Project 2 - Lab Discussion
Objectives
Make sure that you read the description for project 2. This is an Web searching project. You can choose any IT topic that you like. If you are not sure what would constitute an IT topic, you can examine my Paper_Descriptions.docx document for potential topics or check the table of contents or the index in the Understanding Computers book. Use at least two different search engines to do the searches and visit at least five different Web sites to report on what you found. You must stick to a single topic for your research.
You will have two different paragraphs for each of the Web sites that you report. The first paragraph for each site consists of a single line containing three parts: the search engine used, the search terms used, and the URL of the web site that you are reporting. The second paragraph for each site consists of a minimum of six sentences that describes what you found on the web site and a rating between 1 and 5. I am requesting that you build two new paragraph styles that you can apply to the two different paragraphs describing the web site. These paragraph styles need to adhere to the formatting detailed in the project description. Use the same two paragraph styles for each of the web sites that you have included in your project document.
Web Searching
For those of you not familiar with Web searching, I suggest that you call up Google or some other search engine and type in "search engines" as the search term. One of the first pages found for this search is www.thesearchenginelist.com web site. I find this site good for describing the various search engines. It even describes meta-search engines that combine the results from more than one search engine. Make sure you understand why it is useful to use + and - operations and enclosing several search terms in quotes, such as the "search engines" above. Pick a topic where you will use two or more terms for doing your searches. Then perform your searches by first just typing in the search terms with no +, -, or "...... ". Then add the + operator. Then add a term with the - operator to the search using the + operator. Finally, enclose your search terms in quotes. Below is the list of entries for doing the various combinations of operators over the terms: robotic and insect
· robotic insect
· +robotic +insect
· +robotic +insect -spider
· "robotic insect"
Your Document for this Project
I have provided a sample document for Project 2 and in it, I have a Background prologue at the beginning of the document. I require that you include one as well. For documenting your search, it is required that you create two new paragraph styles. The easiest way of creating a new paragraph style is to start with the normal paragraph style and then add all the required formatting to it. In the image below, I have added my web site address information in the first paragraph under the Web Sites header. On the image, the cursor is positioned in the middle of the word, Google.
I need to bring up the format dialog so I click the icon under the Paragraph section on the Ribbon; it is circled in red in the image below.
This will then bring up the Paragraph Dialog window. In this window below, select the Special Indentation to Hanging Indent and enter a number into the By numeric scroller. Change the Line spacing to Single. You need to change the Spacing After currently at 10 pt to a different value. Next change the Font for the site header information. First, you must select all the text that you want changed before using the Home menu and Font area to select a font that has some emphasis and to increase its size.
After you have the site header information looking the way you like and with your cursor in this site header information paragraph, then right click the mouse to bring up the context menu items for this paragraph. Under the Styles line, select the Save Selection as a New Quick Style. Assign a meaningful name to this group of formatting for a paragraph. Now you can apply the same formatting to the other four paragraphs that display the site address info.
If you prefer building your own paragraph styles from scratch, you can do it for the second paragraph style. Put your cursor in the text that you have entered for the site description information. Next, position the cursor on the arrow at the right side of the Styles area under the Home menu.
Click this arrow brings up the Styles task pane. It shows all the current styles in the document; many are brought in via the Normal.dot template document that is the basis of most new Word documents. At the bottom of the task pane, click on the New Style button.in a new empty paragraph. Using the Format / Styles and Formatting menu item brings up the Styles and Formatting options in the Task Pane on the right side of the screen. You will see a New Style button. Click on this New Style button that opens up a dialog box that allows you to define the formatting you want done and give it a name.
The first thing you need to do is to give it a meaningful name in the Name textbox - something like Site Address Information. It is usually the easiest if the Style Based On dropdown combo box contains Normal. If it does not, use the drop down button to find Normal and select it. The two paragraphs that I am asking you to create need to use different font characteristics; this includes the font face, the font size, possibly the font style, and possibly the font color. You can change these in the dialog box directly under the Formatting line or you can use the Format button in the lower left corner and then click the Font item. This second way brings up another dialog box where you can set the Font characteristics. Next you need to click the Format button and then the Paragraph item. This new dialog box permits you to change the indentation, including under the Special category, the hanging indent. In one paragraph style you need to use a hanging indent and in the other you need to use first line indent and modify the left and right indent amounts. As long as you are in this dialog window, you need to alter the Spacing before and after. Make sure that the Spacing after is not the default value of 10 points. As an option, you can also click on the Shortcut Key item under the Format button. I usually pick the F2 function key for the first paragraph and the F3 function key for the second paragraph. Before doing that, you should use the down arrow in the combo box that says Normal.dot to change it to the current document name. Most of the time, the current document name will still be Document 1. After you have specified that you want this shortcut key to apply just to this document rather than to every document (since most documents are based off Normal.dot by default), you need to set the cursor in the Press New Shortcut Key text box and press the F2 key in the row above the numbers. Then you need to press the Assign button to actually build the association.
There is one other thing that you can do with these new paragraphs. You can tie them together so one follows the other by choosing the other style in the Style for following paragraph dropdown box. This means that when you press the Enter key at the end of one paragraph style, the other paragraph style will be applied to the next paragraph. In the picture below, the Style for following paragraph still points at itself, the default. But after you define the second paragraph style, you can adjust the Style for following paragraph by right clicking on the first paragraph style and selecting modify.
MS Word has the tendency to turn anything it thinks is a URL or email address into a hyperlink object so the web page URL in this first paragraph style may be turned blue to indicate that it is a hyperlink.
Make sure that you add your header and footer sections with the correct information.
Submitting Your Project
Now that you have done the research and written your document using the two new paragraph styles, you need to name your file as ini_Project2.doc where ini are your initials. My file name would be jrn_Project2.doc. You need to attach your completed Project 2 document to the Assignment Manager by clicking on the Project 2 link and then using the Attach File with Browse My Computer.
Finding Related Material in the MS Office 2013 Book
Hanging indent WD 108
First line indent WD 82
Paragraph indenting WD 82
Changing fonts and font sizes WD 17, 18
Spacing above/below paragraph WD 42, 73
Line spacing WD 72
Setting a new Quick Paragraph Style
see: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/microsoft-office-word-2010-format-formatting/
Creating a new paragraph style
See: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/create-a-new-style-HP005240626.aspx
Applying styles WD 105-106
Italic font style WD 25
Bold font style WD 29-30
John North4CIT120