BRAINSTORMING

        One of the most important steps in writing, whether it be a college paper, a poem, a magazine article, a business report, a novel, or any other piece of writing, is to organize your thoughts in preparation. To brainstorm, you have to forget about sentence structure, spelling, all the stuff that prevents you from getting your thoughts down. Those things are for later, before you turn in the completed paper. If you think about them when you are brainstorming, you will prevent yourself from getting fresh ideas.

        At the second class meeting, you will do a brainstorming exercise called a vignette, which is the first step toward Theme I in this course. To do that, you need to know the bare essentials of word processing. You already use a word processor every day? Great! You don’t need the rest of these instructions. But if you have only used a computer to write a few times, and not recently, please continue.

        Before the next class, please read this page carefully. In class, the first thing you will do is sit at the computer you want to use for the semester. The instructor will tell you how to log on to your computer.

        Click on the MSWord icon. The Word screen will come up, and you can begin the assignment. Click File at the top of your screen, then Open New Document. Wait for your instructor to tell you what to do next.

        The basics of Word are the same as for any word processor. If this is totally new to you, the first rule to memorize is do not enter carrier returns at the ends of lines. You were taught this in high school, but there are still occasionally students with this bad habit. Break it immediately, or you will end up with messy manuscripts.

        Just type. Don't worry about formatting. Even if you know how to change margins, spacing, font, etc, don't! For now, leave everything set to the defaults.

        When you reach the end of a paragraph, press ``Enter'' once to go to the next line, and then ``Tab'' once to indent. Always use ``Tab,'' never the space bar, to indent a new paragraph. Do not insert a blank line between paragraphs.

        To make a correction, place the cursor (blinking vertical line) after the error by using the arrow keys. Then press the backspace key as many times as it takes to erase the error. Type in your correction. If as you type, you find letters being deleted and replaced by new ones, press the ``Insert'' key once. ``Insert'' mode is used for word processing, ``Typeover'' for number crunching. We don't do number crunching in this course.

        You can add something in the middle of a line by putting the cursor where you want the insertion, and typing the new word or phrase. When you insert or delete, the lines automatically correct themselves, unless you have the bad habit of putting carrier returns at the ends of lines. If you have that habit, break it.

        Everything on this page is true of every word processing program on the market. Most of you have found nothing new. However, if you have never word processed before, try to get someone to let you sit down at a computer using any word processing program (even on an Apple or an Amiga), and spend an hour practicing the principles on this sheet before coming to the next class. It's very easy, but if you have never done it in your life before, that hour at your roommate's or friend's computer will make the next class meeting much easier for you!

        At the second class meeting you will do a brainstorming exercise worth ten points.