Save Your Research Time- Part-1

Save Your Research Time - Part 1

You read it right! By giving your few minutes to this article you are going to save your valuable research time. (+Peace of mind.)

Why reading this is important to you?

We spend hours in formatting documents in word (Word Processors). Few weird things kill more time and we cannot control it (Really? You will learn to control it.). We can save hundreds of minutes of our research life by considering these simple tricks related to document formatting and master the word processor. You can go through with me by “Learning by Doing” technique. Your couple of minutes invested will save your hundreds of minutes, valuable research time (2% less irritation).

These are specific to latest Microsoft Word on desktop or laptop, but the trick would have similar steps in older versions of Microsoft Word, Libre Office (Open Source Word Processor available for Linux, Windows and iOS) or similar word processors running on different operating systems. For now, we will start with MS Word.

Requirements

Microsoft Word installed and running on your laptop/desktop.

How can we format documents?

Start with simple document with some text. We will go through small steps. Following steps will help you understand and to master the document formatting.

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Introduction to Toolbar

Before starting, it is good idea to make you synchronised with few terms I will be using throughout this learning flow.

Menu Bar

Menu contains the menu items for different purpose. (You will use few of them.)

Toolbar

Toolbar is located under the Menu Bar (If you have not moved it or hiding it.). This is the toolbar containing different tabs within it.

If it hides automatically you can click on pin icon  located on bottom right corner of the toolbar pane.

Styles Tab

This style tab contains different styles e.g., Normal, No Spacing, Heading 1 etc…

Making Selections

One doesn’t realise that we can save milliseconds by combined use of keyboard and mouse (or touchpad or touchscreen). (When to use mouse or when to use the keyboard or how to use them efficiently?)

Cursor Placement

A blinking vertical line is cursor and it indicates the insertion point as well.

Character/Letter Selection

Select by click and dragging mouse or touch pad or pressing SHIFT+Right Arrow or SHIFT+Left Arrow (accordingly) to select a character.

Word Selection

A word (cluster of letters, alphabets-numbers or characters without space) can be selected by the following methods

1. Double click on the word
2. If the cursor is placed before the word, then pressing CTRL+SHIFT+Right Arrow buttons simultaneously
3. If the cursor is placed after the word, the pressing CTRL+SHIFT+Left Arrow buttons
4. If the cursor is placed in the middle of the word, press CTRL+Left Arrow or CTRL+Right Arrow to move at the beginning of the word or end of the word respectively. Then follow the respective steps as mentioned above.

Similarly, lines, paragraphs, page or whole document selection has different shortcuts to select them.

Formatting Body Copy or Paragraph Text

Styling Paragraph Text

Step 1: Select the paragraph or place your cursor within the paragraph

Step 2: Click on style named ¶ Normal in Styles Tab (What does ¶ symbol indicates?).

Updating Style of Paragraph Text

Step 1: Right click on Normal style

Step 2: Select Modify or Press M to see the Modify Style dialogue box

 

Step 3: Change font style and font size under formatting section. I have changed it to Times New Roman and 14 from Calibri and 11. (11 pixels, points, inches, centimeters, kilometers or what? Find out  the unit).

You will see result as

Voila! Have you noticed that all of your paragraphs have been formatted with same style? (Had it happen accidentally, ever or you had to select and format each paragraph text? Earlier formatted individual paragraphs to look same? Now don't!)

Formatting Headings

Styling Headings

Step 1: Select the headline text or place the cursor within the heading (This is how a block level style gets applied, similarly works for a paragraph) which you want to format as headline.

Step 2: Click on style named Heading 1.

It will result as

 

Don’t worry, you will style all this in the way you want. Just keep going with me.

Updating Style of Headline Text

Step 1: Right click on the style named Heading 1 to get context menu and select Modify to get Modify Style dialogue box as below

Step 2: Select font style and font-size as per your wish (I have selected Times New Roman, 18pt and colour Red, just for an experiment. To format document as specified in Journals, you can achieve it easily. Explore and learn. Easy!)

It will result in

(What happens if you check Automatically update option? Find yourself out!)

Managing space around a heading text

Step 1: Click the drop down menu under Format option to see the list as below (Too many options? Too many opportunities!)

 

Step 2: Select Paragraph or press P on the keyboard (See the underlined P in the word Paragraph) to see Paragraph dialogue box. Play with settings under General, Indentation and Spacing section. I will modify the spacing settings so that space before (15pt) and after (10pt) so that the headline have decent space (Would you still space them pressing enter and changing font-size...?).

This results in

 

Labelling Figures in the Document

By choosing a style for Heading you are telling the Word Processor to identify it as a heading of the type you chose (Can be used for preparing Table of Content, also styling them all at once.). Labelling your figure is as important as styling headings.

Step 1: Right click on the image present in your document and select Insert Caption (Saw the shortcut key?)

Step 2: Type anything you want in the caption dialogue box (Remember you need to put the caption after the Figure 1 text appearing by default, you will learn how to modify and how is it useful. I used 'The Biomics Logo on The Biomics Website' and 'Figure 1' is provided by the Word Processor.)

Will result in…

Captioning Table

Step 1: Right click on table and select insert caption. (Like it was done for figure.)

Step 2: Select Table from Label drop down under Options and add caption text as did earlier for figure. (Got idea to caption multiple other things?)

This will result in placing caption above the table (So you can move your Image caption to top?).

Creating a New Style

You can create your own style from the listed styles under Styles tab (Getting more control?).

Step 1: Click on the more icon (I don’t know what is it called? Can you name it?)

Step 2: Select Create a Style

Step 3: Name the style and click OK (Or directly Modify it.).

Step 4: Modify the newly created style (Could you locate the newly created style in the Styles tab?)

I have modified it to result as (Figure out what modifications did it require…)

Similarly, if you want different style for table caption, you can create one. (Did you notice there exists a default Caption style in Styles tab?)

Inserting Table of Contents

Step 1: Place your cursor on the top of the document so that index is inserted at the beginning

Step 2: Select References in from Menu Bar and click on Table of Contents

Step 3: Select Automatic Table 2 (Find out how others are different by yourself.)

My document looked like this.

And Boom! Table of Contents result!

You did labelling figures and captioning tables? You can create their index.

Happy to Contribute

If I can save 1 minute per day of a research scholar will save millions of minutes through the globe (What’s the happiness? Being a part of success! Being a part of a revolution.).

What’s Next in Document Formatting?

I have tried to keep thing simple and easy to understand. Will be trying to come up with advance tricks to take you to running from walking.

Happy Research Life.