Minding Your Ps and Qs: Word Management by Joanne Tolson |
Word management in Microsoft Word is made easy. You can change your words around, unlike typing on a typewriter, on which, if you make a mistake, you have to rip out the whole page, roll it into a ball, and play basket made with your trash can. Then you have to start over on your paragraph or sentence, or use correction ribbons to delete (erase) words on the newer models of typewriters, unlike the new-fangled models of old school typewriters, which were an ordeal with those old lift-off correction spools, but an improvement over the manual typewriters of the latter part of the last century. On the computer screen you can move words and rearrange them for better results. The perks of Microsoft Word are that you can insert words, if left out of a sentence, and you can use the backspace key to link words to a sentence. If you happen to hit the enter key and split your sentence accidentally onto the next line, just use the backspace key to re-align the words. Little tricks about using Microsoft Word, like any Word Processor program, or using typewriters that I have learned—they come with the territory, as we have all had to learn by doing ourselves. 1. You can erase words with the back-space key. It's like erasing words or pictures on an Etch-A-Sketch, or like water washing over the sand, erasing lines in the sand. 2. Since computers are electronic, unlike an Etch-A-Sketch, you move metal shavings around with magnets that attract and repel with the same principles applied. Well, you get the idea. I came to talk something about sentence structure, but it seems I am more attracted to machines and principles of science than being apt to teaching any writing lessons or English. I speak it well enough, but I am not a teacher. Oh well. Back to the drawing board. The rule still applies: write about what you know, as the old adage goes.
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