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How to Create a Book in Microsoft Word
Marshall is a writer with experience in the data storage industry. He worked at Synology, and most recently as CMO and technical staff writer at StorageReview. He's currently an API/Software Technical Writer based in Tokyo, Japan, runs VGKAMI and ITEnterpriser, and spends what little free time he has learning Japanese. Read more...
Microsoft Word comes with pre-built page settings for creating books. Whether you’re creating a memoir or event guide, these settings let you create a beautiful book or booklet, from start to finish.
Create a Book or Booklet
First, go ahead and open Word. It’s recommended that you adjust these setting before writing the content of your book to prevent formatting issues late on.
Once you’re in Word, head over to the “Layout” tab. In the “Page Setup” group, click the small arrow at the bottom-right.
This opens the “Page Setup” window, where you will automatically be on the “Margin” tab. In the “Margins” group, you’re able to set the margins of the page. By default, the “Gutter” margin will be set to 0. This could cause issues further on, as the gutter margin is the amount of space between the content of your book and the fold where the pages of the book will be bound together. That said, go ahead and give the gutter a 1” margin, so the content of your book doesn’t get lost in the fold.
Next, select the arrow next to “Multiple Pages” in the “Pages” group, then select “Book Fold” from the drop-down menu. Once selected, you’ll notice your page orientation automatically changes from “Portrait” to “Landscape.”
Tip: You may notice a “Reverse Book Fold” option. This is for content that reads from right to left, such as Japanese-style books.
Once you’ve adjusted the settings, click “OK.”
The page setup for creating a book or booklet is now complete. There’s a ton of stuff you can do from here depending on what you require for your book. You may want to add a header or footer , create a table of contents, or give your book page numbers for easier navigation. We’ll leave the content and add-ons to you—we’re just here to show you how to create the setup.
It’s also worth noting that, depending on the length of your document, you may need to split it up into multiple booklets due to the sheer size of the document. That’s fine—you can bind them into one book later.
RELATED: How to Reduce the Size of a Microsoft Word Document
Print Your Book or Booklet
Once you’ve finished composing your book, it’s time for printing. Select the “File” tab, then select “Print” found in the left-hand pane.
Next, select the second option in the “Settings” group.
A drop-down menu will appear, presenting a few different printing-style options. If you have a duplex printer, select (1) “Print on Both Sides” (and whether or not to flip the page on the long or short edge). If your printer doesn’t have this functionality, you’ll need to select the (2) “Manually Print on Both Sides” option.
All that’s left to do now is select Print, and you’re good to go!
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How to Write a Book Using Microsoft Word
by Sarah Gribble | 0 comments
If you want to write a book, you'll need book writing software that's up to the task. Yes, you can invest in dedicated book writing programs. But you don't have to: a great writing tool is likely already at your fingertips, if you know how to write a book using Microsoft Word.
There's a lot of book writing software out there. Many of these programs claim to offer intuitive use, help with organization, and even say they’ll keep you from distraction. The options can be overwhelming.
There’s still one tried and true option if you’re not interested in all that (or can’t afford the fancier programs): Microsoft Word.
I write most of my books in Microsoft Word , not to mention short stories. Here’s the rundown of how to write a book using Microsoft Word, and why that might be your best choice.
The Benefits of Microsoft Word for Book Writing
You most likely already have it. And so does everybody else. Word is the standard, accepted across platforms, and is easy to access for non-writers (your beta readers). It’s been around forever, so most people know how to use it.
There are book formatting templates. A ton of them. They have them for short story format and for manuscript format. Personally, I don’t use those templates, but they’re a nice baseline for beginners, or even old hats that just want to hurry up and write without setting up their document first.
It’s simple and uncluttered. There are a ton of apps and programs out there that will allow you to keep your plot structure notes close at hand, to rearrange your chapters with the click of a button, and to keep detailed character profiles right in the program. That’s all a little too much for me. I prefer handwritten notes and nothing else blocking my screen while I’m typing and Word gives me that.
It is worth noting that if all that sounds appealing to you, you can do those things in Word as well, it just won’t be as fancy as other programs.
How to Navigate Your Book in Microsoft Word
When you have a 90,000-word manuscript, navigating becomes daunting . Luckily there are ways to do it in Word that make it easier if you know where to look.
Chapter Headings
Word doesn’t divide your book into chapters for you like some other programs. There will be no easy way to click and drag to rearrange chapters.
What I recommend is using headings. On Word’s Home page, there are already standard headings listed. Definitely mess with them and change their formatting to something simple.
No one needs giant blue words as their chapter headings. (You can set your simpler formatting as your default style as well, so you don’t have to change it every time.)
Make the title or number of each chapter a heading. Then you can easily bounce around to different chapters through the navigation pane (check the Navigation Pane box under the View menu).
These basically work the same way as headings, but they’re for anywhere in your document. Have a specific scene you need to do more research on? You can bookmark it and jump back to it later.
Bookmark by going to the Insert menu and clicking Bookmark. Name your bookmark and voilà. You can delete them easily from the popup menu as well.
Find and Replace
CTRL+F brings up a simple search option to find words and phrases in your document. CTRL+H brings up the full gambit. From that dialogue box, you can search, replace certain words with others (i.e. Jennifer now becomes Julia all through the manuscript), and go to any page, section, heading, bookmark, etc. that you need to go to.
Microsoft Word is Great for Editing Your Book
Word has a ton of options for editing your story , including comments, tracking changes, and comparing documents. All of these are under the Review menu.
I use the comments feature to make notes to myself where I need to recheck facts or add description later. It’s easy to navigate through the comments with the search feature or the buttons under the Review menu. Don’t forget to remove them all before saving your document as a PDF or sending it off to an editor.
Tracking changes is awesome and a lot of editors (for short stories anyway) will use this feature to collaborate with you during the editing process. You can accept or reject changes or even revert back to the original.
Finally, make sure you have grammar and spellcheck on! Grammar check even allows you to check style issues (like how to use an ellipsis correctly ) and passive voice . It’s invaluable.
Pro tip: To keep you on track while you’re writing, turn off some of the more fine-tuning features of grammar check. There’s nothing that will ruin your flow more than a bunch of underlining you feel like you need to take care of immediately. I recommend running the full check when you’re done (or at least done for the day).
Formatting Your Book in Microsoft Word
Make sure you’re familiar with standard manuscript format for novels and formatting short stories . Take a look at those links and follow their instructions. You don’t want to get rejected out of hand because you tried some weird formatting that’s hard to look at.
One of the biggest gripes I see from editors is writers using spaces to indent paragraphs. Don’t do this. It makes it super hard on them when they’re putting a book together. Instead, use the ruler in Word (under the View menu) or the paragraph settings (under the Home menu) to adjust your tabs. A half inch is standard.
Despite what most of us were taught in school, the standard is now one space after periods, not two. This is another sticking point with editors, so don’t do it. If you’re used to two, there’s a grammar check feature in Word you can turn on to highlight every time you use two spaces.
Finally, use the page break option to break for a new chapter, not enter or a million spaces. You can find the page break under the Insert menu.
Pro tip: When in doubt about your formatting, you can turn on the Show/Hide option under the Home menu (looks like a paragraph symbol) to see all your formatting symbols.
Now That You've Mastered Microsoft Word, Go Write Your Book
Don’t let choosing writing software stagnant your writing. Don’t overthink it. You don’t need to keep up with the Joneses with the latest writing technology that’s trotted out on tech forums and in writing chats.
The important thing about writing a book is actually writing it . No fancy book writing software is going to help you with that.
So get writing!
Ever used Word to write a book? Do you have any more tips for how to write a book using Word? Let me know in the comments !
Get The Write Structure – $9.99 $5.99 »
Take fifteen minutes to write. Just write. Don’t worry about page setup, formatting, or which program you’re going to use. Open up Word or get out a pen and paper if you’d like!
When you’re done, share your writing in the comments . Don’t forget to comment on your fellow writers’ work!
Sarah Gribble
Sarah Gribble is the author of dozens of short stories that explore uncomfortable situations, basic fears, and the general awe and fascination of the unknown. She just released Surviving Death , her first novel, and is currently working on her next book.
Follow her on Instagram or join her email list for free scares.
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How to layout a book in Microsoft Word
How to format a book in microsoft word, (for createspace, lightning source, or ingramspark).
This is a guide to formatting your book in Microsoft Word. We’ll be making a 6″x9″ PDF for print; but you can easily change the document to another size. You can watch these three videos, or go through the guide down below. You can start your own document from scratch, or download our free package of formatting templates to get started quickly.
Part 1: Setting Paragraph Styles
How to format a book for print in MS Word – Tutorial #1
Part 2: setting up headers, page numbers and footings
How to format a book for print in MS Word – Tutorial #2
Part 3: Front matter and back matter suggestions
How to format a book for print in MS Word – Tutorial #3
PS. Our FREE book formatting templates have this stuff built in. Click here to download them now.
A Quick Trick for Outlining your Book
Did you know you can drag and drop whole sections around in MS Word (just like you can in Scrivener)? It helps a ton with organization.
How to Format a Book in Microsoft Word
Getting your book ready for print can be both an exciting and a nerve-wracking process, but don’t worry! We’re here to help you navigate the journey. Here’s a step-by-step guide to formatting a book for print with KDP and IngramSpark using Microsoft Word:
Step 1: Page Setup
First, you need to set up your document. Go to Layout > Size in Word and select your desired book size. If your book size isn’t listed, choose More Paper Sizes at the bottom and enter your custom size.
Next, set your margins. Go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins . Remember, the inside margin (or gutter) should be larger to account for binding. Both KDP and IngramSpark have specific margin requirements based on the page count and size of your book.
Step 2: Line Spacing and Paragraph Indentation
A standard practice for book formatting is to use double-spacing for line spacing and a 0.5″ first-line indent for paragraphs. You can set these in Format > Paragraph .
Step 3: Choose Your Font and Size
Choose a clean, easy-to-read font for your text. For most books, a font size of 11 or 12 works well.
Step 4: Chapter Titles and Headings
Each chapter should start on a new page. Use the “Heading 1” style for chapter titles and “Heading 2” for subheadings. This allows you to easily create a table of contents later on.
Step 5: Page Numbers, Headers, and Footers
You can insert page numbers, headers, and footers under the Insert tab. Remember to check the specific requirements of KDP and IngramSpark regarding headers and footers.
Step 6: Front Matter
The front matter includes the title page, copyright page, dedication, acknowledgments, and table of contents. Be sure to follow the standard order of front matter pages.
Step 7: Back Matter
Back matter may include an “About the Author” section, appendices, or a preview of your next book.
Step 8: Saving and Uploading Your Book
Once you’ve formatted your book, save it as a PDF. This ensures your formatting stays intact when you upload your file to KDP or IngramSpark.
Q: What is the best font for book formatting? A: Serif fonts like Times New Roman or Garamond are commonly used for the body text. Sans-serif fonts like Arial or Helvetica are often used for chapter titles and headers.
Q: How do I insert a page break in Word? A: Go to Insert > Page Break .
Q: How do I create a table of contents in Word? A: If you used Heading styles for your chapter titles and subheadings, you can automatically create a table of contents. Go to References > Table of Contents .
Helpful Resources
- KDP Print Formatting Guide : Detailed guidelines provided by KDP.
- IngramSpark File Creation Guide : A comprehensive guide to preparing your manuscript file for IngramSpark.
- Microsoft Word Tutorials : Official Microsoft Word training videos and tutorials.
Remember, every book is unique, and these guidelines are just a starting point. Make sure to check the specific requirements of the platform you’re using, and don’t be afraid to customize your book to reflect your personal style. Happy formatting!
Make your book beautiful… without the headache
Psst… learning to format your own books can be a pain in the ass. It’s easier with our beautifully designed, 100% free templates. They’ve already helped over 20,000 authors publish successfully. Click here to download them all.
Keep scrolling for an in-depth tutorial. You should also check out our NEW book formatting tutorial series (don’t worry, it’s free too).
How to format a book in Microsoft Word (with pictures)
Getting started.
Open a new document. Click “size”>> “More paper sizes” and set the document to 6”x9” (or your book size).
Then set the margins and gutter. Make sure to apply to the “whole document” instead of “this section.”
I set this one to 1″ margins on the top and bottom (a bit too much on the top). The “Gutter” is extra space on the inside. Recently (2014) I’ve noticed that Createspace book spines are much more glued-together, so the gutter may need to be a little bigger. Copy and paste your text into the document (or, if you’ve already been writing in Word, save the document as a new file (to be safe) and then start formatting.
Setting Paragraphs
Highlight some text and click on the “line options” tab. Set the indent for the first line of paragraphs to .2 or so (I started with .3, but that’s too much).
Make sure there’s no space before or after the paragraph, and justified text. Select the font you want to use. With that text still selected, right click, go to “Styles” and “Update Normal to Match Selection.” Now your whole document is using the “Normal style.”
Chapter Pages
Next, we’re going to separate all the chapters. This will be really important later when we start adding headers and footers. So put the cursor before any of the text, go to “Page Layout” >> “Breaks” and “Next Page.”
If you’ve done this right, the first page will say “First page Footer, Section 1” and the top of the next page will say “First Page Header, Section 2.”
Click into the headers area (by clicking the space at the top of the page) and make sure you’ve checked “Different First Page” and “Different Odd and Even Pages.”
Because this is the first page of the first chapter, you can begin styling the chapter pages. To make use of Word’s built in Table of Contents function, it’s best to start with Word’s preset “Heading One.”
Just type “Chapter One”, select it, pick “Heading 1” from the styles, then change the size and font, select the text and right-click, then under “styles” click “Update Heading One to match selection.” (I’ve changed the font to no-indent, black, and “Bebas Neue.”) You may want to expand the text by bringing up the fonts menu (Ctrl+D on Windows) go to advanced, spacing and “expanded.”
You should also check to make sure there’s no indent on your chapter title, so that it’s really centered.
If you have a “Navigation” window open on the left side, this heading should show up right away.
Now you may want to style the first sentence. Select the first few words, and transform them to uppercase by going to the “Change Case” button on the Home menu.
Then, to add a Dropcap, put the cursor before the first letter of the first sentence, then go to the Insert panel and click the DropCap feature.
You can change the font of the drop cap to stand out even more, but getting the positioning right can be tricky. If you want the Dropcap to take two lines instead of three, choose “Drop Cap options” from the menu.
Now that our first page is ready, move down to the second page and click in the top area to select the header. Up on the menu, the “Link to Previous” is probably selected. You want to click on it to unlink it (just for the first pages, so they don’t link with the front matter. For the remaining pages, you’ll want link to previous selected). I’ll type in “Book Title”, get the style right and then save it as a new quick style (“headers”).
I’ll align right. If you have “gutter” set up, you can see that the “inside” of the page (on the left) has more spacing. You want to align your headers and footers to the outside, so make sure it’s on the side of the page with the smaller margins.
Then I’ll go into the footers area, click “Insert”, then page numbers>>current position>>plain number . This enters a page number field. Mine starts on page 3. If I want to change this, I could go to Insert>>page numbers>>Format page numbers and then choose “start at #…” instead of “continue from previous section.”
Then I can go down to the next page. Because I’ve selected “Different Odd & Even Pages” I can make this page a little different, by aligning left and typing “Author Name.”
Then, instead of inserting the page number again, I can just select and copy the page number field from the previous page, and paste it into the footer of this page – aligning it left like the header. To check my work, I’ll go to “View” and hit the “Two pages” so I can make sure that it looks OK.
There’s a little too much space between my headers and the content… but that’s because I set my top page margins to 1” (a bit much). I’ll leave it for now. The headings and page numbers look fine, so I’ll go back to View>> 100% and continue on. The whole first chapter should look pretty good now.
If I want to style section breaks I could… a simple way is to use the “First Paragraph” style again with all caps on the first few words, but no dropcaps.
When I get down to the bottom of the chapter, I’ll put the cursor below the text, select Page layout>>Breaks >> and hit “Next Page” again.
Because this is the first page of a new section, and we’ve selected “Different First Page” this page should be blank, with no headers and footers, so you can style it like the first Chapter Page. In Word, it’s hard to line up everything exactly.
The best way to get it 100% consistent is to select and copy from just above the first paragraph to the top of the page, including all the spaces and Chapter Header, and then pasting it the first page of the next chapter. That’s also a little faster than redoing everything manually. Then I can just change the text to “Chapter Two”.
The following pages in the book should have the same headers and footers, and the page numbers should be automatic. So all you need to do is skip through and adding “Next Page” breaks between every chapter, and styling the chapter pages. If your page numbers aren’t working for any reason, make sure the “Link to Previous” option is selected. If they still aren’t connecting, go to format page numbers and “continue from previous.”
You can also just select the page number field from the previous section and copy it into the one that’s broken. If you’ve been setting all your quick styles (first paragraph, normal, header, headings, page numbers) going through the chapters like this should be pretty fast.
If you get stuck with anything, it will probably be with the headings and footers and page numbers. When you finish styling your chapters, switch to Two-Pages view so you can check everything over. Right and left-align can be confusing, even if you are viewing it in Two-Pages mode, because Word may not show it as it actually prints.
Just keep in mind the extra wide margins are the inside gutter, so these are aligned on the outside, even though they look like they will be on the inside. If you’ve been using the “Heading 1” style, Word has automatically been adding in your chapters to the navigation, which you should see on the navigation panel on the left.
So let’s go back to the front and add the “front matter”, including the table of contents.
Still here? You’re working too hard.
A lot of this stuff is already done for you in my formatting templates. I made them to help indie authors save time and money, without making amateur book design and formatting mistakes. Seriously, you should download the free package. I’ll also send you my email series on publishing books that sell – I’ve been told it’s life changing .
🔒 100% secure download. No spam, ever.
Adding the Copyright Page, Title Page and TOC
Put the cursor before chapter one and add a new “Next Page” break.
You’ll need these pages: 1. Title Page 2. Copyright page 3. Table of Contents 4. Dedication.
Your title page will want to match the cover pretty closely – see if your designer will give you the fonts he used – you may need to space out the lettering quite a bit. If you ask, your designer can probably save you a transparent PNG of the cover text (just like on the cover, but without the art) that you can add into the title page.
Your copyright page will look something like this (you can use this if you want):
TITLE Copyright © 2023 by Author Name.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact; address www.website.com
Book and Cover design by Designer
ISBN: 123456789
First Edition: Month 2023
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1” on the bottom refers to the editions, so if it goes until “1” it means first edition. If this was the fourth edition, you’d write: “10 9 8 7 6 5 4”. These numbers should be close to the bottom of the page. It can be centered, left or right aligned, and with much smaller font size (9 or 10).
If you’re indie publishing, the copyright page isn’t a big deal – in fact you can stand out by using something more creative. I tend to use a simple message like “Feel free to share this – just don’t try to pass it off as your own! If you enjoy this book, I really hope you’ll do me the favor of leaving a review. You can connect with me @creativindie.” There’s something to be said for trying to look as professional as possible though, especially with the print book; but I also think it’s fine to “own up to” and even take pride in the fact that you self-published, as some skeptics may feel you’re “trying to hide it” otherwise. Make another “next page” break. Then go to the “references” tab and hit Table of Contents.
You should get an automatic Table of Contents. You may need to delete some areas, or change the fonts and styles (if you do, make sure to save it as a new style… it’s really annoying to keep restyling it if you forget to do this). Because this table is automatic, you can “Update Table” and “Update Page Numbers Only” if you do rewrites or add content later.
For the TOC, you probably need to make the text about 14pt, and add a little more spacing. If this is a novel, you don’t really need a table of contents, but that’s up to you. For the front pages, you’ll probably want to make sure there’s no indents anywhere, so everything is properly aligned.
Be a little careful on these front pages – if a header or footer gets added in, and a later page is set to “link to previous” – then when you delete it on the front pages it will erase the headers and footers throughout the book. Instead, go to the next page with headers and uncheck “link to previous” – then you can delete the headers on the front pages. Also, the copyright page is usually on the back of the title page (on the left hand side), while the dedication, Table of Contents and Chapter One usually starts on the right hand side – this means you’ll have to leave some blank pages in between.
You can zoom way out to see everything together. Sometimes I need to use a real book, or picture the pages on my hand and flip my palm back and forth, to get this right. Note – some books have all chapter pages on the right hand side – if you want to do that, just add an extra blank page by adding more “Next Page” breaks, and make sure they aren’t connected to any headers or footers so they stay blank.
That’s it – I’m going to attach the sample I made for this tutorial, you can download it by clicking these links: Template-sample(.docx) Template-sample (.doc) (They won’t look the same unless you have the same fonts… so the first thing you’ll want to do is change the
Chapter Heading font to something that matches your book. Hopefully you’ve already got a great book cover, but if not, take a look at my huge list of best fonts per genre here .) If you get stuck and are frustrated, I highly recommend finding someone on Fiverr.com. Pay them $10~25 to fix whatever problem you’re stuck on; it’s worth it.
Ps) It can save some time if you learn a few useful keyboard shortcuts for MS Word. There’s a full list here . The one I use the most is “Ctrl+z” which undoes your last action.
Was this useful?
If so, please share it! If you need a book cover, you should check out the sister site, www.diybookcovers.com – it has more free tools and templates to make your book look good. If you haven’t done so yet, you should sign up for my email list . Not only will you get a bunch of professional book design and formatting templates, I’ll also send a free email series on everything I’ve learned after helping launch hundreds of bestsellers (and making a full-time living from my own fiction and non-fiction books).
PS. I’m not just some guy on the internet… I’ve got a PhD in Literature, have spoken on book design at publishing conferences around the world, and was featured in CNN for renting castles to use as writing retreats. You can also check out my main book cover design site, or my blog Creativindie.com where I help authors and artists produce and sell their best work.
How To Write A Book In Word
by Stefanie Newell | Apr 23, 2019 | Blog
Wondering how to write a book in Word? In this video, I’ll be sharing how to use Word to format your manuscript. This video is perfect for aspiring writers who need to know the format for writing a book.
Not only is Word online, which means you can be anywhere and have access, but you can also use this software to share your manuscript with your editor, writing coach, and beta readers. In this video, I share my screen and show my Microsoft Word format template, which walks you step-by-step through the process of formatting a book.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to format your manuscript, find your word count, create chapters, and more!
Video Transcript
The traditional publishing industry has set guidelines for how a manuscript should look. And the reason why everyone follows these guidelines is just because it makes it easier for the person reviewing the document. And of course, if we want somebody to review our document, we want to make it as easy as possible.
So what I’m showing you on the screen is my format template, and we’re looking at what is going to be your title page.
So on the very first line, you’re going to include your first name and your last name, you’re going to tab over to the right and type the words, ‘Word Count’ and include your word count.
Now the reason why this is important is because there is so many people that are going to make a determination on pricing based off word count. So to learn your word count, what you want to do is go to the top of your screen, and you want to go to Review, and then click word count. And in this particular document, there are 618 words. So I want to include that in this word count section.
So I’m going to highlight this. And I’m going to put 618 words. Of course, you want to include the word count for your own document. And then you’re going to drop down to the next line and you’re going to type your address.
On the very next line, you’re going to type your city, state and zip, and then you’re going to type your email address. Now, with your email address, make sure that it’s an email that you check regularly, this is going to be the email that you’re going to either be giving to your editor or your writing coach, or even to an agent or the publishing company. So you want to make sure that it’s an email address that you check often.
Then you’re going to drop down to the middle of the page, and you’re going to put your manuscript title in all capital letters.
Then you’re going to drop down two additional lines, and then you’re going to put the words by, and then your first and last name. And that basically is what your title page consists of. This is the first step in learning how to write a book in Word.
The next page we’re going to be looking at is the actual manuscript. So this is the page right after your title page. And this is going to be where your manuscript begins. You first want to do a page break so that your manuscript starts on a new page. In the menu, click Insert, then click Page Break and that will start you off on a new page. And you will also want to use this page break when you are looking to start a new chapter.
Now we’re going to make some changes to our manuscript. The first thing want to do is confirm the page layout. Click layout. Then click Margins and confirm that its set to normal. Next click these three dots, then Paragraph options, and then make sure that your line spacing says double.
And you’ll notice that there is an extra space between the line and again, this just makes it easier for the person reviewing your document.
The next thing you want to do is to make sure that you are using the right font. So the most common font for a manuscript is Times New Roman. You can also use the other Arial, and also Courier. So in order to change the font, you would click Home and if you already have text, you would want to select it first, otherwise for the sake of this video I’m going to use Times New Roman. And also confirm that your font size is 12. Now 12-point font is the standard font size, you don’t want it to be smaller, and you don’t want it to be bigger. Again, we’re trying to make it as easy as possible for the person reviewing the document.
The last thing that we want to do is make sure that we include a header. Now the reason why the header is important is if a person decides to print your document, you want to make sure that they know that your document is in the correct order.
So we’re going to add a couple of things to the header, we’re going to include your name and your manuscript title. And we’re also going to include page numbers this way, if they print it, and it happens to get out of order, they can put it back into order.
To get to your header, click here where it says header. And now you can type in this section. So include your first name and last name, you’re going to put a space and then you’re going to put a slash, and then you got to put another space and you’re going to put your manuscript title.
Then you’re going click Insert, then Page Numbers. And then I’m going to hit this option on the far right that will right align the page numbers.
Now you just click on your document and you can begin typing your manuscript. And that’s how you write a book in Word!
So I hope you enjoyed this video. If you want to write a book that helps you to connect with readers and sell more books make sure to visit my website at howtowriteabookthatsells.com !
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Create a booklet or book in Word
Whether you want to create a booklet for an event or print out an ambitious book project, consider using the pre-built page settings for booklets that comes with Word. The Book Fold layout sets you up for printing your masterpiece automatically in the correct order, ready for folding and binding.
For best results, change the document layout before you start your writing project. That way there’s less clean-up work to do if tables or other objects in your document don’t fit quite right.
Create a booklet or book
Go to Layout and select the Page Setup dialog launch icon at the bottom-right corner.
On the Margins tab, change the setting for Multiple pages to Book fold . The orientation automatically changes to Landscape .
Tip: If you have a long document, you might want to split it into multiple booklets, which you can then bind into one book. Under Sheets per booklet , choose how many pages to print per booklet.
Select and increase the value of Gutter to reserve space on the inside fold for binding.
Go to the Paper tab and select the Paper size . The final size of the booklet is one half width of the paper size.
Tip: You can add many embellishments to your booklet’s appearance. For example, to add borders to every page, on the Layout tab of the Page Setup window, click Borders .
Click OK . If your document already has content, the text is formatted automatically, but you might need to adjust objects like images and tables manually.
Print settings for booklets
When you print the booklet, check the print settings to make sure you print on both sides of the paper and flip the papers correctly for the printing to work as intended.
Go to File > Print .
If your printer supports automatic printing on both sides, change Print One Sided to Print on Both Sides . Choose the option Flip pages on short edge to avoid printing the second side of each sheet upside down.
If your printer doesn’t support automatic printing on both sides, select Manually Print on Both Sides , and feed the pages back to the printer when prompted. To avoid pages from printing upside down, flip the sheets on the short edge of the paper according to your printer’s instructions.
Tip: For a professional touch, consider adding page numbers in the header or the footer. For more info, see Add page numbers .
Create a booklet using a Word template
Booklet: Page numbering tips .
Create different headers or footers for odd and even pages
Get Microsoft publishing templates
Go to Layout > Margins > Custom Margins .
Change the setting for Multiple pages to Book fold . The orientation automatically changes to Landscape .
To reserve space on the inside fold for binding, increase the width of the Gutter .
You can add many embellishments to your booklet’s appearance. For example, to add borders to every page, on the Layout tab of the Custom Margins window, select Borders .
Select OK .
If your document already has content, the text is formatted automatically, but you might need to adjust objects like images and tables manually.
Go to File > Page Setup and check the paper size. Keep in mind that the final size of the booklet is one half of the paper size. Make sure your printer is stocked with paper of the right size.
When you print the booklet, check the print settings to make sure you print on both sides of the paper and flip the papers correctly for the printing to work as intended. If your printer supports automatic printing on both sides, follow these steps.
Click File > Print .
Under Two-sided , select Booklet .
Note: If your printer doesn't support automatic printing on both sides, you'll need to print each page manually.
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How to Create an Ebook With Microsoft Word
Want to create an ebook using Microsoft Word? Here's how you can design and format your ebook in a few simple steps.
Ebooks are the electronic version of books that you can read on your computer, tablets, mobile devices, or Kindle.
You can write an ebook in any form—novel, non-fiction, or even create a freebie for your website’s visitors. Even though there are tons of software out there that you can use to create your ebook, Microsoft Word is one of the easiest and freemium options available.
So, let’s find out how to create an ebook using Microsoft Word.
Step 1: Do the Preparation
Before you get into the nitty-gritty of creating an ebook, the first thing you should do is decide what your ebook will be about and how you want to structure it. It’ll make the rest of the designing and writing part easier.
Some basic things you must come up with beforehand are the following:
- Topic: Decide on what topic you want to write your ebook. Make sure you have considerable knowledge of the subject you choose.
- Title: Once you’ve chosen your topic, come up with a compelling headline for your ebook.
- Length: Figuring out the right length mainly depends on your expertise in the topic and writing. If you’re creating an ebook for the first time, consider keeping the length short. Anything between several pages to a few thousand words will work fine.
- Outline: Finally, when everything is decided, come up with the outline of your ebook—for instance, chapters, headings, subheadings, and if possible, a few sentences in each section to have an idea of what it will be about. You can also create the first draft in a simple Word document before heading to the designing part.
Step 2: Create the Cover Page
Now that you already have the perfect book title ready, all you need is an impressive cover page to put it on. Follow these steps to create the cover page for your ebook in Microsoft Word .
- Go to the Insert menu.
- Click on the Cover Page button available on the left side.
- Select the cover page that’s suitable for your ebook,
Step 3: Add a Disclaimer/Copyright Page
To tell your readers that your ebook is copyrighted intellectual property, you'll need to add a copyright page. Adding a copyright disclaimer can help you stay protected from any legal liability.
To get started, just follow these steps
- Click on Symbols on the rightmost side.
- Search for the copyright symbol and enter it on the page.
Finally, write your copyright disclaimer.
Step 4: Insert an Active Table of Content
The table of contents helps your readers quickly scan what topics the ebook covers and what they will get out of it. Microsoft Word offers you two different types of tables.
- Automatic table: It displays all the headlines, from one to three, in order. These tables are available under two separate titles: Contents and Table of Content . You can choose either of them, they’ll work the same. Since they’re automatic, you can enter as many headlines (up to H3 level) as you want and simply update the table, it will fill the context automatically.
- Manual Table: If you have more than three levels of subheadings in your ebook, for instance, H4, H5, H6, and so on, you can opt for the manual table. As the name suggests, you can manually enter the details in it.
To insert the table of content in your ebook, follow these steps.
- Go to References menu.
- Click on the Table of Content button present on the left-most side.
- Choose Automatic or Manual table from the drop-down menu.
To update the automatic Table of Content, follow these simple steps:
- Go to the References option.
- Click on the Update Table button available next to the Table of Content button.
You can also update the content from the table itself.
- Go to the Table of Content page in your ebook.
- Select the table.
- Click on the Update Table button from there.
- Choose Update Entire Table .
Step 5: Add the Header and the Footer
Depending on your purpose of the ebook, you can add your company name or website URL, page number, or more in your header and footer .
Most ebooks have the title written on their header. To insert it in your ebook, follow these steps.
- Go to Insert menu.
- Click on the Header option.
- Choose the right header from the multiple options available.
Similarly, you can use your footer to display any information that's suitable for your ebook. To insert the footer, follow these steps.
- Click on the Footer option.
- Select the footer of your choice. (To automatically add the number of pages, choose Austin or Branded footer options.)
Step 6: Create Your Draft
You’re done with most of the formatting you need for your ebook. Now, you can start writing your draft, or if you’ve already created it in another document, just copy-paste the text.
To ensure the automatic table of content covers each of your headlines, choose them from the headings option.
- Go to the Home menu.
- Select the required headings (Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3).
Moreover, Microsoft Word also allows you to insert images or graphs in your document. To add an image, follow these steps.
- Go to Insert menu
- Click on Pictures .
- Select This Device if your pictures are available offline, or choose Online Pictures to directly insert images from the web.
If you’re writing a non-fiction ebook and need to explain various concepts, you can choose to insert:
- Multiple shapes —Microsoft Word has a broad list of elements to select from.
- Icons —You can search for the specific icon depending on your need, for instance, arrows, body parts, graph icons, etc.
- 3D Models —just like images, you can directly insert them from the online option or upload them from your device.
- Charts —if you need charts to explain concepts or show values, you can insert column, line, pie, bar, histogram, or any other graph or charts from the Chart option and customize it as per your needs.
Since it’s an ebook, you can add hyperlinks in the text and lead your readers to any website or landing page from here. To insert a hyperlink, follow these steps.
- Select the text you want to link to a webpage.
- Right-click and choose the Link option.
- Paste the link’s URL and hit enter.
Step 7: Add the Author Page
Ending your ebook with your author page is a good marketing technique.
So, add a good author bio and a nice headshot of yourself on this page (to insert your picture, follow the steps as explained above). Moreover, you can also add your social media or website links, your email address, or even promote your products or services, if you offer any, in this area.
Step 8: Finalize and Export Your Ebook
Now that your ebook is finished and you have finalized the design, edit and proofread it for better accuracy, and export it in the form of PDF to share it with your readers.
Follow these steps to convert your Microsoft Word ebook into a PDF.
- Go to the Files option from the main menu.
- Click Export .
- Hit Create a PDF/XPS file.
Create an Ebook Easily With Microsoft Word
The ebooks you can create with Microsoft Word are pretty basic and not much captivating. But the tool is easy to use and can help you be done through the process in minimum time.
If you're writing a short story or a novel, then Microsoft Word can be your perfect option to get started.
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How to Write a Book
Last Updated: April 23, 2023 References Approved
This article was co-authored by Grant Faulkner, MA and by wikiHow staff writer, Christopher M. Osborne, PhD . Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the co-founder of 100 Word Story, a literary magazine. Grant has published two books on writing and has been published in The New York Times and Writer’s Digest. He co-hosts Write-minded, a weekly podcast on writing and publishing, and has a M.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 118 testimonials and 97% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 2,691,416 times.
Anyone with a story to tell can write a book, either for their own enjoyment or to publish for all to see. Getting started is often the hardest part, so set up a good workspace, create a regular writing schedule, and stay motivated to keep writing something every day. Focus on developing a “big idea” that drives your narrative, as well as at least one unforgettable character and realistic conflicts. Once you’ve written and revised your manuscript, consider your publishing options to get it into readers’ hands.
Staying Focused and Productive
- Writing a book is both a vocation and an avocation—that is, both a job and a passion. Figure out why you need to write, and why you want to write.
- Keep your goal or goals in mind as motivation. Just remember to keep them realistic. You probably won't become the next J.K. Rowling by your first novel.
- While moving from a cafe to a park bench to the library may work for you, consider setting up a single workspace that you always—and only—use for writing.
- Set up your writing space so you have any supplies or references that you’ll need close at hand. That way, you won’t lose your focus looking for a pen, ink cartridge, or thesaurus.
- Pick a sturdy, supportive chair —it’s easy to lose focus if your back aches!
- The average book writer should probably look to set aside 30 minutes to 2 hours for writing, at least 5 days per week—and ideally every day.
- Block out a time when you tend to be most alert and prolific—for instance, 10:30-11:45 AM every day.
- Scheduling in writing time may mean scheduling out other things in your life. It's up to you to decide if it's worth it or not.
- For instance, if you’ve given yourself a 1-year deadline for writing a complete first draft of a 100,000-word novel, you’ll need to write about 300 words (about 1 typed page) every day.
- Or, if you are required to turn in a doctoral dissertation draft that’s about 350 pages long in 1 year, you’ll likewise need to write about 1 page per day.
- You’re nearly always going to spend at least as much time editing a book as you will initially writing it, so worry about the editing part later. Just focus on getting something down on paper that will need to be edited. Don’t worry about spelling mistakes!
- If you simply can’t help but edit some as you write, set aside a specific, small amount of time at the end of each writing session for editing. For instance, you might use the last 15 minutes of your daily 90-minute writing time to do some light editing of that day’s work.
- Depending on your circumstances, you might be working with an editor, have committee members you can hand over chapter drafts to, or have a group of fellow writers who share their works-in-progress back and forth. Alternatively, show a friend or family member.
- You’ll go through many rounds of feedback and revisions before your book is published. Don’t get discouraged—it’s all part of the process of writing the best book you can!
Creating a Great Story
- Start with the “big picture” first, and worry about filling in the finer details later on.
- Brainstorm themes, scenarios, or ideas that intrigue you. Write them down, think about them for a while, and figure out which one you’re most passionate about.
- For instance: “What if a man journeyed to a land where the people were tiny and he was a giant, and then to another land where the people were giants and he was tiny?”
- For instance, a sci-fi adventure set in space will be more effective if the technology draws at least a small degree from reality.
- Or, if you’re writing a crime drama, you might do research into how the police typically investigate crimes of the type you’re depicting.
- For instance, instead of waking up thinking “I need to write about the Civil War,” you might tell yourself, “I’m going to write about General Grant’s military strategy today.”
- These “manageable pieces” may end up being your book’s chapters, but not necessarily so.
Lucy V. Hay
Look at breakdowns of movie plots for insights into common successful story structures. There are many good sources, like Script Lab or TV Tropes, to find plot breakdowns of popular movies. Read these summaries and watch the movies, then think about how you can plot your story in a way that is similar to the movies you really like.
- Think about some of your favorite characters from books you love. Write down some of their character traits and use these to help build your own unique characters.
- If you’re writing nonfiction, dig deep into the complexities and all-too-human qualities of the real figures you’re writing about. Bring them to life for your readers.
- The main conflict—for instance, Captain Ahab’s obsession with the white whale in Moby Dick —can be an entry point for a range of other external and internal conflicts.
- Don’t downplay conflicts and tension in nonfiction works—they help to ground your writing in reality.
- Your goal is to never give your readers a reason to lose interest. Keep them engaged and turning those pages!
- This doesn’t mean you can’t use long sentences, descriptive writing, or even asides that deviate from the main storyline. Just make sure that these components serve the larger narrative.
Publishing Your Book
- Seeking publication can feel a bit like losing control over your manuscript, after all the time you’ve spent working and re-working it. Keep reminding yourself that your book deserves to be seen and read!
- If necessary, impose a deadline on yourself: “I’m going to submit this to publishers by January 15, one way or the other!”
- Evaluate potential agents and look for the best fit for you and your manuscript. If you know any published authors, ask them for tips and leads on agents.
- Typically, you’ll submit excerpts or even your entire manuscript to an agent, and they’ll decide whether to take you on as a client. Make sure you’re clear on their submission guidelines before proceeding.
- You can self-publish copies on your own, which may save you money but will take up a lot of time. You’ll be responsible for everything from obtaining a copyright to designing the cover to getting the actual pages printed.
- You can work through self-publishing companies, but you’ll often end up paying more to get your book published than you’ll ever make back from selling it.
- Self-publishing an e-book may be a viable option since the publishing costs are low and your book immediately becomes accessible to a wide audience. Evaluate different e-book publishers carefully before choosing the right one for you.
Sample Book Excerpts
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- Keep your notebook and pen beside your bed, and keep a journal of your dreams. You never know when a dream of yours could give you inspiration or a story to write about! ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 27 Not Helpful 2
- If you want to add a true fact in your story, do some research on it first. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 21 Not Helpful 3
- Ask some other authors for some tips and write them down. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 15 Not Helpful 3
- Avoid plagiarizing (copying another author's work). Even if you do it as artfully as possible, eventually someone will track down and piece together all the copied parts. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 24 Not Helpful 1
You Might Also Like
Expert Interview
Thanks for reading our article! If you'd like to learn more about writing a book, check out our in-depth interview with Gerald Posner .
- ↑ https://thewritepractice.com/write-a-book-now/
- ↑ https://jerryjenkins.com/how-to-write-a-book/
- ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/writingprocess/goalsetting/why
- ↑ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/how-to-write-a-book-without-losing-your-mind/566462/
- ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/getting-feedback/
- ↑ https://jerichowriters.com/how-to-write-a-book/
- ↑ https://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-fiction.html
- ↑ https://blog.reedsy.com/how-to-revise-a-novel/
- ↑ https://www.janefriedman.com/find-literary-agent/
About This Article
To write a book, first think of an idea that you’re excited to write about. It could be anything – a memoir about your life, a fantasy tale, or if you're an expert on a topic, a non-fiction book. Once you’ve come up with an idea, you'll want to cultivate good writing habits to bring your book to life. First, make writing into a routine rather than an activity you need to fit into your busy schedule. Try to consistently write at the same time and place every day. Second, set a daily word or page goal so that you know exactly when you are finished writing each day. Last, don’t feel pressured to create a perfect first draft because it's much easier to edit perfectly than it is to write it perfectly the first time around. Focus on producing and writing as much as you can. Then, go back and spend time editing on another day. Once you have written and edited a draft that you like, seek feedback from your family, peers or mentors. If you want to self-publish, research how to do so online. You could also consider hiring an editor to help you through both editing and the publishing process. If you want to know more about how to write a non-fiction book, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No
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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > How to help your little literary scholar prepare for a book report
How to help your little literary scholar prepare for a book report
For children, the book report is a time-honored assignment in every classroom. But if they’re not sure where to start, writing a book report can be a daunting task. As a parent, you can play a vital role in helping your child prepare for a book report. With a few simple steps, you can guide them through the process and set them up for success.
Understand the assignment
A book report is normally a staple of English or literature class—but reading about science, history, or music can be an interesting take on a subject too. If your child has been assigned a book to read, then this step is easy: be sure you have plenty of time to obtain a copy, whether it’s from a local bookstore, online, or from your library. Otherwise, whatever book you choose, make sure it matches the class and the assignment!
Choose the right book
It should go without saying: selecting the right book is key. Encourage your child to choose a book that they find interesting and that is appropriate for their reading level. Begin by picking a genre that your child might enjoy. Whether it’s sci-fi, fantasy, or historical fiction, you can help encourage your child to pursue what they love.
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If you need help selecting a book, check out a list of classic children’s books by age and grade. It includes legendary fables told in modern contexts, as well as timeless classics, some of which you might remember from your own childhood. Visit your child’s school library, as the librarians there are trained at recommending books that fit an age level and encouraging your child to read.
Read the book together
Once your child has chosen a book, encourage them to read it carefully. While they read, engage their concentration by asking questions, such as:
- What’s the plot of the book? Who are the main characters, and what happens to them?
- Where is this book set in: on the high seas, in the big city, or in space? Is it in modern times, ancient history, or in the future?
- What are some themes that you’re noticing? Is it a story about friendship, growing up, or family?
- Are there any elements in the book that seem outdated?
- How do the characters change as the book progresses?
- What is the lesson that the author is trying to impart on the reader?
- What jumped out at you and made you excited? What did you dislike about the book?
- Would your friends like this book? Do you want to read any other books in the series, or anything else from the same author?
As your child reads the book, encourage them to take notes. This can include jotting down important events, character traits, or quotes that stood out to them. This will help your child develop a deeper understanding of the book and prepare them for writing their report.
Teach the parts of a book report
Before your child begins writing their report, it’s important that they understand the different parts of a book report. These typically include:
- Introduction: This should include the book’s title, author, and a brief summary of the plot.
- Body: This section should include a more detailed summary of the book, as well as an analysis of the characters, themes, and overall message.
- Conclusion: The conclusion should summarize the main points of the report and offer an opinion on the book.
Start your child writing
With notes in hand and a clear understanding of the different parts of a book report, your child is ready to start writing. Encourage them to take their time and write clearly and concisely. Remind them to use proper grammar and punctuation and double-check their spelling.
Help your child make their book report engaging and interesting. This could include adding illustrations or images, creating a book cover, or using a creative format. Encourage your child to think outside the box and make their report unique.
Preparing for a book report can be a fun and rewarding experience for both you and your child, and it can even inspire a lifelong love of reading and writing. If that’s the goal with your child, don’t just stop here: check out tips on going back to school , making the most of screen time , and preparing for the next assignment, the classic five-paragraph essay .
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7 Steps of Writing an Excellent Academic Book Chapter
Writing is an inextricable part of an academic’s career; maintaining lab reports, writing personal statements, drafting cover letters, research proposals, the dissertation—this list goes on. However, while these are considered as essentials during any research program, writing an academic book is a milestone every writer aims to achieve. It could either be your urge of authoring a book or you may have received an invite from a publisher to write a book chapter . In both cases, most researchers find it difficult to write an academic book chapter.
The questions that may arise when you plan on writing a book chapter are:
- Where do I start from?
- How do I even do this?
- What should be the length of book chapters?
- How should I link one chapter to the following chapter?
These questions are quite common when starting with your first book chapter. In this article, we’ll discuss the steps on how to write an excellent academic book chapter.
Table of Contents
What is an Academic Book Chapter?
An academic book chapter is defined as a section, or division, of a book. These are usually separated with a chapter number or title. A chapter divides the overall book topic into topic-specific sections. Furthermore, each chapter in a book is related to the overall theme of the book.
A book chapter allows the author to divide their work in parts for readers to understand and remember it easily. Additionally, chapters help create structure in your writing for a better flow of ideas.
How Long Should a Book Chapter be?
Typically, a non-fiction book chapter should be small and must only include information related to one major idea. However, since a non-fiction /academic book is around 50,000 to 70,000 words, and each book would comprise 10-20 chapters, each book chapter’s word limit should range between 3500 and 7000 words.
While there aren’t any standard rules to follow with respect to the length of a book chapter, it may vary depending on the genre of your writing. However, it is better to refer your publisher’s guidelines and write your chapters accordingly.
Difference between a Book Chapter and Thesis Chapter
What makes a book excellent are the book chapters that it comprises. Thus, the key to writing an excellent book is mastering the art of writing a book chapter . You’d think you could write a book easily because you’ve already written your dissertation. However, writing a book chapter is not the same as writing your thesis.
The image below shares 5 major differences between a book chapter and a thesis chapter:
How to Write a Book Chapter?
As writing a book chapter is the first milestone in your writing journey, it can be overwhelming and difficult to garner your thoughts and put them down on a sheet at once. It takes time and effort to gain momentum for accomplishing this mammoth task. However, proper planning followed by dedicated effort will make you realize that you were worrying over something trivial.
So let us make the process of writing a book chapter easier with these 7 steps.
Step 1: Collate Relevant Information
How would you even start writing a chapter if you do not have the necessary information or data? The first step even before you start writing is to review and collate all the relevant data that is necessary to formulate an informative chapter.
Since a chapter focuses on one major idea it should not include any gaps that perplexes the reader. Creating mind-maps help in linking different sources of information and compiling them to formulate a completely new chapter. As a result, you can structure your ideas to help with your analysis and see it visually. This process improves your understanding of the book’s theme. More importantly, sort the ideas into a logical order of how you should present them in your chapter. This makes it easier to write the chapter without convoluting it.
Step 2: Design the Chapter Structure
After spending hours in brainstorming ideas and understanding the fundamentals that the chapter should cover, you must create a structured outline. Furthermore, following a standard format helps you stay on track and structure your chapter fluently.
Ideally, a well-structured chapter includes the following elements:
- A title or heading
- An interesting introduction
- Main body informative paragraphs
- A summary of the chapter
- Smooth transition to the next chapter
Even so, you may not restrict yourself to following only one structure; rather, add more or less to each of your chapters depending on your genre, writing style, and requirement of the chapter to maintain the book’s overall theme. Keep only relevant content in your chapter. Avoid content that causes the reader to go off on a tangent.
Step 3: Write an Appealing Chapter Title/Heading
How often have you put a book back on the book store’s shelf right after reading its title? Didn’t even bother to read the synopsis, did you? Likewise, you may have written the most impactful chapter, but what sense would it make if its title is not interesting enough. An impactful chapter title captures the reader’s attention. It’s basically the “first sight” rule!
Your chapter’s title/heading must trigger curiosity in the reader and make them want to read and learn more. Although this is the first element of a chapter, most writers find it easier to create a title/heading after completing the chapter.
Step 4: Build an Engaging Introduction
Now that you have captured the reader’s attention with your title/heading, it has obviously increased the readers’ expectations from the content. To keep them interested in your chapter, write an introduction that keeps them hooked on. You may use a narrative approach or build a fictional plot to grab the attention of the reader. However, ensure that you do not deviate from the main context of your chapter. Finally, writing an effective introduction will help you in presenting an overview of your chapter.
Some of the tricks to follow when writing an exceptional introduction are:
- Share an anecdote
- Create a dialogue or conversation
- Include quotations
- Create a fictional plot
Step 5: Elaborate on Main Points of the Chapter
Impactful title? Checked!
Interesting introduction? Checked!
Now is the time to dive in to the details imparting section of the chapter. Expand your opening statement and begin to explain your points in detail. More importantly, leave no space for speculation in the reader’s mind.
This section should answer the following questions of the reader:
- Why has the reader chosen to read your book?
- What do they need to know?
- Are their questions and doubts being resolved with the content of your chapter?
Ensure that you build each point coherently and follow a cohesive flow. Furthermore, provide statistical data, evidence-based information, experimental data, graphical presentations, etc. You could formulate these points into 4-5 paragraphs based on the details of your chapter.
Step 6: Summarize the Chapter
As impactful was the entry, so should be the exit, right? The summary is the part where you are almost done. This section is a key takeaway for your readers. So, revisit your chapter’s main content and summarize it. Since your chapter has given a lot of information, you’d want the reader to remember the gist of it as they reach the end of your chapter. Hence, writing a concise summary that constitutes the crux of your chapter is imperative.
Step 7: Add a Call-to-Action & Transition to Next Chapter
This section comes at the extreme end of the book chapter, when you ask the reader to implement the learnings from the chapter. It is a way of applying their newly acquired knowledge. In this section, you can also add a transition from your chapter to the succeeding chapter.
So would you still have jitters while writing your book chapter? Are there any other strategies or steps that you follow to write one? Let us know in the comments section below on how these steps helped you in writing a book chapter .
Thank you I have got a full lecture for sure
Thank for the encouraging words
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Formatting A Book In Word: A Basic Guide
Word is a powerful program for formatting books. Whether you’re self-publishing or submitting to a publishing house, following the proper steps will make your book look professional and help it stand out from the competition. Do you have a book that you want to format for self-publishing? Are you unsure of how to go about it? This basic guide will walk you through the process of formatting your book in Word!
Table of Contents
Five benefits of formatting a book in Word
When you format a book in Word, you are taking the time to properly layout your book’s text and design elements. This can result in many benefits for both you and your readers. Here are five benefits of formatting a book in Word.
1. Word is easy to learn
Many first-time authors ask themselves which word processing software is best for formatting their book. While there are many different programs, Microsoft Word is often the most recommended option. Formatting a book in Word has many benefits. One of the main reasons why people prefer the Word is that it’s easy to learn. Even if you’ve never used the program before, you’ll be able to figure out how to format your book quickly.
Several helpful tutorials and guides are available online, so you can always find answers to any questions. In addition, Word is highly versatile, so you can format your book exactly how you want it. With so many benefits, it’s no wonder that Microsoft Word is the go-to option for formatting books.
2. No need to start from scratch
One benefit of formatting a book in Word is that you don’t have to start from scratch. If you have a Word document you’ve used as a first draft, you can easily format it into a professional-looking book. This can save you time and effort, as you won’t have to create a new document from scratch. You can make formatting changes to your existing document.
It includes adding page numbers, adjusting margins, and creating headers and footers. In addition, formatting a book in Word can help ensure consistency throughout your book. You can create a polished and professional-looking final product using the same formatting for all your chapters .
3. You can work with your book everywhere
Another benefit of formatting a book in Word is that you can work on it anywhere. You can open and edit your book if you have Microsoft Word installed on your computer. This is convenient if you want to make changes while you’re on the go. You can also save your book to the cloud to access it from anywhere.
This means you can format your book on your laptop while at home and edit it on your tablet while on the bus. Formatting a book in Word gives you the flexibility to work on your book wherever and whenever it’s convenient for you. Whether you’re writing a novel, a textbook, or a cookbook, formatting your book in Word can help to make the process easier and more efficient.
4. Great support and many templates online
Formatting a book in Word means getting excellent support that is available online. Many forums and websites are dedicated to helping authors format their books in Word, and you can download several templates. This means finding the help you need if you encounter any problems is easy. is easy
Another benefit of formatting your book in Word is the wide range of available templates. Whether you want a simple design or something more complex, you will find a template that meets your needs. This makes it easy to create a professional-looking book, even if you have limited design experience.
5. Easy collaboration and editing
Formatting a book in Word also makes it easy to collaborate with others and make edits . If you need to share your book with an editor or beta reader, you can send them the Word document. This is much easier than sending a PDF or print copy. In addition, if you need to make changes to your book, you can do so quickly and easily in Word.
This is especially helpful if you find typos or want to make last-minute changes before publication. Formatting a book in Word can help make the editing and collaboration process smoother and more efficient.
Ten tips for formatting a book in Word
If you’re looking to format your book in Microsoft Word, you’ll want to read these ten tips. Formatting a book can be difficult, but with these tips, you’ll be able to do it quickly and easily.
One of the most important aspects of formatting a book in Word is setting the margins. Margins control the amount of space between the text and the edge of the page, and they play a vital role in determining your book’s overall look and feel. There are a few things to remember when setting margins for your book. First, all margins should be uniform throughout the entire document.
Second, the size of your margins will depend on the trim size of your book. And finally, you’ll need to consider the bleed when setting your margins. The bleed is the amount of space that will be trimmed off when your book is printed, and it’s essential to ensure that your text doesn’t extend into this area. With these things in mind, you can set the margins for your book and ensure that it looks professional and polished.
Formatting a book in Microsoft Word can be tricky. Your book can look like a jumbled mess if you’re not careful. One of the most important things to keep in mind when formatting your book is font choice. The wrong font can make your book difficult to read and affect the overall look of your book. When choosing a font for your book, it’s essential to pick one that is easy to read and has a clean, professional appearance.
Some popular book fonts include Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri. Once you’ve chosen a font, stick with it throughout your book for consistency. You may also consider using larger font size for chapter titles and section headers to help break up the text and make your book easier to navigate.
3. Paragraph spacing
Another important aspect of formatting a book in Word is setting the appropriate paragraph spacing. Too much space between paragraphs can make the text appear disconnected and difficult to read, while too little space can make it seem cramped and cluttered. The best way to determine the ideal paragraph spacing for your book is to experiment with different settings until you find a look that feels right.
Generally, starting with moderately wide margins is a good idea, then adjusting the spacing as needed. Remember that your book looks on the screen may not be identical to how it will look when printed, so it’s always a good idea to check your formatting before sending your file to the printer.
4. Headers and footers
One thing to keep in mind is to use headers and footers. The first step is to create a separate section for each chapter. Go to the Layout tab and click on Breaks > Next Page. This will insert a break and start a new section on the next page. Then, go to the Insert tab and click on Header. From the drop-down menu, select the desired header style. For instance, you might choose to have the chapter name and number appear in the header of each page.
Once you have inserted the header, you can add text by clicking in the header area and typing or by inserting objects such as images or shapes. To format the footer, go to the Insert tab and click on Footer. From the drop-down menu, select the desired footer style. For example, you might choose to have the page number appear in the footer of each page. Once you have inserted the footer, you can add text or objects in the same way as with the header.
5. Section breaks
When formatting a book in Word, section breaks are an essential tool to use. Section breaks allow you to control the formatting of your document, which can be very helpful when you want to change the layout of your book. For example, if you’re going to start a new chapter on a new page, you can insert a section break before the chapter begins. Or, if you want to change the margins or page orientation for a specific section of your book, you can insert a section break and then make the changes.
Section breaks are also helpful if you need to insert extra space between parts of your book, such as between chapters or sections. To insert a section break in Word, go to the Insert tab and click on the Section Break button. Then choose where you want to insert the break. You can choose between a subsequent page, continuous, even page, or odd page break. Once inserted into the break, you can format your document as desired. Experiment with different section breaks to see what works best for your book.
6. Page numbering
Also, don’t forget to add page numbers to your book. Page numbers help readers keep track of their place in the book and make it easy to reference specific sections. To add page numbers in Word, go to the Insert tab and click on the Page Number button. From the drop-down menu, select where you want the page number to appear on the page.
If you’re unsure where to start, try selecting Top of Page > Plain Number 3. This will insert the page number at the top of each page in the right corner. You can then format the page number by clicking on it and selecting Format Page Numbers from the contextual menu that appears. From here, you can change the alignment, font, and color of the page number.
7. Table of contents
One of the most important aspects of formatting a book in Word is creating a table of contents . A table of contents allows readers to quickly and easily find the information they need, and it also helps to break up the text so that it is easy to read. There are a few formatting tips to keep in mind when creating a table of contents. First, use clear and concise headings so readers can quickly identify the relevant section.
Second, ensure consistent formatting throughout the document so that the table of contents is easy to navigate. Finally, proofread the table of contents carefully before publishing to ensure accuracy. By following these formatting tips, you can create a table of contents that will be user-friendly and visually appealing.
8. Bookmarks
Bookmarks are an excellent way for readers to quickly and easily find the information they need. You can use bookmarks to link to specific sections of your book, and they can also be used to create a table of contents or index. To add a bookmark in Word, go to the Insert tab and click on the Bookmark button. Then enter a name for the bookmark and select the location where you want it to appear.
Once you’ve inserted the bookmark, you can link to it by creating a hyperlink. To do this, highlight the text you want to link and click on the Insert Hyperlink button. In the window that appears, enter the bookmark’s name in the Link field and click OK. Your text will now be linked to the bookmark, and readers can quickly and easily find the information they need.
9. Front matter
Front matter is the material that appears at the beginning of a book. This includes things like the title page, copyright page, and dedication. The front matter is crucial because it sets the stage for the rest of the book. Formatting the front matter correctly will help to ensure that your book has a professional appearance.
When formatting the front matter, there are a few things to remember. First, make sure to include all of the required elements. Second, use consistent formatting throughout the document. Finally, be sure to proofread carefully before publishing . By following these tips, you can ensure that your book’s front matter is both complete and accurate.
10. Back matter
The back matter of a book is everything that comes after the text. This includes the appendix, the index, the bibliography, and any other materials that are not essential to the story but may interest the reader. Formatting the back matter can be tricky, but there are a few tips to keep in mind. First, make sure that all of the pages are numbered consecutively.
Second, use headers and footers to keep the page numbering consistent and easy to follow. Finally, if your book includes an index, format it according to your style guide. Attention to detail ensures that your book’s back matter is correctly formatted and easy to navigate.
Five common mistakes when formatting a book in Word
Even with careful attention to detail, it’s easy to make mistakes while formatting a book. Here are five common mistakes people make when formatting a book in Word. By avoiding these mistakes, you can ensure that your book has a professional appearance.
1. Not proofreading formatting changes
One of the most common mistakes people make when formatting a book in Word is not proofreading their formatting changes. It can be easy to miss errors when you’re making a lot of changes at once, but even a tiny mistake can throw off the entire layout of your book. That’s why it’s essential to take a few moments to proofread your work after you’ve made any formatting changes.
Look over your book carefully to ensure that all of the text is aligned correctly and that there are no stray spacing or margin issues. If you catch a mistake, go back and fix it before moving on. Taking the time to proofread will save you a lot of headaches down the road.
2. Not knowing when to start a new page
One of the most common mistakes is not knowing when to start a new page. If you insert too many breaks, your pages will become cluttered and difficult to read. On the other hand, if you don’t insert enough breaks, your text will run together, and your reader will lose their place. So how do you know when to start a new page?
Generally speaking, you should start a new page whenever a significant change in scene or time occurs. For example, if your character is moving from one location to another, or if there is a time jump of more than a few hours or days, you would start a new page. You should also create a new page whenever there is a change in perspective, such as switching from one character’s point of view to another.
3. Inconsistent margins or font sizes
Inconsistent margins or font sizes are people’s most common mistakes when formatting a book in Microsoft Word. The problem is that Word’s default settings are not conducive to creating a well-formatted book. The margins are too small, and the font size is too large.
As a result, people often end up with pages that look cluttered and unfinished. To avoid this problem, it’s essential to take the time to adjust the margins and font size to create a more pleasing and professional-looking book. With a little effort, you can ensure that your book will make a great impression on your readers.
4. Inaccurate front and back matter
Another mistake people make when formatting a book in Word is including inaccurate front and back matter. The front matter of a book typically consists of the title page, copyright page, and dedication, while the back matter typically includes the appendices and index. When formatting these pages in Word, it’s essential to use the correct layouts and spacing.
Otherwise, your book will look unprofessional and could be rejected by literary agents or publishing houses. To avoid this mistake, take the time to learn how to format a book in Word. Plenty of resources are available online, so there’s no excuse for getting it wrong.
5. Forgetting about bookmarks and hyperlinks
Bookmarks and hyperlinks are essential when formatting a book in Word. Without them, your book will be challenging to navigate, and readers will quickly become frustrated. The good news is that they’re easy to set up, and there’s no need to hire a professional to do it for you. Open your Word document, select the “Insert” tab, and then click on “Bookmark.” from there, you can choose where you want to insert your bookmark and give it a name.
To create a hyperlink, highlight the text you want to link, click on the “Insert” tab, and click on “Hyperlink.” Enter the URL of the page you want to link to and click “OK.” With just a few clicks, you can easily add bookmarks and hyperlinks to your book formatting in Word – so be sure not to forget about them.
Frequently asked questions
Here are answers to some of your frequently asked questions about formatting a book in Word!
How many pages should I have in my book?
As any writer knows, there is no easy answer when determining how many pages should be in a book. Several factors must be considered, including the subject matter, the target audience, and the desired length of the finished product. In general, however, most books fall between 200 and 400 pages. Shorter works, such as novellas and short stories, typically fall on the lower end of this range.
Longer works, such as novels and non-fiction books, often fall on the higher end. Of course, there are always exceptions to this rule – some novels may be shorter than 200 pages, while others may exceed 400 pages – but generally, this is a good starting point for deciding how many pages should be in your book.
What’s the best way to format my book title?
While there are many different ways to format a book title, some strategies are more effective than others. One important consideration is ensuring the title is easy to read and understand at a glance. For this reason, it’s generally best to avoid overly long or complicated titles.
It can also be helpful to use italics or quotation marks to set the title apart from the rest of the text. Additionally, suppose the title includes a subtitle. In that case, it’s usually best to place a colon after the main title to indicate that the two parts of the title are related. Considering these factors, you can ensure that your book title will be as effective as possible.
Formatting a book in Word can be challenging, but it’s essential to get it right if you want your book to look professional. With a little effort, you can avoid common mistakes and ensure that your book will make a great impression on readers. By following these tips, you’ll be well at formatting a book like a pro!
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Home / Book Writing / How to Write a Book Using Microsoft Word
How to Write a Book Using Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word has been a go-to tool for authors for nearly forty years. Not only is it the industry standard for editors and agents, but it can also be used to format your book (although I wouldn't advise it).
And since most people already have Word on their computers, it's often the first stop on the book-writing journey. So read on as we explore how to write a book using Microsoft Word.
- Pros and cons of using Word.
- Basics for writing using Word
- Advanced features for using Word
- Whether Word is the best book writing tool
The Tool Built for Writing Books
As you’ll see in this article, Word is adequate for writing books. But for indie authors, it’s certainly not the best tool. Even after you write your book in Word, you’ll need to format it before you sell any copies. And formatting requires either a separate tool or a professional (and expensive) formatter.
This is why we created Atticus as a better alternative to Word and other basic tools like it. Atticus is a word-processor, formatter, simple design tool, and a goal-tracker all at once. It’s a powerful but easy-to-use tool that can allow you to see how your finished book will look as you write it! These are just a few of the features Atticus offers. Plus, we’re working on a ton of new features like collaboration and editing that will be out soon.
There’s no subscription. Just a one-time price that includes all future updates.
If you want to see Atticus in action, check out this article . And if you want to see how to write a book using Word, keep on reading!
Pros and Cons of Writing With Word
There are a lot of word processors out there designed for book-writing. With all these options, how does Word measure up? Well, there are some definite pros and cons that will help you decide.
- Often included with your computer.
- Plenty of options for a tailored writing experience.
- Provides an auto-save function you can use.
- Has a good grammar and spelling tool included.
- Track Changes is used by most editors.
- Expensive if you have to buy it.
- Can be distracting with all the options.
- Not ideal for ebook or print book formatting.
- Long documents can get cumbersome.
Video: How to Write a Book in Word
For a nice summary of this article, along with a few of my own personal thoughts on the subject, be sure to check out this video on how to write a book in Microsoft Word.
Want more videos like this? Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for weekly videos!
The Basics of Book Writing in Word
MS Word has a ton of features. This is good because it gives you options, allowing you to choose how best to build your writing experience . But there's such a thing as too many options, and it's easy to get bogged down in them.
Luckily, you don't need to familiarize yourself with many Word features to get started. In fact, you can get by just fine with the basics.
For those who crave a simple, uncluttered writing process, the basics will be more than enough.
Font Size and Style
When you open a new Word document, you'll see a default font style and size on the Home tab. Usually, this is Calibri or Times New Roman for the style, and 11 for the font size. Feel free to change these. Times New Roman and 12-point font are the widely accepted standard manuscript format.
If you are querying a literary agent or sending the document to an editor, they may have their submission guidelines, so remember to check.
If you're going to self-publish (and you totally should), then simply choose a font size and style that you like. You'll likely change it during formatting, anyway.
Chapter Headings
You'll want a way to navigate easily through your document when the word count gets high. To do this, use the Styles option on the Home toolbar in Word.
You can highlight your chapter heading or number, which will bring up a toolbar with the Styles option in it. Or you can simply place your cursor in or next to your heading and then select the Styles option from the toolbar near the top of your screen.
I'd suggest using the Header 1 option for chapter headings . This way, you can use Header 2 for subheadings or scene breaks.
You can also pick “Create a Style” and make your own headings, using a color and font of your choice if you don't like the defaults. But since you'll likely end up changing the chapter styles later anyway, it's not necessary.
Once you start using Headings, you'll want to activate the Navigation Pane so you can click around your book easily. When you're working on a long document, this is a massive time-saver.
To do this, click on the View tab from the top toolbar. Just left of center, you'll see an option that says “Navigation Pane Show.” Simply click the box. If you don't have any headings yet, they'll automatically populate there once you do.
If you don't want to have the Navigation Pane up while you write, simply click it off and click it back on whenever you want to use it!
Find and Replace
Using the Find or Find and Replace feature in Microsoft Word can make your life easier when editing or trying to remember what color a certain character's eyes were. (If you’re not using character profiles , that is.)
On the Home toolbar, you'll see the Editing feature next to the Styles feature. Click on this to use the Find or Find and Replace tool, depending on what you need.
If you're writing to meet daily goals (which you totally should!), then it's important to know your word count. Luckily, Word makes this easy by automatically displaying the word count at the bottom left corner of the window. (It displays the page number, as well.)
If you want to know how many words are in a certain section, you can highlight that section, and the program will automatically count them and display them in the bottom left corner. Easy!
That's it for the basics! Using those four basic tools, you'll be able to write your book in Word. But what if you're a plotter or you want to get a jump on formatting? Or maybe you just want to know about some other features you can use. Well, read on for some advanced tips!
(If you're writing a book for something like National Novel Writing Month , I'd stick with the basics above. NaNoWriMo is all about getting the words down. You can worry about prettying them up later!)
Advanced Word Book Writing
MS Word is a word processor. It's a powerful one, but it's still mainly a word processor. Now, that doesn't mean you can't do other things with it, like format for submission to a publishing house. You can.
But if you're mainly concerned with formatting your manuscript for submission to traditional publishing channels, check out our in-depth article on manuscript formatting . In it, we cover things like title page creation, margins, and headers and footers.
If you want to know a bit more about Microsoft Word features that can help you write your book, read on!
When ending a chapter, it's a good idea to use the Page Break feature instead of hitting enter a bunch of times to get to the next page.
To do this, click on the Insert tab on the top toolbar. On the very left-hand side of the bar, you'll see the Page Break option at the bottom. Just make sure your cursor is beyond the last character at the end of the chapter!
Using a Template
There are plenty of templates you can use with your Microsoft Word document. When you first open the word processor, you'll see some Word templates offered next to the basic Blank Document option. You'll also see a More Templates option so you can search for a specific type of Word template.
Most of these aren't great for books, although you can likely find one or two with most (if not all) of the standard manuscript formatting in place. But if you're making a booklet or you know there's a book template available online, feel free to use them.
Just be aware that your Word document will probably still require you to use a book formatting software if you want a professional-looking book for self-publishing.
The Layout Tab
The default page size in Word is 8.5 by 11 inches. Most books are much smaller than this. So if you want to change your document to reflect the smaller page size, you can do so in the Layout Tab.
This is also the place to change your margins with the Margins tab located in the Page Setup section. You'll also see options to change the paragraph indents and spacing if you want.
Editing Your Word Document
Word has a built-in spelling and grammar checker under the Review tab. It's a good idea to do at least one pass with this. You can also access the Editor at the right side of the Home tab. It's also worth doing another pass with a proofreading tool like ProWritingAid , Grammarly, or one of the many other options available.
The Review tab has a lot of useful stuff for editing. You can use the Read Aloud feature to help you find awkward sentences or minor mistakes you didn't see on other editing passes. After sending your polished manuscript off to an editor (every writer should hire an editor!) you'll likely use the Review tab to accept or decline changes made to the document.
Should You Use Word for Book Writing?
If you're planning on self-publishing your book, Word is an adequate option. But if you want to make things (a lot) easier, we recommend using a writing tool that's designed for writing books.
As mentioned above, we recommend Atticus . It is an all-in-one writing and formatting software made by yours truly with help from some truly awesome developers. With Atticus, you don't have to worry about setting margins or page size — or even font type. This is all stuff that you can do with a few clicks of the mouse when you're ready to export your finished product.
It includes a bunch of templates that will automatically format your book with the click of a button. And you can export it as a PDF file, a DOCX document for use in Word, or the industry-standard EPUB file for selling your book through online retailers.
Essentially, it's like Word but without all the unneeded options — and a bunch of other options that you’ll actually use! It's easy to use and makes everything from writing and editing to formatting and exporting a breeze.
But we know Atticus might not be ideal for everyone. You can check out our article on the best book writing software here for more options.
If you're writing a blog post or a short story for online publication, Microsoft Word is a pretty great option. But things start to get a little unwieldy when you're working on a long document. Plus, you'll need to use a book formatting software for a professionally formatted book.
But if Word is what you're comfortable with and you just want to get the words on the page, why wait!? Use the basics above and get to writing today!
Dave Chesson
When I’m not sipping tea with princesses or lightsaber dueling with little Jedi, I’m a book marketing nut. Having consulted multiple publishing companies and NYT best-selling authors, I created Kindlepreneur to help authors sell more books. I’ve even been called “The Kindlepreneur” by Amazon publicly, and I’m here to help you with your author journey.
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4 Ways Writing a Book Accelerated My Professional Career Thinking of writing a book? Here are four amazing benefits I noticed after writing mine — and how you can benefit from writing one, too.
By Dejon Brooks • May 19, 2023
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Have you ever thought about writing a book ? Believe it or not, most people have thought about writing a book, but very few people follow through with it.
I ended up writing my book for fun, but I had no idea how many doors it would open for me. Not only has it opened doors for me professionally, but it also made it easier for me to make friends and date — and I've also been able to use it as a tool to get into certain rooms I usually wouldn't have access to.
In this article, I'm going to share how I accidentally wrote a book and how I was able to accelerate my professional career with it.
Related: 5 Ways Your Business Will Benefit From You Writing a Book
How I wrote a book by accident
Writing a book is a huge commitment. Most books on the market have between 30,00 to 50,000 words, so writing a book by accident makes no sense.
Luckily for me, I was good at keeping a digital journal . In this digital journal, I documented the lows and highs of starting a company in my parents' basement. In this journal, I wrote everything I learned, the mistakes I made and everything else in between.
At a certain point, I looked at my entire journal and realized it was enough to turn it into a book. Over the next two weeks, I put together a book cover and immediately ordered a marketing copy (an empty book for marketing purposes).
Once my marketing copy came in, I hired a photographer for a photo shoot and rebranded my entire online presence to pre-sell and build up hype for the book.
As I did this, I noticed some interesting things I initially never expected:
I started getting job offers (and accepted one)
One thing I did not expect from writing and marketing my book online was that companies would approach me with job offers for marketing and writing. I wasn't getting dozens of offers each week, but once or twice a week, a new opportunity would make its way to me, specifically through social media.
This started to happen after I began marketing my book on Instagram. I took a part-time copywriting gig in mid-2022 and recently accepted a Chief Marketing Officer position at a commercial real estate company. All of these opportunities arose because of my book.
My book "pre-sold" me and made me stand out. It got me in the door. All I had to do was attend the interview and close the deal.
Related: The World's Best Marketing Tool: Writing a Book
It allowed me to start charging what I am worth
Writing a book, especially within your expertise, is a great way to shoot your credibility through the roof. After I started publicly marketing my book online, I felt way more comfortable and confident charging exactly what I'm worth.
I already accumulated the skills and portfolio, but having a book helped me feel more confident when asking for those prices.
Whenever I am faced with objections, I noticed that they are more focused on the price, delivery of service and fear of taking action. I get fewer objections on the topic of credibility.
Networking is a million times easier
One thing that has gotten significantly easier after writing a book is networking . Not only have I been able to meet lots of cool and high-profile people online through platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, but I've also been able to connect with people in person as well.
One of my favorite tricks is bringing a physical copy of my book everywhere I go. Naturally, as I go through my day, people ask me, "Oh, what book are you reading?" This serves as the perfect transition for me to dive into the book I wrote and get more into exactly what I do.
These conversations lead to us exchanging contact information and potentially working together in the future. I've also been able to make lots of friends this way as well.
Related: Looking for a Game-Changing Way to Showcase Your Expertise? Why a Book Is the 'World's Best Business Card'
More speaking opportunities
Publicly advertising my book online has made it easier for me to attract and land speaking opportunities . Having a book is a great way to boost your credibility, but speaking about the book can open many doors as well. These doors include:
Networking opportunities
Opportunities to get new clients
Partnerships
Friendships
Plus so much more!
Getting book sales is amazing, but there is even more money to be made on the back end through various things such as speaking events, workshops, interviews, etc.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I never planned to write a book. It all happened accidentally, but I'm grateful I did it because the benefits are amazing — especially the professional benefits.
Don't get me wrong: Writing a book takes some work and requires quite a bit of sacrifice. But if you want to take your professional career or life to the next level, you should highly consider writing a book . You'd be surprised as to where it will take you.
Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor
CEO & Founder of Trend Watchers
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Home » 6 Cara Membuat Buku Di Word Sampai Jadi
6 Cara Membuat Buku Di Word Sampai Jadi
- September 2, 2020
- menulis buku , Tutorial
- 4,524 views
Cara membuat buku di word memang tidak semua penulis bisa melakukannya secara langsung. Hal ini wajar, mengingat setiap penulis memiliki gayanya masing-masing. Ada yang lebih nyaman menulis di corat-coret terlebih dulu sebelum menulis di word.
Sedangkan ada pula penulis yang bisa langsung menulis di Ms Word secara spontan. Nah, bagaimana dengan Anda? Apakah Anda salah satu yang menulis langsung di word? Atau memilih menulis secara manual terlebih dahulu?
Saya pribadi lebih nyaman dan terbiasa membuat buku langsung di word. Banyak yang beranggapan bahwa menulis di word secara langsung itu sulit dibandingkan menulis secara manual. Bagi saya, biasa saja. Mungkin karena saya sudah dari awal membiasakan diri menulis buku ataupun menulis artikel langsung di layar ketik MS Word.
Jadi, pada kesempatan kali ini saya akan berbagai cara membuat buku di word. Semoga tips dan kiat yang saya bagikan di bawah ini bermanfaat.
1. Menentukan Tema
Cara membuat buku di word biasanya saya akan menentukan tema atau mencari-cari topic yang membuat saya menarik. Saya tidak akan menulis tema yang tidak saya sukai atau tidak saya senangi. Bagaimanapun juga, ini adalah menulis buku, bukan menulis artikel yang hanya beberapa lembar, tetapi berpuluh-puluh halaman tebalnya.
Itu sebabnya mencari tema sangat saya perhatikan. Saya cenderung memilih tema yang tidak jauh dari apa yang saya kuasai atau saya ketahui. Misalnya saya suka dunia tanam menanam, maka saya pun akan lebih bebas dan lebih eksplore ketika menuliskan buku tentang tanaman dibandingkan saya menuliskan tentang perpolitikan.
Bagaimanapun juga, membuat buku itu memiliki beban moral yang lebih besar dan berat. Contoh sederhana, ketika saya menulis tema yang tidak saya kuasai, tidak hanya dari segi biaya yang saya keluarkan lebih banyak. Tetapi juga pemikiran dan waktu. Karena saya harus merelakan waktu dan tenaga untuk melakukan kajian literatur, membeli buku untuk membukakan sudut pandang tentang tema buku yang ditulis dan masih banyak lagi yang harus dikorbankan.
2. Membuat Kerangka
Cara membuat buku di word yang kedua, tentu saja saya membuat kerangka di Ms word. Haruskah membuat kerangka tulisan buku? Sebenarnya tidak wajib, lagi-lagi tergantung selera dan gaya si penulis. Jika saya lebih mudah menggunakan kerangka.
Kerangka sangat membantu saya untuk mengingatkan gagasan yang hendak dituliskan. Hal yang saya senangi dari membuat kerangka saat menulis buku adalah, tidak memakan waktu sia-sia. Biasanya ketika saya sudah asyik menulis di bab 1, saya sering terganggu bahkan ide awal yang hendak saya tuliskan hilang.
Nah, untuk meminimalisir hal-hal seperti itu, kerangka tulisan sangat efektif saya kembali ke koridor penulisan. Setidaknya kerangka tulisan mengembalikan saya untuk kembali sesuai dengan tujuan awal saya menulis akan menuliskan apa saja. Dari segi pengerjaannya pun juga lebih efektif dan efisien. Akibat tidak menggunakan kerangka, akan kehilangan fokus dan moody. Padahal untuk mengembalikan moody itu tidaklah mudah.
Baca juga : 4 Kesalahan Pra Writing – Cara Menulis Buku untuk Diterbitkan
3. Membuat Sub Poin Di Tiap Kerangka
Membuat kerangka saja tidak cukup. Kerangka tulisan dalam menulis buku itu hanya poin-poin saja. Terkadang, otak kita tetap lupa dengan poin yang hendak disampaikan bukan? Karena alasan itulah, saya pun sering juga membuat sub poin di setiap kerangka. Sering juga saya menuliskan catatan kecil di bawah kerangka sekedar mengingatkan sebelum mengembangkan.
Jadi, ketika pertama kali saya membuka lembar kerja Ms Word, saya tidak langsung menjabarkan tulisan. Tetapi membuat kerangka dan membuat catatan-catatan kecil. Tentu saja catatan atau sub poin tersebut akan dikembangkan lebih detail dan lebih fokus. Biasanya ini saya lakukan hanya sekedar mengarahkan saya untuk menulis sesuai trek awal.
Baca juga : Cara Menulis Buku Referensi yang Baik
4. Membiasakan Diri Menulis Di MS Word Langsung
Cara membuat buku di word secara langsung memang tidak instans. Saya membiasakan diri menulis di Ms Word itu sejak tahun 2006 yang lalu, ketika masih di bangku SMP. Awalnya memang sok, tidak tahu apa yang harus saya tulis. Menentukan tema saja juga tidak becus. Namun saya memaksakan diri untuk menulis di Ms Word secara langsung.
Sejam atau dua jam di rental komputer sekedar mencoba menulis secara langsung, tetap tidak bisa. Kadang zonk, tidak menghasilkan tulisan sama sekali. Saya lakukan hari berikutnya dan begitu seterusnya. Sampai dimana saya mulai bisa meluapkan emosi dan mengetik di depan komputer.
Kendala yang paling sangat terasa saat menulis langsung di Ms Word adalah, kecepatan imajinasi di dalam otak dengan keterampilan mengetik parah menjadi kendala utama. Sehingga sering mengalami ‘ketinggalan ide’, karena memang hanya mengetik menggunakan 2 telunjuk saja. Dari situlah saya belajar dan membiasakan mengetik menggunakan 10 jari.
Baca juga : Cara Menulis Buku Praktikum yang Benar
5. Mampu Melawan Rasa Malas & Bosan
Memang sekedar menguasai cara membuat buku di word secara langsung itu tidak semudah judul yang saya tulis. Nyatanya saya bisa melaluinya memakan waktu dan penempaan diri bertahun-tahun lamanya. Selama proses membiasakan diri menulis buku di Ms Word secara langsung tentu saja ada rasa malas dan bosan. Siapa sih yang tidak memiliki rasa seperti itu? Pasti semua orang merasakannya, saya pun demikian.
Sejak dulu saya berusaha untuk keras pada diri sendiri. Melawan rasa malas dan melawan rasa bosan. Saat saya ingin bersantai, saya memaksakan diri untuk mencoba menulis dan menulis. Ketika saya rasa malas dan bosan menyeruak, saya menekan tombol di otak saya. Bahwa saya ingin mendapatkan uang banyak dari menulis, dari situlah saya akan kembali on dan mencoba menulis lagi.
Yah, walaupun menjadi penulis itu tidak bisa kaya raya. Namun jika itu dijadikan sebagai motivasi untuk diri sendiri, tidak ada masalah.
Baca juga : Menulis Buku Tanpa Pusing, Ikuti Trik Jitu Latihan Menulis Berikut
6. Menjadi Kebiasaan
Setelah mengikuti semua cara membuat buku di word di atas, maka akan menjadi kebiasaan. Saya mulai terbiasa menulis menggunakan 10 jari sekitar tahun 2012 ketika saya sudah bekerja sebagai operator rental komputer. Karena disanalah saya bisa membiasakan diri mengetik 10 jari.
Kala itu juga, di sela waktu, profesi sampingan sebagai penulis artikel freelance yang dituntut untuk menulis banyak artikel. Dari situ pulalah, yang membiasakan saya menulis langsung di Ms word tanpa repot. Cukup disodorkan tema, bisa langsung dikerjakan, ide berjalan sambil menulis.
Jika dulu selalu terjadi ‘ketinggalan ide’ sekarang sudah tidak lagi. Jika dulu mengalami kesulitan menentukan tema, sekarang sudah tidak begitu. Tapi ingat, dari cara membuat buku di word secara langsung di atas memakan waktu bertahun-tahun.
Butuh pembiasaan dan kedisiplinan. Nah, buat yang baca artikel ini, yang memiliki cita-cita menulis, kalian juga bisa melakukannya dengan cara membiasakan diri mulai dari sekarang. ( Irukawa Elisa )
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AI Writing Detection Capabilities - Frequently Asked Questions
How do Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities work?
1. does turnitin offer a solution to detect ai writing .
Yes. Turnitin has released its AI writing detection capabilities to help educators uphold academic integrity while ensuring that students are treated fairly.
We have added an AI writing indicator to the Similarity Report. It shows an overall percentage of the document that AI writing tools, such as ChatGPT, may have generated. The indicator further links to a report which highlights the text segments that our model predicts were written by AI. Please note, only instructors and administrators are able to see the indicator.
While Turnitin has confidence in its model, Turnitin does not make a determination of misconduct, rather it provides data for the educators to make an informed decision based on their academic and institutional policies. Hence, we must emphasize that the percentage on the AI writing indicator should not be used as the sole basis for action or a definitive grading measure by instructors.
2. How does it work?
When a paper is submitted to Turnitin, the submission is first broken into segments of text that are roughly a few hundred words (about five to ten sentences). Those segments are then overlapped with each other to capture each sentence in context.
The segments are run against our AI detection model and we give each sentence a score between 0 and 1 to determine whether it is written by a human or by AI. If our model determines that a sentence was not generated by AI, it will receive a score of 0. If it determines the entirety of the sentence was generated by AI it will receive a score of 1.
Using the average scores of all the segments within the document, the model then generates an overall prediction of how much text in the submission we believe has been generated by AI.
Currently, Turnitin’s AI writing detection model is trained to detect content from the GPT-3 and GPT-3.5 language models, which includes ChatGPT. Because the writing characteristics of GPT-4 are consistent with earlier model versions, our detector is able to detect content from GPT-4 (ChatGPT Plus) most of the time. We are actively working on expanding our model to enable us to better detect content from other AI language models.
3. What parameters or flags does Turnitin’s model take into account when detecting AI writing?
GPT-3 and ChatGPT are trained on the text of the entire internet, and they are essentially taking that large amount of text and generating sequences of words based on picking the next highly probable words. This means that GPT-3 and ChatGPT tend to generate the next word in a sequence of words in a consistent and highly probable fashion. Human writing, on the other hand, tends to be inconsistent and idiosyncratic, resulting in a low probability of picking the next word the human will use in the sequence.
Our classifiers are trained to detect these differences in word probability and are adept to the particular word probability sequences of human writers.
4. How was Turnitin’s model trained?
Our model is trained on a representative sample of data that includes both AI-generated and authentic academic writing. While creating our sample dataset, we took into account statistically under-represented groups like second-language learners, English users from non-English speaking countries, students at colleges and universities with diverse enrollments, and less common subject areas such as anthropology, geology, sociology, and others.
5. Can I check past submitted assignments for AI writing?
Yes. Previously submitted assignments can be checked for AI writing detection if they’re re-submitted to Turnitin. Only assignments that are submitted after the launch of our capability (4th April 2023) are automatically checked for AI writing detection.
6. What languages are supported?
English. For the first iteration of Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities, we are able to detect AI writing for documents submitted in long-form English only.
7. What will happen if a non-English paper is submitted?
If a non-English paper is submitted, the detector will not process the submission. The indicator will show an empty/error state with ‘in-app’ guidance that will tell users that this capability only works for English submissions at this time. No report will be generated if the submitted content is not in English.
8. Can my institution get access to AI detection to be able to trial this new capability?
Yes, admins can set-up test accounts and allow instructors to use and assess the feature. If you’re an existing TFS customer, your admin will be able to create a sub-account and enable AI writing for only that account for testing purposes.
If you’re an Originality, Similarity or Simcheck customer, you can request test accounts by contacting your account manager or CSM.
New customers should speak to a Turnitin representative about getting a test account.
9. Can I or my admin suppress the new indicator and report if we do not want to see it?
Yes, admins have the option to enable/disable the AI writing feature from their admin settings page. Disabling the feature will remove the AI writing indicator & report from the Similarity report and it won’t be visible to instructors and admins until they enable it again.
10. Will the addition of Turnitin’s AI detection functionality to the Similarity report change my workflow or the way I use the Similarity report?
No. This additional functionality does not change the way you use the Similarity report or your existing workflows. Our AI detection capabilities have been added to the Similarity report to provide a seamless experience for our customers.
11. Will the AI detection capabilities be available via LMSs such as Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas, etc?
Yes, users will be able to see the indicator and the report via the LMS they’re using. We have made AI writing detection available via the Similarity report. There is no AI writing indicator or score embedded directly in the LMS user interface and users will need to go into the report to see the AI score.
12. Does the MS Teams integration support the AI writing detection feature?
AI writing detection is only available to instructors using the new Turnitin Feedback Studio integration . Since the MS Teams Assignment Similarity integration does not offer an instructor view due to Turnitin not receiving user metadata, AI writing detection is unavailable.
If an instructor using the Similarity integration has a concern that a report may have been written with an AI writing tool, they can request that their administrator use the paper lookup tool to view a full report.
13. How is authorship detection within Originality different from AI writing detection?
Turnitin’s AI writing detection technology is different from the technology used within Authorship (Originality). Our AI writing detection model calculates the overall percentage of text in the submitted document that was likely generated by an AI writing tool. Authorship, on the other hand, uses metadata as well as forensic language analysis to detect if the submitted assignment was written by someone other than the student. It will not be able to indicate if it was AI written; only that the content is not the student’s own work.
AI detection results & interpretation
1. what does the percentage in the ai writing detection indicator mean .
The percentage indicates the amount of qualifying text within the submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model determines was generated by AI. This qualifying text includes only prose sentences, meaning that we only analyze blocks of text that are written in standard grammatical sentences and do not include other types of writing such as lists, bullet points, or other non-sentence structures.
This percentage is not necessarily the percentage of the entire submission. If text within the submission is not considered long-form prose text, it will not be included.
2. What is the accuracy of Turnitin’s AI writing indicator?
We strive to maximize the effectiveness of our detector while keeping our false positive rate - incorrectly identifying fully human-written text as AI-generated - under 1% for documents with over 20% of AI writing. In other words, we might flag a human-written document as AI-written for one out of every 100 fully-human written documents.
To bolster our testing framework and diagnose statistical trends of false positives, in April 2023 we performed additional tests on 800,000 additional academic papers that were written before the release of ChatGPT to further validate our less than 1% false positive rate.
In order to maintain this low rate of 1% for false positives, there is a chance that we might miss 15% of AI written text in a document. We’re comfortable with that since we do not want to incorrectly highlight human-written text as AI-written. For example, if we identify that 50% of a document is likely written by an AI tool, it could contain as much as 65% AI writing.
We’re committed to safeguarding the interests of students while helping institutions maintain high standards of academic integrity. We will continue to adapt and optimize our model based on our learnings from real-world document submissions, and as large language models evolve to ensure we maintain this less than 1% false positive rate.
3. How does Turnitin ensure that the false positive rate for a document remains less than 1%?
Since the launch of our solution in April, we tested 800,000 academic papers that were written before the release of ChatGPT. Based on the results of these tests, we made the below updates to our model in May to ensure we hold steadfast on our objective of keeping our false positive rate below 1% for a document.
- Added an additional indicator for documents with less than 20% AI writing detected We learned that our AI writing detection scores under 20% have a higher incidence of false positives.This is inconsistent behavior, and we will continue to test to understand the root cause. In order to reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation, we have updated the AI indicator button in the Similarity Report to contain an asterisk for percentages less than 20% to call attention to the fact that the score is less reliable.
- Increased the minimum word count from 150 to 300 words Based on our data and testing, we increased the minimum word requirement from 150 to 300 words for a document to be evaluated by our AI writing detector. Results show that our accuracy increases with just a little more text, and our goal is to focus on long-form writing. We may adjust this minimum word requirement over time based on the continuous evaluation of our model.
- Changed how we aggregate sentences in the beginning and at the end of a submission We observed a higher incidence of false positives in the first few or last few sentences of a document. Usually, this is the introduction and conclusion in a document. As a result, we changed how we aggregate these specific sentences for detection to reduce false positives.
4. The percentage shown sometimes doesn’t match the amount of text highlighted. Why is that?
Unlike our Similarity Report, the AI writing percentage does not necessarily correlate to the amount of text in the submission. Turnitin’s AI writing detection model only looks for prose sentences contained in long-form writing. Prose text contained in long-form writing means individual sentences contained in paragraphs that make up a longer piece of written work, such as an essay, a dissertation, or an article, etc. The model does not reliably detect AI-generated text in the form of non-prose, such as poetry, scripts, or code, nor does it detect short-form/unconventional writing such as bullet points, tables, or annotated bibliographies.
This means that a document containing several different writing types would result in a disparity between the percentage and the highlights.
5. What do the different indicators mean?
Upon opening the Similarity Report, after a short period of processing, the AI writing detection indicator will show one of the following:
- Blue with a percentage between 0 and 100: The submission has processed successfully. The displayed percentage indicates the amount of qualifying text within the submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model determines was generated by AI. As noted previously, this percentage is not necessarily the percentage of the entire submission. If text within the submission was not considered long-form prose text, it will not be included. To explore the results of the AI writing detection capabilities, select the indicator to open the AI writing report. Our testing has found that there is a higher incidence of false positives when the percentage is less than 20. In order to reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation, the AI indicator will display an asterisk for percentages less than 20 to call attention to the fact that the score is less reliable. To explore the results of the AI writing detection capabilities, select the indicator to open the AI writing report. The AI writing report opens in a new tab of the window used to launch the Similarity Report. If you have a pop-up blocker installed, ensure it allows Turnitin pop-ups.
- Gray with no percentage displayed (- -): The AI writing detection indicator is unable to process this submission. This can be due to one, or several, of the following reasons: - The submission was made before the release of Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities. The only way to see the AI writing detection indicator/report on historical submissions is to resubmit them. - The submission does not meet the file requirements needed to successfully process it for AI writing detection. In order for a submission to generate an AI writing report and percentage, the submission needs to meet the following requirements: - File size must be less than 100 MB - File must have at least 300 words of prose text in a long-form writing format - Files must not exceed 15,000 words - File must be written in English - Accepted file types: .docx, .pdf, .txt, .rtf
- Error ( ! ): This error means that Turnitin has failed to process the submission. Turnitin is constantly working to improve its service, but unfortunately, events like this can occur. Please try again later. If the file meets all the file requirements stated above, and this error state still shows, please get in touch through our support center so we can investigate for you.
6. What can I do if I feel that the AI indicator is incorrect? How does Turnitin’s indicator address false positives?
If you find AI written documents that we've missed, or notice authentic student work that we've predicted as AI-generated, please let us know! Your feedback is crucial in enabling us to improve our technology further. You can provide feedback via the ‘feedback’ button found in the AI writing report.
Sometimes false positives (incorrectly flagging human-written text as AI-generated), can include lists without a lot of structural variation, text that literally repeats itself, or text that has been paraphrased without developing new ideas. If our indicator shows a higher amount of AI writing in such text, we advise you to take that into consideration when looking at the percentage indicated.
In a longer document with a mix of authentic writing and AI generated text, it can be difficult to exactly determine where the AI writing begins and original writing ends, but our model should give you a reliable guide to start conversations with the submitting student.
In shorter documents where there are only a few hundred words, the prediction will be mostly "all or nothing" because we're predicting on a single segment without the opportunity to overlap. This means that some text that is a mix of AI-generated and original content could be flagged as entirely AI-generated.
Please consider these points as you are reviewing the data and following up with students or others.
7. Will students be able to see the results?
The AI writing detection indicator and report are not visible to students.
8. Does the AI Indicator automatically feed a student’s paper into a repository?
No, it does not. There is no separate repository for AI writing detection. Our AI writing detection capabilities are part of our existing similarity report workflow. When we receive submissions, they are compared and evaluated via our proprietary algorithms for both similarity text matching and the likelihood of being AI writing (generated by LLMs). Customers retain the ability to choose whether to add their student papers into the repository or not.
When AI writing detection is run on a submission, the results are shared on the similarity report - unless suppressed – and results regarding the percentage AI writing identified by the detector, along with the segments identified highly likely written by AI – are retained as part of the similarity report.
9. What is the difference between the Similarity score and the AI writing detection percentage? Are the two completely separate or do they influence each other?
The Similarity score and the AI writing detection percentage are completely independent and do not influence each other. The Similarity score indicates the percentage of matching-text found in the submitted document when compared to Turnitin’s comprehensive collection of content for similarity checking.
The AI writing detection percentage, on the other hand, shows the overall percentage of text in a submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model predicts was generated by AI writing tools.
10. Why do I see the AI Writing score and the corresponding report on the similarity report prior to April 4?
Our AI writing detection capabilities are part of our existing similarity report workflow to detect unoriginal writing. While we released AI writing detection capabilities on April 4, 2023, prior to launch, we were preparing for the release and running our AI writing detector on a sampling of papers as part of our QA testing. This allowed us to confirm our readiness for release on April 4. As a result, you may see the AI writing score along with the corresponding report on some similarity reports submitted between March 8, 2023 and April 4, 2023.
11. Does the Turnitin model take into account that AI writing detection technology might be biased against particular subject-areas or second-language writers?
Yes, it does. One of the guiding principles of our company and of our AI team has been to minimize the risk of harm to students, especially those disadvantaged or disenfranchised by the history and structure of our society. Hence, while creating our sample dataset, we took into account statistically under-represented groups like second-language learners, English users from non-English speaking countries, students at colleges and universities with diverse enrollments and less common subject areas such as anthropology, geology, sociology, and others.
12. How can I use the AI indicator percentage in the classroom with students?
Turnitin’s AI detection indicator shows the percentage of text that has likely been generated by an AI writing tool while the report highlights the exact segments that seem to be AI-written. The final decision on whether any misconduct has occurred rests with the reviewer/instructor. Turnitin does not make a determination of misconduct, rather it provides data for the educators to make an informed decision based on their academic and institutional policies.
13. Can I download the AI report like the Similarity report?
No. At this time the functionality to download the AI report is not available. However, we are actively working on developing this capability, and we should be able to add it as a functionality in the near-term.
Scope of detection
1. which ai writing models can turnitin’s technology detect .
The first iteration of Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities have been trained to detect models including GPT-3, GPT-3.5, and variants. Our technology can also detect other AI writing tools that are based on these models such as ChatGPT. We’ve completed our testing of GPT-4 (ChatGPT Plus), and the result is that our solution will detect text generated by GPT-4 most of the time. We plan to expand our detection capabilities to other models in the future.
2. Which model is Turnitin’s AI detection model based on?
Our model is based on an open-source foundation model from the Huggingface company. We undertook multiple rounds of carefully calibrated retraining, evaluation and fine-tuning. What we must emphasize really is that the unique power of our model arises from the carefully curated data we've used to train the model, leveraging our 20+ years of expertise in authentic student writing, along with the technology developed by us to extract the maximum predictive power from the model trained on that data. In training our model, we focused on minimizing false positives while maximizing accuracy for the latest generation of LLMs ensuring that we help educators uphold academic integrity while protecting the interests of students.
3. Is your current model able to detect GPT-4 generated text?
Yes it does, most of the time. Our AI team has conducted tests on GPT-4 using our released detector to compare its performance and understand the differences between GPT-3.5 (on which our model is trained), and GPT-4. The result is that our detector will detect text generated by GPT-4 most of the time, but we don’t have further, consistent guidance to share at this time. The free version of ChatGPT is still operating on GPT-3.5, while the paid version, ChatCPT Plus, is operating on GPT-4.
4. How will Turnitin be future-proofing for advanced versions of GPT and other large language models yet to emerge?
We recognize that Large Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly expanding and evolving, and we are already hard at work building detection systems for additional LLMs. Our focus initially has been on building and releasing an effective and reliable AI writing detector for GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, and other writing tools based on these models such as ChatGPT. Recently, we conducted tests on GPT-4, the model on which ChatGPT Plus is based, and found that our detection capabilities detected AI-generated text in most cases.
5. Will the AI percentage change over time as the detector and the models it is detecting evolve?
Yes, as we iterate and develop our model further, it is likely that our detection capabilities will also change, affecting the AI percentage. However, for a submitted document, the AI percentage will change only if it's re-submitted again to be processed.
6. Can Turnitin detect if text generated by an AI writing tool (ChatGPT, etc.) is further paraphrased using a paraphrasing tool? Will it flag the content as AI-generated even in this instance?
Our detector is trained on the outputs of GPT-3, GPT-3.5 and ChatGPT, and modifying text generated by these systems will have an impact on our detectors’ abilities to identify AI written text. In our AI Innovation Lab, we have conducted tests using open sourced paraphrasing tools (including different LLMs) and in most cases, our detector has retained its effectiveness and is able to identify text as AI-generated even when a paraphrasing tool has been used to change the AI output.
7. Does Turnitin have plans to build a solution to detect when students paraphrase content either themselves or through tools such as Quillbot, etc.,?
Turnitin has been working on building paraphrase detection capabilities – ability to detect when students have paraphrased content either with the help of paraphrasing tools or re-written it themselves – for some time now, and the technology is already producing the desired results in our AI Innovation Lab. In the instance when the student is using a word spinner or an online paraphrasing tool, the student is just running content through a word spinner which uses AI to intentionally subvert similarity detection, not using generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to create content.
We have plans for a beta release in 2023, and we will be making paraphrase detection available to instructors at institutions that are using TFS with Originality and Originality for an additional cost. It will be released first in our TFS with Originality product.
Access & licensing
1. who will get access to this solution will we need to pay more for this capability .
The first iteration of our AI writing detection indicator and report are available to our academic writing integrity customers as part of their existing licenses, so that they’re able to test the solution and see how it works. This includes customers with a license for Turnitin Feedback Studio (TFS), TFS with Originality, Turnitin Originality, Turnitin Similarity, Simcheck, Originality Check, and Originality Check+. It is available for customers using these platforms via an integration with an LMS or with Turnitin’s Core API. Please note, only instructors and administrators will be able to see the indicator and report.
Beginning January 1, 2024, only customers licensing Originality or TFS with Originality will have access to the full AI writing detection experience.
2. When can customers get access to this solution?
Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities are available now and have been added to the Similarity Report. Customers licensing any of the above Turnitin products should be able to see the indicator and access the AI report.
3. Is Turnitin’s AI writing detection a standalone solution or is it part of another product?
The first iteration of Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities is a separate feature of the Similarity Report and is available across these products: Turnitin Feedback Studio (TFS), TFS with Originality, Turnitin Originality, Turnitin Similarity, Simcheck, Originality Check, and Originality Check+. The indicator links to a report which shows the exact segments that are predicted as AI-written within the submitted content.
4. Why is AI detection not being added to other Turnitin products like Gradescope and iThenticate?
We focused our resources on, what we view, as the biggest, most acute problem and that is higher education and K12 long-form writing. We are currently investigating how we can bring AI writing detection to iThenticate customers. We do not currently have plans to add these capabilities to Gradescope, since the primary use case for Gradescope is handwritten text while for AI detection we’re focusing on typed text. However, we are happy to learn more about customer needs for AI writing detection within this product. In addition, we are not pursuing ChatGPT code detection at this time.
5. Where can I find more information about this new solution?
You can find information about Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities on this page .
6. I’m offended that Turnitin is making the AI writing detection free for instructors then charging for it later. It feels like Turnitin is advertising to faculty.
We made the decision to provide free access to our detection capabilities during this preview phase to support educators during this unprecedented time of rapid change. We received a significant amount of positive feedback from customers, and we acted on that feedback.
Our goal has always been to work closely with our customers to create an optimal solution for educators. We need as many educators as possible to use our AI writing detection feature quickly to gather feedback and address any gaps.
We understand that you may be apprehensive about instructors using a tool or feature that the institution may not wish to purchase in the future. However, we have invested heavily in developing and improving our AI writing detection technology over the past two years. We believe that this technology provides significant value to our customers by providing data and insights on when AI-generated content is submitted by students. This enables educators to uphold academic integrity while advancing students' learning. Nonetheless, maintaining and improving our technology requires ongoing investment as AI writing tools evolve and improve at a rapid pace over time.
The decision to move to a paid licensing structure beginning January 2024 was made to ensure that we can continue to provide high-quality AI writing detection features to our customers. This enables us to invest in further research and development and improve our infrastructure to meet the evolving needs of our customers.
7. If I opt-out of AI detection, does it mean that my students’ submissions will not be assessed by the detection tool and data retained by Turnitin?
Customers come to Turnitin to provide services that detect unoriginal writing, which, with the development of AI writing, now includes both unoriginal writing by humans and non-humans (LLMs). Our AI writing detection capabilities are part of our existing similarity report workflow. When we receive submissions, they are compared and evaluated via our proprietary algorithms for both similarity text matching and the likelihood of being AI writing (generated by LLMs). As such, suppressing the appearance of the AI writing indicator does not stop the assessment for AI writing. When AI writing detection is run on a submission, the result is shared on the similarity report, unless suppressed. When the AI writing detection is suppressed, it is simply suppressing the indicator showing the predicted percentage of AI writing; thus, the indicator will not be displayed on the similarity report, and the linking AI writing report showing the segments identified as written by AI will not be showing either. However, they are retained as part of the similarity report. Therefore when the feature is re-enabled, the AI writing score will appear on the similarity report.
This process is separate and apart from your designation of whether or not submissions can be stored in the ‘repository.’
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‘Damn, that fool can write’: how Martin Amis made everyone up their game
He exploded into the tweedy world of literature, a young, pouting and outrageously brash crusader for prose. Our writer remembers her encounters with the novelist, whose smarts and chutzpah confounded his peers
‘Y ou’ll be reading me every now and then at least until about 2080, weather permitting. And when you go, maybe my afterlife, too, will come to an end, my afterlife of words.” So wrote Martin Amis in his heavily autobiographical final novel Inside Story in 2020. With a body of work spanning 50 years, he leaves 15 novels, two short-story collections, one memoir and seven book-length works of journalism and history. Did posterity matter to him? Hell, yes. “There is only one value judgment in literature: time,” he insisted.
Back in 2009, I called Amis – as editors all over the world would have been calling or emailing leading writers on Saturday night – to ask if he might write a tribute to the American novelist John Updike, who had just died. Time was tight and we were aiming high, but as with every major (and not so major) event at that time, Amis was the writer everyone was after. And on Updike, the last postwar American literary giant? It had to be him. Happily, he felt a duty to contribute to what Gore Vidal called “book chat”.
“Call me back in 10 minutes,” he said in his unmistakable transatlantic drawl (he hadn’t yet made America his permanent home). Had he said he would do it? Would he file in time for tomorrow’s front page? I wasn’t sure, but duly called him back 10 minutes later, hiding in a cupboard in the bowels of the Guardian, where we went to make private calls.
“Ready?” he said. And – I may have imagined this bit – lighting a cigarette, he proceeded to dictate a whole piece, replete with semi-colons, quotation and his hallmark neologisms (not for Amis the correspondent’s punctuation-less cablese). He spoke and I typed. “There aren’t supposed to be extremes of uniqueness – either you are or you’re not – but he was exceptionally sui generis ,” he drawled .
We repeated the exercise barely three months later when another of his great heroes and friends, JG Ballard, died . This time we made it to over 1,000 words. “Very few Ballardians (who are almost all male) were foolish enough to emulate him. He was sui generis ,” Amis enunciated with verbal italics. “What was influential, though, was the marvellous creaminess of his prose, and the weird and sudden expansions of his imagery,” he continued. “Marvellous creaminess”, “weird and sudden expansions” – how did he do that?
OK, so he had written at length about both Updike and Ballard before. And he was routinely invoked as a successor to both. But still. Of all the writers I’d worked with during many years as a literary editor, Amis was the only one I knew who could pull that off. The sheer smarts and chutzpah of composing a piece off the cuff, without even going to the bother of turning on the computer, was quintessential Amis.
He will for ever be remembered as part of the “Class of 83” , the inaugural Granta Best of Young British novelists list that also included Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro. “He has had a baleful influence on a whole generation,” bemoaned AS Byatt of Amis in 1993, as one of the Granta judges tasked with finding successors a decade later. Not because he was a bad writer but because so many had been foolish enough to try to emulate him (to echo Amis on Ballard).
If, as is often said, this generation of writers were the closest the books world gets to having rock stars, then Amis was Mick Jagger . Those 70s photographs (The Rachel Papers years) of him pouting extravagantly at the camera, cigarette dangling – you can almost smell the smoke and ambition – announced a changing of the guard. His pose, like his prose, poised somewhere between provocation and seduction. Where the literary world had been grey and tweedy, presided over by ageing grandees (Amis Sr, William Golding, Anthony Burgess, Iris Murdoch), now it was young and outrageously brash, and Amis was the frontman.
At an event in 2020 with Salman Rushdie , Rushdie asked him if, back in those heady days, he felt part of a gang. “That’s the way ‘movements’ start,” Amis replied. “Ambitious young drunks, late at night, saying, ‘We’re not going to do that any more. We’re going to do this instead.’” And with this “gang” – which also included his great friend, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens , and Ian McEwan – the young drunks went on to became “the old devils”, to borrow a Kingsley Amis title, that pretty much comprised the literary establishment for years.
“There was a feeling,” he said of this time, “that there were places to go that the English novel didn’t go, and was being too fastidious about.” And he spent the next few decades making sure he was the first to go there. Who but Amis could have had such a firm grasp on the collar of what John Self, the narrator of Money , called “the panting present” to have written a novel of that title at the beginning of the 80s, that decade of Thatcherite greed? And then envisage ecological collapse in London Fields at the end of it? Which writer would have dared to take on the Holocaust (Time’s Arrow in 1991, and The Zone of Interest in 2014) and Stalin’s Great Terror (Koba the Dread in 2002), with, as Tim Adams put it in the Observer, “his full ironist’s swagger” ? Or to have imagined the last 24 hours of 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta in The Second Plane in 2008?
In his crusade for fine writing and his declaration of war on cliche, Amis made everyone up their game. Over the years, critics have fallen over themselves trying to outsmart Mart: lobbing hyperbole and volleying adverbs (Amis was a huge tennis fan). “So just how good is Martin Amis ?” “Why do we love to hate Amis?” they would come out, strutting, pistols cocked. But Amis was already in the bar.
For a time, he seemed happy to fill the role of novelist as public intellectual. He riffed elegantly on everything from the porn industry to the Royal family. “He is always putting it up to you somehow, making the reader feel brilliant too. Or a bit stupid,” wrote Anne Enright of his collection of criticism The Rub of Time in 2017. “This is the best fun going when everyone is drunk, as they seemed to be in the 1980s, and literary London was like one long dinner party in which everyone knew where you went to school.”
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Inevitably, the poster-boy turned into a target, and at one point Amis the dazzling young stylist looked in danger of being overshadowed by Amis the grumpy old controversialist, with ill-judged comments on Islamism and euthanasia. But after what he called an “eisteddfod of hostility” from the British press and his move to New York, he largely reserved his opinions for his writing.
He was planning a collection of short stories on the subject of slavery in the US – “boy will I cop it,” he said in a recent Guardian interview – as well as returning to the Third Reich for a third time with a “modest novella”. And yet, despite many years as Britain’s foremost literary celebrity and contrarian, Amis somehow managed never to win the Booker (he was only shortlisted for Time’s Arrow) nor to be cancelled.
Of his instinct to shock, he observed: “Every novel worth reading is funny and serious. Anyone who’s any good is going to be funny. It’s the nature of life. Life is funny.” And it is clear from the irrepressible punchiness of his prose that he had a blast writing. “It seems to me a hilariously enjoyable way of spending one’s time,” he said. And so, at his daring comic best, he was great fun to read.
The insolence, the silliness, the seriousness, the grotesqueness, the erudition and audacity were all swept up in those inimitable sentences and corralled into order by his cleverness with form. As Enright summed up in her review: “Damn, that fool can write.” And, like an imposing building slightly worn with time, Amis changed the landscape of literature so dramatically that it is hard to remember what it looked like before. And for all the macho-ness of his writing, his influence can be seen in writers of the generation that followed, for instance his friend Zadie Smith.
“He was a talismanic figure for my generation of novelists, and an inspiration to me personally,” says another friend, Kazuo Ishiguro. “He was famous, notorious even, for his biting satire and swaggering prose, but there was always a surprising tenderness not far beneath that surface. His characters were always yearning for love and connection. I believe ultimately his work will age well, growing over the years.” We will be reading him for decades, weather permitting.
But to go back to 2009 and Amis’s closing words on Updike: “His style was one of compulsive and unstoppable vividness and musicality. Several times a day you turn to him, as you will now to his ghost, and say to yourself, ‘How would Updike have done it?’ This is a very cold day for literature.”
And so it is today. Younger writers will ask: “How would Amis have done it?” He was exceptionally sui generis .
- Martin Amis
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Yi ben kao shi yan jiu zhong xin.
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How to Create a Book in Microsoft Word Marshall Gunnell @makojunkie_ Jun 28, 2019, 11:23 am EDT | 2 min read Microsoft Word comes with pre-built page settings for creating books. Whether you're creating a memoir or event guide, these settings let you create a beautiful book or booklet, from start to finish.
How to Write a Book Using Microsoft Word by Sarah Gribble 100 Day Book is now OPEN! If you want to go from aspiring writer to published author, 100 Day Book is the best writing program to do it. See how it can help you write your best book. Learn more and sign up here.
Go to Layout and select the Page Setup dialog launch icon at the bottom-right corner. On the Margins tab, change the setting for Multiple pages to Book fold. The orientation automatically changes to Landscape. Tip: If you have a long document, you might want to split it into multiple booklets, which you can then bind into one book.
Wondering how to write a book in Microsoft Word? In this video, I'll share how to format your manuscript in Microsoft Word. Show more Show more Shop the thelifeofawriter store $7.99 Spring...
The first thing you should do is create a blank new document. Craft your title page This is one of the more exciting steps to formatting a book in Word. There's nothing like the crisp, official look of your manuscript's title page. It's the first thing an agent or editor will see, so it needs to sparkle. Here's what to include:
Drop down to the middle of the page (I entered 20 times), Click Home > Center, and type the title of your manuscript in all capital letters. Hit Enter twice and type "By" and then your author name. If you're writing under a pen name, you can include, writing as Pen Name. This is your title page.
In order to have the best book writing experience with Word, there are some stylings, settings and features writers should use or change, as well as some tip...
A first step is to write the entire book quickly, then return for revision once you reach the end. With a tool like Word, you can use headings to navigate chapters with ease and bookmarks to note places you'd like to revisit. Revise your copy. Once you have completed the first draft, set it down for a couple of weeks.
By Dave Chesson 0 Last updated on August 22nd, 2022 There are a ton of options available for formatting your manuscript before you can upload it to the various online vendors or book printing companies. Even a simple Google search can give you nearly endless options. It's pretty overwhelming.
Creating a book in Word is a special format that allows users to set up a document with dual pages and a centerfold. Writers can view their book as they type and insert content, making changes and updates to page margins as necessary.
How to format a book in Microsoft Word (with pictures) Getting started. Open a new document. Click "size">> "More paper sizes" and set the document to 6"x9" (or your book size). Then set the margins and gutter. Make sure to apply to the "whole document" instead of "this section."
In the menu, click Insert, then click Page Break and that will start you off on a new page. And you will also want to use this page break when you are looking to start a new chapter. Now we're going to make some changes to our manuscript. The first thing want to do is confirm the page layout. Click layout.
Go to Layout and select the Page Setup dialog launch icon at the bottom-right corner. On the Margins tab, change the setting for Multiple pages to Book fold. The orientation automatically changes to Landscape. Tip: If you have a long document, you might want to split it into multiple booklets, which you can then bind into one book.
"On target . . . . Concisely addresses a lot of topics that Word users need to know about." -- James Felici, author, The Complete Manual of Typography "Excellent not only as a guide to using Word to design books, but also as a concise guide to book design." -- Morris Rosenthal, author, Print-on-Demand Book Publishing
Step 1: Do the Preparation Before you get into the nitty-gritty of creating an ebook, the first thing you should do is decide what your ebook will be about and how you want to structure it. It'll make the rest of the designing and writing part easier. Some basic things you must come up with beforehand are the following:
Part 1 Staying Focused and Productive 1 Clarify why you're writing a book. Before you start writing, or typing, or even thinking too much about your book, be honest with yourself about your reasons for writing it. Are you hoping to become rich and famous? Is it a necessity for advancing your career? Do you dream of seeing your name on a book cover?
Conclusion: The conclusion should summarize the main points of the report and offer an opinion on the book. Start your child writing. With notes in hand and a clear understanding of the different parts of a book report, your child is ready to start writing. Encourage them to take their time and write clearly and concisely.
Step 1: Collate Relevant Information. Step 2: Design the Chapter Structure. Step 3: Write an Appealing Chapter Title/Heading. Step 4: Build an Engaging Introduction. Step 5: Elaborate on Main Points of the Chapter. Step 6: Summarize the Chapter. Step 7: Add a Call-to-Action & Transition to Next Chapter.
Formatting a book in Word gives you the flexibility to work on your book wherever and whenever it's convenient for you. Whether you're writing a novel, a textbook, or a cookbook, formatting your book in Word can help to make the process easier and more efficient. 4. Great support and many templates online.
By Dave Chesson 0 Last updated on December 20th, 2022 Microsoft Word has been a go-to tool for authors for nearly forty years. Not only is it the industry standard for editors and agents, but it can also be used to format your book (although I wouldn't advise it).
Having a book is a great way to boost your credibility, but speaking about the book can open many doors as well. These doors include: Networking opportunities. Opportunities to get new clients ...
Semoga tips dan kiat yang saya bagikan di bawah ini bermanfaat. 1. Menentukan Tema. Cara membuat buku di word biasanya saya akan menentukan tema atau mencari-cari topic yang membuat saya menarik. Saya tidak akan menulis tema yang tidak saya sukai atau tidak saya senangi. Bagaimanapun juga, ini adalah menulis buku, bukan menulis artikel yang ...
Improve student writing, check for text similarity, and help develop original thinking skills with these tools for teachers. Research & Publication . Publish with confidence using the tool top researchers and publishers trust to ensure the originality of scholarly works. Partners .
He exploded into the tweedy world of literature, a young, pouting and outrageously brash crusader for prose. Our writer remembers her encounters with the novelist, whose smarts and chutzpah ...
A primary school student's English essential vocabulary 2023 edition classification memory comic scene remember word writing material reading English vocabulary basic grammar punch card mnemonic. ... Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Polysemy involves multiple meanings and/or readings of a sign or word in a single context. Paronomasia is a device of sound that operates across word divisions and involves a dissimilarity in meaning. Akkadian (Babylonian/Assyrian use SUMERIAN signs) Cuneiform sign system (several hundreds), originally pictographic > abstract:
This writing app is a great tool for novelists, lawyers, screenwriters, academics, and more We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does ...