Overcome the writer’s paralysis. You have an academic assignment to write or a report or business proposal to prepare. But you just can’t get started.
- Create a new folder in Dropbox (or whichever file-hosting service you use)
- Give it a name: Lab Report or Dissertation or Fee Proposal or whatever is appropriate.
- Open Word and create a new document.
- Format the document as follows:
- > Home: Text: Calibri, font size 11
- > Layout > Margins: Top 2.0, Bottom 2.0, Left margin 2.5, Right margin 2.5
- > Document elements > Header and footer > Page: Position: Bottom of page; Alignment: centre
- At the top of the page, write INTRODUCTION (in caps)
- Format this title as follows:
- > Home: Font: Bold; font-size: 12
- > Home: Paragraph: Centred
- > Home: Styles: Heading 1
- Now save this document as INTRODUCTION in your Dropbox folder
- Repeat the exercise for two more documents, which you will name BODY and CONCLUSION respectively.
- There you are! You’ve already started writing. You have overcome your paralysis. You have pages to write on. And they are no longer blank.
- Generally (and as paradoxical as this may sound) the Introduction gets written last. But now may be a good time to start laying down some ideas in your introduction section. So open that document and write anything that comes into your mind that is relevant and which you may find can be included in the final version. Anything! Two sentences will do.
- Do the same with the Body section. Write two sentences. That’s all that’s needed for taking away the whiteness of the page.
Here’s how to do it. It’s quite simple!
Later you will have to consider how to set up subheadings and how to format these so that you can generate a Contents page with ease. You will also have to create a bibliography or references page and an abstract. But at least you are no longer faced with white pages.
