![\"Word](\"https:\/\/images.coachingforleaders.com\/cb:ztCJ~31fd5\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/teachinginhighered.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/wordprocessor.jpg\")
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I was helping a student get prepared for a job interview yesterday. She said that half of her time at the company was going to be spent in a one-on-one interview, while the other half of the time would be devoted to an assessment of her Word and Excel skills.<\/p>\n
She admitted to not being adept at Excel, but touted her Word skills, since she had been using it extensively in her current internship. I inquired as to whether or not she knew how to set tabs. She said she knew how to “tab over,” but didn't even know what I meant when I asked about “setting” a tab.<\/p>\n
I have the utmost confidence in her ability to do well on the interview. She\u00a0will quickly be able to learn more of the word processing and spreadsheet skills she needs and the organization she's interviewing with will have an exceptional intern.<\/p>\n
However, it did get me thinking about the most common features in word processors that many faculty\u00a0don't utilize, which ultimately make their work harder in the long run.<\/p>\n
Here are the most essential features I recommend you leverage, when using a word processor:<\/p>\n
If you've written an academic paper, or a manual of some kind, you've likely made use of headings and subheadings. However, most people don't know that you can create a style in your word processor that, when applied, automatically places that formatting on a given line\/paragraph. There are some built-in styles in most word processors, which you can modify at any time to have the look-and-feel that you want.<\/p>\n
This documentation<\/a> shows you how to create styles in Microsoft Word, but you're only a search away from discovering how to use styles in whatever word processor you happen to use.<\/p>\n Here's a video of how to create styles in Microsoft Word from Lynda.com<\/a>*.<\/p>\n