Unit four

Drafting

Unit contents

Document map

One of the disadvantages of writing an essay with a computer is that you can only see a small part of the essay on the screen at any time. It is difficult to get an overview of everything you have written, which means that it is difficult to make changes to the structure of your essay. Microsoft Word has three tools to help you get over this difficulty: Document Map, Outline View and Cut and Paste. Document Map helps you to get an overview of the structure of your essay, but it does not help you to move sections of your essay around. To do this easily, you need to switch to Outline View. This page explains how to use Document Map to get a quick overview of your whole essay.

To use Document Map, click on the Document Map icon on the Microsoft Word toolbar while you are in Normal View.

Or use the pull down View menu.

Below you can see an example of the Document Map of a draft essay in Normal view. The headings in the essay are displayed in the side bar on the left. The text of the essay is displayed on in the panel on the right-hand side of the screen.

You can display different parts of your essay by clicking on the headings in the sidebar, as highlighted here. Note that you can make changes to the headings and the text in the right-hand panel, but you cannot make change the headings in the sidebar. However, if you change headings in the right-hand panel, they will automatically change in the sidebar.