Revision Strategy with a Word Processor

What you'll start with...

Jessica rode her bike on the empty streets. The clock in the church struck eleven o'clock. Jessica turned down Western Avenue. Racing as fast as she could. Jessica coasted to a quiet stop in front of the house. No lights shone in the house. Jessica opened the front door slowly and shut it with a sound.

What you'll end up...

What you can do once it's printed...

• Look at sentence lengths (Variety? Run-ons? Combinations needed?)
• Look at beginning of sentences
• Highlight verbs. (Repetition? Mixed tenses? Passive voices?)
• Highlight words used more than once.
• Highlight descriptive words and phrases.
• Highlight emotional words, vocabulary words related to content

What are the step-by-step instructions for work done in Microsoft Word?

Click here to download a printer-friendly PDF version or print out this page.
Note: These directions will work, with minor adjustments, for most word processing programs regardless of platform.

Step 1: Open your Microsoft Word document

Step 2: Save your writing!

Step 3: Go to the Edit menu and choose Replace.

Step 4: Have the computer find all of the periods in your writing and replace them with a period and a paragraph return.

Note: ^p is the symbol for paragraph. Hold down shift & 6 to make a ^

Step 5: Click Replace All.

Step 6: Repeat Steps 4 & 5 for any question marks (?) or exclamation marks (!) you have in your writing. [Be sure to use a ? or ! instead of the period.]

Step 7: Close the Find and Replace window.

Step 8: Go to the Edit menu and choose Select All.

Step 9: From the Table menu, choose Insert Table.

Step 10: Highlight any blank rows or rows you don't want to include.

Delete the blank rows you don't want.

Step 11: Go to the Edit menu and choose Select All.

Step 12: Click on the numbering button on the toolbar to number your sentences.

Step 13: Hold down the CTRL key and press 2 on your keyboard to double space your writing.

Step 14: Print out your writing.

Step 15: Close your writing...

...but DO NOT SAVE IT!