1. Load your word processing program and enter the practice text - ignore your typos.  In fact, if you’re a good typist, let yourself be a little sloppy - just this once.
2. Now, go back and proofread your text.  Delete your mistakes and insert corrections.
3. Use your software to check spelling.  If there are no spelling errors try some inventive spelling and see if the software catches your errors.
4. Find each contraction.  Use the FIND command to search for - you guess it - the apostrophe.  Delete and replace the contractions with the full words.  Can you think of other situations where the FIND command would be useful?
5. Use the commands for moving (cutting and pasting) a block of text to rearrange the order of I. and III.  Make “Life is like a jigsaw puzzle...” first and “Life is like a bagel...” last.
6. Use the find and replace commands to change every occurrence of “life” to “My life”.
7. Try different type fonts, sizes, etc.  What combinations looks the most professional, the most interesting, the easiest to read?
8. If you want to keep a magnetic (soft copy) of your text, save your file to your initialized (formatted) disk.
9. Print your file on paper (hard copy) with one inch left and right margins.

PRACTICE TEXT

I.   Life is like a bagel.  It’s delicious when it’s fresh and warm, but often it’s just hard.  The hole in the middle is its great mystery, and yet it wouldn’t be a bagel without it.

II.  Life is like a poker game.  You deal or are dealt to.  It includes skill and luck.  You bet, check, bluff, and raise.  You learn from those you play with.  Sometimes, you win with a pair or lose with a full house.  But whatever happens, it’s best to keep on shuffling along.

III. Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, but you don’t have the picture on the front of the box to know what it’s suppose to look like.  Sometimes, you’re not even sure if you have all the pieces.

I copied the above practice text from a book I once read on creativity.  The book seems to be lost, and I can’t remember the author, but the title is:
A Whack on the Side of the Head.

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