Today I'm going to tell you the best tool for critiquing. Some of you may already know about it and some of you might have something similar to this, but this is what I'm familiar with. All in all, I just want to make your critiquing life easier if you use Microsoft Office Word 2007.
When your friend, crit partner, lovely aspiring author buddy sends you their work, open it in a word document. Now look to the top of your screen. Do you see the review button?
Click on it and you can read your friend's stuff in there. Even better you can critique it while you read it or reread it or whatever you do. There are two things in Review that are my all time favorite. New Comment and Track Changes. They look like this.
If you want to make a comment on a certain sentence or section, highlight that part and click the New Comment button. It will open in the side and you can make all your comments there, like this.
Now, not everything needs a comment. Little grammatical errors can be changed in the document. Just click on the Track Changes button when you start your critique and any change you make, whether it's a misspelled word or punctuation, will be tracked so the writer can see where it is like this.
Isn't it awesome? (This is when you say, "Why yes it is Michelle, thanks for saving me time and helping me organize my critique's." Or I guess you may be thinking, "That's great that you're sharing this but it's kind of old news." Either way the answer is still...) Yes. It is awesome.
And now for another bit of awesomeness. I happen to love critiquing. And I recently hit 250 followers. And I also just happened to hit 100 blog posts a little while ago.
It's time to celebrate!
I don't have any books to give away. I know, either I'm selfish or poor...or both. I'll never tell :) But I will give away 5 first 1000 word critique's!
All you have to do is follow my blog and tell me in your comment if you'd like to be part of the drawing. Want an extra entry? Just mention this anywhere and tell me about it here as well.
The giveaway ends Wednesday May 11. You have until then to enter. Good luck :)
I never knew about the tool until you told me, and it's AWESOME! :) I'm not going to enter the contest, since you are already my lovely critiquing friend, but all of you guys that want to win? You WANT to enter! Michelle is an amazing critiquer. Seriously. :)
ReplyDeleteI want in! And I'll mention it on my blog either tonight or tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with you on Track Changes. They make life SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much easier!
I've awarded you two awards: The Versatile Blogger Award AND the Blog on Fire Award! Stop by my website to claim your prize! :)
ReplyDeleteScott
www.scott-niven.com
It is awesome, and it existed in Word 2003 as well, but worked a little differently. Great summary!
ReplyDeleteOoo pick me! Pick me! I'll put a link on my sidebar as well.
ReplyDeleteI love the cool things you can do with word. It's awesome.
Perfect day for me to check in with your blog. I have two pieces to read for my Writer's Group this evening and I'm too computer-challenged to find the review function on my own. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteChantele-Shallee taught it to me. It's awesome! Thanks for the critique shout out :)
ReplyDeleteReece-Awesome! Thanks :)
Scott-Thanks so much. That's very generous of you to give me TWO awards!
Matthew-That's right. They did have it before. I never used the old version but I'm pleased with the newer one.
Kayeleen-Thanks for posting a link! Word is cool.
Holly-Perfect! I'm glad it could come in handy :)
I would love to be in your draw for critique. Put me down and I'll mention it in the blog post I'm about to do!
ReplyDeleteAMEN! It is the best thing ever. And, do you know about the view side by side? You can pull up your working document and then the critiqued document, click "view side by side" on one of them and you get a split screen with both! When you scroll one, the other scrolls too. (You can undo that if they aren't matched up when you open the docs).
ReplyDeleteMichelle,
ReplyDeleteI used to find the review tool in word maddening. I'd tell it to accept all changes and think everything was good and then I'd come back and it would be all marked up. Haven't used it in a while though, so I don't know if I'd still have this problem.
I'm running a couple of giveaways myself, so stop in and see if there's anything you'd like.
I love using the comments function in Word, and I so love track changes when critting for others. These are great tools--good idea to make sure everyone knows, MM! :D
ReplyDeleteand hey! I'd like a first 1K crit! Started next MS yesterday, and would like to know if it's working~ :D xoxo
Thanks for pointing this out Michelle. I shall begin to use it.
ReplyDeleteI loooove comment editor! I edit senior research papers that way too. :)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to be entered. You did such an amazing job with my last one.
Oh, oh. Enter me. Enter me! I love the ease of the comment editor. Great post.
ReplyDeleteHi, Michelle! This is fun, I would love to be a part of your contest! ;)
ReplyDeleteelizabethmuellerATgmail
have a great day!
Thanks everyone for your comments! Especially the extra tips for word review and for those who posted the giveaway :)
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI say many thanks to Mr. admin website I read this, because in this website I know a lot of information information that I did not know before his
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