Top Tips For Typing

By Jenni Harrison | Top Tips

We give you some top tips for typing up your poems and stories.

If you’re using your computer to type up your entry, then follow these top tips to improve your typing skills and make your piece shine!

1. The first thing you need to type is your name! Put it at the top so it’s clear and so that you know it’s done. We need a name to be able to accept your entry.

2. Put Title: before your title. Then it’s clear that it’s your title and not included in the word count for competitions where there is a word limit.

3. Remember writing rules. Capitals and punctuation still count when typing! 

Capital letters are needed: 

• at the start of new sentences 

• for proper nouns. 

• for the word ‘I’ as in ‘I went to the shops’

To add a capital letter: hold down the Shift button at the same time as the letter to turn it into a capital. 

Alternatively you can hit the Caps Lock button, but remember to hit it again to take it off or you’ll end up typing ALL IN CAPS!

4. Only use one space after a full stop. (Some people used to add a double space but we don’t use that style.)

5. Also watch out for extra spaces before other punctuation. Most punctuation marks should be closed up to the previous word. (Exceptions: open bracket, open quote and currency symbols will be closed up to the word that follows it, and dashes have a space either side.)

6. Use double speech marks. The double quote mark is usually on the 2 key on your keyboard. Hold down Shift 2 to get “.

7. Speaking of speech, if you have more than one person speaking, you need a new paragraph when a new person starts speaking. 

“Hi George.”
“Oh hi Sarah, how are you today?” asked George.
Sarah replied, “I’m great thanks.”

8. Use spellcheck. It’s not perfect so make sure what it's suggesting is correct. It won’t pick up on everything but it can definitely help! 

In Word, go to: Review – Spelling and Grammar

In GoogleDocs go to: Tools – Spelling and Grammar

Let us know in the comments if you use a different program and where the spellcheck is!

9. Save your work! 

In Word, go to File-Save As. It will ask you where you want to save it. Ask your teacher if you’re not sure. 

Give your file a name so that your teacher can identify it, and so you can find it again if you need to save and come back to it. Include the title of your work and your name so it’s easy to find. 

Google Docs will auto save, but you still need to give it a title. Go to the top left where it says ‘Untitled Document’ and click on it to edit.

Now you're ready to send your entry in to us! You can upload it here, or email it to us: [email protected]

You can see all our latest competitions here. 

If you'd like a PDF version of this blog to share with your pupils, you can download it here.