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#1
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A Modest Proposal
Hi all,
I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#2
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A Modest Proposal
Currently, Students, Teachers and Academics get a massive Educational
discount. Somehow I foresee in this new age of recession that a special academic version would require an overhead that would be passed on. Word already has many tools for the standards required by educational institutions; styles, citations, quotations, footnotes, endnotes, etc are already included. What more are you looking for? -- Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#3
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A Modest Proposal
Hi mocha99,
Have you looked under References|Citations & Bibliography (Word 2007)? -- Cheers macropod [Microsoft MVP - Word] "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#4
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A Modest Proposal
Where do you stop?
What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#5
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A Modest Proposal
Your question about "which school should they use as a reference" is
actually a very interesting one. In my opinion, Word isn't the problem, it's the publishers / schools / associations who are. Word provides a set of generic tools which can be perfectly used to design your own document template with specific page sizes, margins, (citation/bibliography) styles, ... Unfortunately, the number of publishers / schools / associations who are willing to invest a little time in creating a template following their guidelines is almost non-existent. And it's not just for Word, they don't provide templates for LaTeX, OpenOffice or any other text processing package either. In the rare case some template is provided, it is often made by a 'contributor / student / member' rather than the publisher / school / association. Some good soul who wanted to help others avoid the mess (s)he ended up in. I find it amazing how publishers / schools / associations can seem to get away with such laziness and arrogance towards their 'contributors / students / members'. Yves "JoAnn Paules" wrote in message ... Where do you stop? What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#6
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A Modest Proposal
OTOH, I spent *months* advising a doctoral candidate in Canada who *had*
started with a provided template (not sure it was provided by the grad school, though). Unfortunately, it was not very well designed, and in the end we pretty much tore it up and started from scratch. Luckily, he took the prudent approach of testing and getting squared away when he was in the very early stages of the dissertation (taking each bit one step at a time), so it wasn't one of these "Help! My dissertation is due tomorrow and I can't get the TOC to work!" situations. I still hear from the guy from time to time, and he credited me in his Acknowledgments. g -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Yves Dhondt" wrote in message ... Your question about "which school should they use as a reference" is actually a very interesting one. In my opinion, Word isn't the problem, it's the publishers / schools / associations who are. Word provides a set of generic tools which can be perfectly used to design your own document template with specific page sizes, margins, (citation/bibliography) styles, ... Unfortunately, the number of publishers / schools / associations who are willing to invest a little time in creating a template following their guidelines is almost non-existent. And it's not just for Word, they don't provide templates for LaTeX, OpenOffice or any other text processing package either. In the rare case some template is provided, it is often made by a 'contributor / student / member' rather than the publisher / school / association. Some good soul who wanted to help others avoid the mess (s)he ended up in. I find it amazing how publishers / schools / associations can seem to get away with such laziness and arrogance towards their 'contributors / students / members'. Yves "JoAnn Paules" wrote in message ... Where do you stop? What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#7
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A Modest Proposal
Or they understand little about document structure and readability, thus
creating a ridiculous set of requirements. -- Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP "Yves Dhondt" wrote in message ... Your question about "which school should they use as a reference" is actually a very interesting one. In my opinion, Word isn't the problem, it's the publishers / schools / associations who are. Word provides a set of generic tools which can be perfectly used to design your own document template with specific page sizes, margins, (citation/bibliography) styles, ... Unfortunately, the number of publishers / schools / associations who are willing to invest a little time in creating a template following their guidelines is almost non-existent. And it's not just for Word, they don't provide templates for LaTeX, OpenOffice or any other text processing package either. In the rare case some template is provided, it is often made by a 'contributor / student / member' rather than the publisher / school / association. Some good soul who wanted to help others avoid the mess (s)he ended up in. I find it amazing how publishers / schools / associations can seem to get away with such laziness and arrogance towards their 'contributors / students / members'. Yves "JoAnn Paules" wrote in message ... Where do you stop? What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#8
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A Modest Proposal
I would be satisfied if the graduate departments of universities would
become educated about what is practically feasible with Word and not create unnecessary obstacles by imposing standards developed for typewriters. This is true of courts as well. I've seen students and lawyers hamstrung by requirements such as indents defined in terms of spaces, vertical positioning in terms of lines, line spacing required to be "double" without specifying font size, etc. I consulted on a court case where one side was accusing the other of overstuffing a brief because the lawyers used 24-pt Exactly spacing instead of "double" spacing for 12-pt TNR. I pointed out that "double" spacing could vary widely from font to font (font size range but not font was specified by the court). It would have made much more sense to impose a word count limitation instead of specifying the number of pages and the line spacing. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Terry Farrell" wrote in message ... Or they understand little about document structure and readability, thus creating a ridiculous set of requirements. -- Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP "Yves Dhondt" wrote in message ... Your question about "which school should they use as a reference" is actually a very interesting one. In my opinion, Word isn't the problem, it's the publishers / schools / associations who are. Word provides a set of generic tools which can be perfectly used to design your own document template with specific page sizes, margins, (citation/bibliography) styles, ... Unfortunately, the number of publishers / schools / associations who are willing to invest a little time in creating a template following their guidelines is almost non-existent. And it's not just for Word, they don't provide templates for LaTeX, OpenOffice or any other text processing package either. In the rare case some template is provided, it is often made by a 'contributor / student / member' rather than the publisher / school / association. Some good soul who wanted to help others avoid the mess (s)he ended up in. I find it amazing how publishers / schools / associations can seem to get away with such laziness and arrogance towards their 'contributors / students / members'. Yves "JoAnn Paules" wrote in message ... Where do you stop? What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#9
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A Modest Proposal
All true. Add the 'exact number of lines per page' requirement with line
numbering on the right making it all mind-bogglingly distracting to the user trying to create a meaningful content. Terry "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ... I would be satisfied if the graduate departments of universities would become educated about what is practically feasible with Word and not create unnecessary obstacles by imposing standards developed for typewriters. This is true of courts as well. I've seen students and lawyers hamstrung by requirements such as indents defined in terms of spaces, vertical positioning in terms of lines, line spacing required to be "double" without specifying font size, etc. I consulted on a court case where one side was accusing the other of overstuffing a brief because the lawyers used 24-pt Exactly spacing instead of "double" spacing for 12-pt TNR. I pointed out that "double" spacing could vary widely from font to font (font size range but not font was specified by the court). It would have made much more sense to impose a word count limitation instead of specifying the number of pages and the line spacing. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Terry Farrell" wrote in message ... Or they understand little about document structure and readability, thus creating a ridiculous set of requirements. -- Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP "Yves Dhondt" wrote in message ... Your question about "which school should they use as a reference" is actually a very interesting one. In my opinion, Word isn't the problem, it's the publishers / schools / associations who are. Word provides a set of generic tools which can be perfectly used to design your own document template with specific page sizes, margins, (citation/bibliography) styles, ... Unfortunately, the number of publishers / schools / associations who are willing to invest a little time in creating a template following their guidelines is almost non-existent. And it's not just for Word, they don't provide templates for LaTeX, OpenOffice or any other text processing package either. In the rare case some template is provided, it is often made by a 'contributor / student / member' rather than the publisher / school / association. Some good soul who wanted to help others avoid the mess (s)he ended up in. I find it amazing how publishers / schools / associations can seem to get away with such laziness and arrogance towards their 'contributors / students / members'. Yves "JoAnn Paules" wrote in message ... Where do you stop? What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
#10
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A Modest Proposal
Those two requirements (which make sense only for something like court
transcripts) can be effectively achieved only with a text box in the right margin and invariably fixed line spacing (with widow/orphan control disabled). It's not unreasonable for that type of document but entirely impractical for anything else. And at least in the case of transcripts, the "writer" is not trying to *create* content! -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Terry Farrell" wrote in message ... All true. Add the 'exact number of lines per page' requirement with line numbering on the right making it all mind-bogglingly distracting to the user trying to create a meaningful content. Terry "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ... I would be satisfied if the graduate departments of universities would become educated about what is practically feasible with Word and not create unnecessary obstacles by imposing standards developed for typewriters. This is true of courts as well. I've seen students and lawyers hamstrung by requirements such as indents defined in terms of spaces, vertical positioning in terms of lines, line spacing required to be "double" without specifying font size, etc. I consulted on a court case where one side was accusing the other of overstuffing a brief because the lawyers used 24-pt Exactly spacing instead of "double" spacing for 12-pt TNR. I pointed out that "double" spacing could vary widely from font to font (font size range but not font was specified by the court). It would have made much more sense to impose a word count limitation instead of specifying the number of pages and the line spacing. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA http://word.mvps.org "Terry Farrell" wrote in message ... Or they understand little about document structure and readability, thus creating a ridiculous set of requirements. -- Terry Farrell - MSWord MVP "Yves Dhondt" wrote in message ... Your question about "which school should they use as a reference" is actually a very interesting one. In my opinion, Word isn't the problem, it's the publishers / schools / associations who are. Word provides a set of generic tools which can be perfectly used to design your own document template with specific page sizes, margins, (citation/bibliography) styles, ... Unfortunately, the number of publishers / schools / associations who are willing to invest a little time in creating a template following their guidelines is almost non-existent. And it's not just for Word, they don't provide templates for LaTeX, OpenOffice or any other text processing package either. In the rare case some template is provided, it is often made by a 'contributor / student / member' rather than the publisher / school / association. Some good soul who wanted to help others avoid the mess (s)he ended up in. I find it amazing how publishers / schools / associations can seem to get away with such laziness and arrogance towards their 'contributors / students / members'. Yves "JoAnn Paules" wrote in message ... Where do you stop? What about those in the medical fields? Legal, accounting, engineering, to name a few, also have their own needs. And let's not forget the senior citizen. Even if they did do a "scholar" version - which school should they use as a reference? Everyone does their own thing with Word. There are add-ins available that will accomplish just about anything you need. There's only so much that one company can do. The tools you ask about are basically there; you just need to learn how to use them. And some of the tasks need to be done manually - you'll never learn how to do it if you depend on a computer to do everything. -- JoAnn Paules MVP Microsoft [Publisher] Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies" "mocha99" wrote in message ... Hi all, I have been using Word 2007 for a few months now. It's a very versatile product, but I think its functionalities are very much influenced by the needs and requirements of business/law/corporate work environments. What about education/academic environments? I am referring to undergraduates/graduates/scholars who need to have a flexible and powerful tool to make citations, quotations with links to the quoted/cited document etc. What I am suggesting is that MS look into the requirements of university students and scholars and create or add functions that help them do what they do when they write a paper, a study etc. Is a "Word 200x Scholar" foreseeable in the future? Wouldn't this open a new market for Word? Thanks |
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