Nowadays, all that a huge backpack for a student would contain is conveniently packed in a single device—your laptop. All the books, worksheets, pens, pencils, and notebooks are essentially at a student’s fingertips. So it is hard to overestimate the advantages a laptop gives students. It allows access to lectures and training, giving a person with any talents an opportunity to grow creatively and develop virtually any type of intellectual skill. However, most of us regular PC users have a shallow understanding of how this technology can help in even more effective learning. Hence, here are the PC features worth trying for every student out there.
Table of Contents
Writing better
One of the main instruments for students on their PC is probably MS Word. Students spend long hours after dark polishing their essays and papers and looking for accidental mistakes to get the highest grade. With the not-so-obvious features of this program, essay writing can go even easier.
Templates
The Word developers know quite well what their product is used for, which is why they made this process even easier. When opening the program, it will suggest to the user the format of a document they are about to work on. It saves a lot of time on formatting and style of the document, while the student’s task stays only on writing.
However, for those who always have to write an essay in a specific format, a custom template is an even better feature. Just create the parts of your essay that don’t change in all assignments, and save it as a basic template for future ones.
Formatting an essay may be tricky, as every detail counts, so if there are any doubts, you can always order an exemplary one from a paper writing service with affordable price, where a professional writer will complete an assignment with all the rules followed. So, just save the essay format in your templates, and never worry about it again.
Style
The first thing the professor usually looks at before reading a student’s work is the way information is organized and presented visually. MS Word gives multiple choices of arranging the information so that it is easy to read and comprehend. Don’t forget to try picking the right font and make sure to accentuate the most important points in your assignments with highlights or underscore, as well as systemize lists with bullet points or numbers.
Shared access to documents
This is probably one of the most useful features for whole classes to take notes and learn collectively. Students who purchase full access to all the features of MS word can write and edit one document in real-time.
If you have an important lecture and don’t want any idea or fact to get lost, take notes collectively with your whole class. Everyone will contribute their part in a note, which, later, will make it easier to prepare for an exam or a seminar. Plus, such a way of taking notes will give your class an opportunity for a shared discussion of the topic. This means every student will understand the material more profoundly than they would do working solo.
Bookmarks and headings
If you are working on a long and comprehensive paper of multiple sections, the bookmarks and heading feature will help to keep the document organized. Instead of changing fonts and their sizes manually, pick the format of the heading and subheading.
Then, the headings and subheadings will automatically organize into bookmarks in the document, and the user will easily access any section in the bar on the right. At the same time, the list of headings and subheadings will appear as a “Contents” section of the document.
The autosave
Probably, one of the worst fears of every student is spending hours on their paper and then failing to save it. Usually, the most academically anxious people keep pressing Ctrl+S after every paragraph, ensuring all the changes are secured. However, even if something goes wrong with the document, the program saves the changes automatically, and the user can always find the latest version of their work in the backup folder.
Plus, using an online version of the document will eliminate this problem and, what’s more, give you access to your documents from any other device.
Keeping the studies organized
Apart from the writing features, PCs provide many opportunities to keep your studies systemized. For a person who studies, it is easier to clutter the device with numberless files and then spend an unreasonable amount of time searching for the needed file.
Pinned windows
For productive multitasking, the user can split the screen into two or more working sections. Just drag the window to the left side of the screen by pressing Win, and it will be pinned there. It is extremely convenient for reading a book or watching a lecture on one side of the screen while taking notes on the other one.
Smart menu
Not to get lost in numberless applications and to avoid scrolling through the whole alphabetic list of them, use the Smart menu. When open, it displays the list of letters, so the user can jump right to the section with the application searched.
Focus mode
As the computer is one’s personal brain center, probably all email applications and messengers run automatically when the device is on. If you need some time to focus on a specific task and don’t want to be distracted, use Focus Assist. Find this feature in settings to customize the allowed notifications or turn them all off while working intensively.
The bottom line
Apart from containing many useful features that students have not yet known about, a PC can be a very sensible assistant that helps students focus, keep track of their achievements and access their files in seconds. Getting familiar with such features will simplify your studying process and offload your head. So, to discover more functionality of your personal device, don’t forget to play with shortcuts and search for a more convenient way of completing tasks. There is a huge possibility that this problem is not unique and has already been taken care of by the most talented user experience engineers.