multiple PDF files into one PDF document (see "Using PDF-XChange Editor", above)
  • If you feel more comfortable hiring someone to do the formatting for you, consider hiring a professional editor. The University Writing Center has a list of recommended professionals in the area.Be certain to ask if they can handle formatting during your exploratory conversations with them. 

Reviewed June 5, 2023