Unit four

Drafting

Unit contents

Editing in Outline View

Unit 3 of the Turbocharger explained how to use Microsoft Word's Outline View to make an outline of an essay in point form. Outline View is also a convenient tool for making changes to the structure of a draft essay that contains headings and sub-headings. It is especially useful when you want to change the order of the sections or paragraphs in an essay.

• If your essay contains headings, you can view its structure at any time by switching from Normal View to Outline View. Just select Outline from the View menu.

Normal view:

Outline view:

• Use the Outline Power Bar to choose how many levels of heading you want to see. The numbers on the bar determine how many levels you want to display. Usually you will want to display all the levels that you have in your document.

• The All icon lets you view all the headings and the paragraphs in your essay.

• Sometimes you will only want to see paragraphs underneath one heading. To do this, first select the number of heading levels you want to display.

• Then double-click on the sign next to any heading to display the paragraphs below it.

• You can also double-click on the  sign to hide the paragraphs under a heading if they are displayed. A    sign means that there are no paragraphs under the heading.
• You can also use Outline View to move a heading and all the paragraphs under it from one part of your essay to another, without displaying the paragraphs. To do this, single-click on the  sign next to a heading to select it, then hold your mouse button down and drag the heading to the place where you want it to be. This will move both the heading and the paragraphs under it.
• Sometimes you simply want to move paragraphs or sentences from one part of the essay to another. To do this, you can use Cut and Paste.