Backup_Capitalizing Microsoft Word to Enrich our Vocabulary
By miftachudin arjuna - February 25, 2015
http://en.stainsalatiga.ac.id/capitalizing-microsoft-word-to-enrich-our-vocabulary/
Nowadays, we vastly use word processors to manage text based data in our daily basis activities. Those programs have eased our cumbersome paperwork which are typed manually by hands, by typewriters or by electronic typewriters. In Indonesia, the most common used programs of word processors is Microsoft Word developed by Microsoft Inc.
Actually, there are still many types of word processors such as word pad, notepad, online word processor, Google doc, word for mac, pbworks etc. Based on my teaching experience, Ms. Word is the most feasible and useful one among the other types because the vendor has already installed the program into the computer and most people use it in their work place. In addition to those strength, we can also capitalize some features within to enrich our vocabulary. Those features are important to discuss because other programs do not have such features. In my opinion, they include key stroke shortcut, spelling & grammar, synonym and thesaurus.
Key stroke shortcut
Key stroke shortcut or normally mentioned as shortcut is a combination of keyboard strokes to give commands to computers in managing documents of Ms. Word. The key strokes can be combinations between or among Ctrl, Shift, Alphabets, Symbols, Arrow, Tab dan Alt. Let us take a look the way in blocking texts. Commonly, we do drop and drag with mouse from left to right or vise versa to create blocks. However, we may combine the key strokes ‘Shift+Arrow or Shift+Ctrl+Arrow’ to create the same blocks.
Another sample is to give command to copy texts or objects. In Ms. Word, there is a copy icon to click or do the right click to give command of copying texts or objects. Alternatively, we can use the shortcut by hitting the key strokes of Ctrl+C. I believe that it is just easy for all of us as this shortcut has been performed millions of times in typing our paperwork.
Learning
by doing is the former technique to remember the shortcuts. In case we
still confuse to figure out the right combinations, then we should guess
the first capital of words as initials. The shortcut Ctrl+C comes from
Ctrl + an initial ‘C’ from the word of Copy. The shortcut Ctrl+P comes
from Ctrl + an initial ‘P’ from the word of Print that give command to
print documents. However, the command Paste will not coined into the
shortcut Ctrl+P as it has been used to print documents. The paste
command will use the shortcut Ctrl+V. For such case, there is an
exception that we should learn by heart and cannot use the mentioned
pattern to give commands. In general, the pattern works well by
combining a key stroke + an initial with exception in some cases.
The latter technique to find the short cuts is to put the mouse
pointer onto the related icons. In short, the icon will reveal the short
cuts and drop down descriptions.
By memorizing shortcuts and their attributes, we will get through the vocabulary input process repeatedly. New vocabulary will enrich our memory. Whereas, the old one will restore the vocabulary list in our mind. On one hand, we may also take advantage from the drop down message to improve our reading skills. The drop down message are short, grammatical, structural sentences intended to give fast and clear information on the icon. On the other hand, we may even think that those type of sentences will not give any significant improvement in our reading skills. However, Shortcuts and their attributes in Ms. Word can be one of pertinent environment to maintain our vocabulary and reading skills while we are working with our paperwork.
Spelling & grammar checker
To me, spelling & grammar checker is an interesting feature that assists me to revise the errors in my sentences. If the feature is activated, we will get red, blue or green underlines every time we write in Indonesian. It means that the vocabulary is not available in the dictionary and need to be refined. Similarly, it happens when we have typo in our English sentences. We may also have one of those underlines. The red underline represent the errors on vocabulary. Whereas, The green and blue ones explicate the errors in grammar and structure. Soon, you will find the green underline in this sentence ‘I have go to school’ that it should be written as ‘I have gone to school’.
Spelling & grammar feature is effective to improve our writing in
English. Some of my students give me positive comments after they
realize that computer has such language feature. By using this feature,
we can write and get correction instantly. Independently, we should hit
the right click on the underlined words to reveal the hints. The
computer will automatically suggest a list of words to opt. From this
kind of activity, we will learn how to use the right words without using
any additional dictionaries. Nonetheless, this feature has a weakness.
It sometime cannot give any suggestions by dropping ‘no suggestion’ when
we do the right clicks. Thus, we need to revise it manually by our own
knowledge or peers’ assistance.
Synonym and Thesaurus
Synonym & Thesaurus is a feature to search the variety of words that have closest meanings and to define what part of speech of the words. This feature helps us to kill the boredom of our readers when they read our paragraphs. We can avoid the same word to convey the same message in our writing. As result, we can come up with salient writing as we vary our vocabulary.
Let
us type the word ‘manage’, do the right click on it to get the synonym
and learn more about it as shown in the picture above. We will
immediately find that list to choose. In case we need to vary the words
of the sentences, then this feature will significantly improve the
quality of our writing from vocabulary perspective. For further details,
thesaurus features will give more information about the related words.
I believe that the synonym feature can give us broader knowledge of
vocabulary. So that we can have better style and more variety of
vocabulary in our writing. Further, the thesaurus feature provide the
details about the parts of speech, more related words etc which allows
us to learn more about vocabulary.
To sum up, those three features of key stroke shortcut, spelling & grammar, synonym and thesaurus may inspire us to use them as tools to support our English learning individually and independently. When we have no peers around to discuss with, we can capitalize computer to assist and revise our work in Microsoft Word.
Nowadays, we vastly use word processors to manage text based data in our daily basis activities. Those programs have eased our cumbersome paperwork which are typed manually by hands, by typewriters or by electronic typewriters. In Indonesia, the most common used programs of word processors is Microsoft Word developed by Microsoft Inc.
Actually, there are still many types of word processors such as word pad, notepad, online word processor, Google doc, word for mac, pbworks etc. Based on my teaching experience, Ms. Word is the most feasible and useful one among the other types because the vendor has already installed the program into the computer and most people use it in their work place. In addition to those strength, we can also capitalize some features within to enrich our vocabulary. Those features are important to discuss because other programs do not have such features. In my opinion, they include key stroke shortcut, spelling & grammar, synonym and thesaurus.
Key stroke shortcut
Key stroke shortcut or normally mentioned as shortcut is a combination of keyboard strokes to give commands to computers in managing documents of Ms. Word. The key strokes can be combinations between or among Ctrl, Shift, Alphabets, Symbols, Arrow, Tab dan Alt. Let us take a look the way in blocking texts. Commonly, we do drop and drag with mouse from left to right or vise versa to create blocks. However, we may combine the key strokes ‘Shift+Arrow or Shift+Ctrl+Arrow’ to create the same blocks.
Another sample is to give command to copy texts or objects. In Ms. Word, there is a copy icon to click or do the right click to give command of copying texts or objects. Alternatively, we can use the shortcut by hitting the key strokes of Ctrl+C. I believe that it is just easy for all of us as this shortcut has been performed millions of times in typing our paperwork.
Learning
by doing is the former technique to remember the shortcuts. In case we
still confuse to figure out the right combinations, then we should guess
the first capital of words as initials. The shortcut Ctrl+C comes from
Ctrl + an initial ‘C’ from the word of Copy. The shortcut Ctrl+P comes
from Ctrl + an initial ‘P’ from the word of Print that give command to
print documents. However, the command Paste will not coined into the
shortcut Ctrl+P as it has been used to print documents. The paste
command will use the shortcut Ctrl+V. For such case, there is an
exception that we should learn by heart and cannot use the mentioned
pattern to give commands. In general, the pattern works well by
combining a key stroke + an initial with exception in some cases.By memorizing shortcuts and their attributes, we will get through the vocabulary input process repeatedly. New vocabulary will enrich our memory. Whereas, the old one will restore the vocabulary list in our mind. On one hand, we may also take advantage from the drop down message to improve our reading skills. The drop down message are short, grammatical, structural sentences intended to give fast and clear information on the icon. On the other hand, we may even think that those type of sentences will not give any significant improvement in our reading skills. However, Shortcuts and their attributes in Ms. Word can be one of pertinent environment to maintain our vocabulary and reading skills while we are working with our paperwork.
Spelling & grammar checker
To me, spelling & grammar checker is an interesting feature that assists me to revise the errors in my sentences. If the feature is activated, we will get red, blue or green underlines every time we write in Indonesian. It means that the vocabulary is not available in the dictionary and need to be refined. Similarly, it happens when we have typo in our English sentences. We may also have one of those underlines. The red underline represent the errors on vocabulary. Whereas, The green and blue ones explicate the errors in grammar and structure. Soon, you will find the green underline in this sentence ‘I have go to school’ that it should be written as ‘I have gone to school’.
Synonym and Thesaurus
Synonym & Thesaurus is a feature to search the variety of words that have closest meanings and to define what part of speech of the words. This feature helps us to kill the boredom of our readers when they read our paragraphs. We can avoid the same word to convey the same message in our writing. As result, we can come up with salient writing as we vary our vocabulary.
Let
us type the word ‘manage’, do the right click on it to get the synonym
and learn more about it as shown in the picture above. We will
immediately find that list to choose. In case we need to vary the words
of the sentences, then this feature will significantly improve the
quality of our writing from vocabulary perspective. For further details,
thesaurus features will give more information about the related words.To sum up, those three features of key stroke shortcut, spelling & grammar, synonym and thesaurus may inspire us to use them as tools to support our English learning individually and independently. When we have no peers around to discuss with, we can capitalize computer to assist and revise our work in Microsoft Word.
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