Over 1,000 Windows 95 Programs/Over 1000 Windows 95 Programs (Microforum) (Disc 2).iso/0137/winguide.txt

Text File | 1997-03-25 | 14.7 KB | 341 lines

Trial Program Guide

PARAGRAPH PUNCH
Skill levels 6 - 10

Trial version: REASONS (Level 1)

Complete program: REASONS (Level 1), DETAILS (Level 2), EXAMPLE (Level 3),
CAUSE AND EFFECTS (Level 4), SEQUENCE (Level 5)

Windows or MS-DOS (VGA display)

OBJECTIVES

This writing program helps students with reading levels of five and up to
write effective paragraphs. It teaches five different ways to develop a
paragraph: through reasons, details, sequence, example, and cause and
effects. A step-by-step approach emphasizes content and organization.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

To use Paragraph Punch, students need to be able to write basic sentences
on a word processor. The program guides the student through each step in
writing a complete paragraph. Help messages are provided throughout.
Students are encouraged by the program's graphic rewards, as well as by
seeing their work develop and progress. Students may transfer their
finished paragraphs to a commercial word processing program.

SAVING AND DELETING STUDENT FILES

Save and Exit is a save and resume feature available throughout the
program. It allows students to save their work and return to it at another
time. The program will quickly scroll the student's work and stop at the
exact place s/he left off. Students who return to Publishing can go back
to Editing.

This version of Paragraph Punch permits entry of only two student names.
When a third name is entered, the first one will be deleted. The School
version permits entry of as many names as disk space allows.

Any student name that is not accessed for a month is automatically deleted.
If you do not want students to save their writing, change the attributes
of the file FILE to read only. Then the Save and Exit feature will be
disabled and will not appear on the screen.

To delete all student files, see Utility Program: Cleanup.

KEYBOARD EDITING KEYS

Keyboard editing keys, for use throughout the program:

Insert (toggle key)  =  Thick cursor for insert/thin cursor for typeover

Home  =  Move cursor to beginning of text

End  =  Move cursor to end of text

[Ctrl] right arrow key  =  Move cursor to next word

[Ctrl] left arrow key  =  Move cursor to preceding word

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION

General function keys:

F1 Help  =  See help message

F2 Topic  =  See topic chosen by the student

F3 Pre-Writing  =  See Pre-Writing Notepad

F4 Writing  =  See Writing Notepad

F5 Add  =  Put another sentence in paragraph

F6 Remove  =  Take a sentence from Paragraph Notepad and store
it in the Writing Notepad

F7 Move  =  Change order of sentences in paragraph

F8 Edit  =  Make change or correction in sentence

F9 Page Back  =  Go back for review or reference

F10 Next page/End section  =  Done with task on screen

[Shift] F10 Save and Exit =  Save and resume feature saves work, which
may be resumed at another time

INTRODUCTION:  Introduces a specific type of paragraph - one that presents
reasons, details, example, sequence, or cause and effects to support the
topic of the paragraph.

TOPIC: Students are given several themes and are asked to choose one as
the focus of their paragraph. The students then enter the name of their
own specific subject, which will be the topic of their paragraph.

PRE-WRITING:  A Pre-Writing Notepad appears on the screen. Using words or
phrases, not sentences, students put their ideas about the theme they have
chosen into the Pre-Writing Notepad. The computer provides a series of
questions to help stimulate the student's thoughts. Students must enter at
least four words or phrases about the topic, on separate lines, before the
computer can proceed to the next section. Words and phrases for the
Pre-Writing Notepad should be limited to about twelve lines. Each line may
have up to 80 characters, and more than one idea may be put on a line. All
the ideas listed do not have to be used.

WRITING - TOPIC SENTENCE: The computer provides a sample topic sentence,
plus an incomplete topic sentence for students to finish as an exercise.
Students then write an original topic sentence to introduce their
paragraph.

WRITING - BODY:  The Pre-Writing Notepad reappears at the beginning of
this section. Students may choose any line in the Pre-Writing Notepad as
many times as they want. Before the program continues, however, they must
choose at least four words or phrases and write something about each.
These sentences are entered into the Writing Notepad. Students are also
encouraged to write additional sentences to expand their paragraph. We
suggest students enter no more than twelve sentences. Students have the
opportunity to refer to the Pre-Writing Notepad throughout the
Writing - Body section and the beginning of the next section. A long
sentence may not appear completely on the screen in the Writing - Body
section or in the first part of Organizing. The full sentence will appear
in the Paragraph Draft, which first appears in the second part of
Organizing.

ORGANIZING:  In the first step of this section, the Writing Notepad with
the student's sentences appears on the upper half of the screen. An empty
Paragraph Notepad box is on the lower screen. Students take sentences from
the Writing Notepad and arrange them in the Paragraph Notepad, deciding
which sentences to use and in which order. All the sentences do not have
to be used, but at least three must be chosen for the computer to proceed.
Students also have the chance to add new sentences to the Writing Notepad.
Note that a red arrow next to a sentence in the Paragraph Notepad
indicates there are additional sentences that do not appear on the screen.
Students use Page Up or Page Down to scroll.

In the second step of the Organizing section students see their work for
the first time in paragraph form in the Paragraph Draft box. Complete
sentences now appear in wrap style. Students have the opportunity to use
the Add, Move, Remove, and Edit operations to modify their sentences.
These operations will also be available in the Editing section. Changes
are made directly within the Paragraph Notepad and are not entered onto
the Writing Notepad. Updated changes will appear in the Paragraph Draft at
the beginning of each successive part of the Editing and Proofreading
sections. Students are encouraged here to add transitional words to help
the sentences flow smoothly from one thought to the next.

Before moving to the next section, students are asked, "Are you sure you
want to leave this section?" At this point, students can page back to
earlier screens within the Organizing section.

WRITING - CONCLUSION:  The computer provides a sample concluding sentence,
plus an incomplete concluding sentence for students to finish as an
exercise. Students then write an original concluding sentence to end their
paragraph.

EDITING:  In Editing - Overview, the Paragraph Draft reappears for review.
The computer asks the students to check their work and gives prompts to
guide them in the use of the appropriate function key to rearrange, add,
remove, or edit sentences. Subsections of Editing - Style, Sentence
Structure, and Grammar - are designed to help students improve their
paragraph. There are specific suggestions for improving style, correcting
sentence structure, and reviewing basic grammar.

Students may review any of the steps in the Editing and Proofreading
sections by using Page Up and Page Down.

PROOFREADING:  This is the student's chance to review the paragraph before
Publishing. Students are reminded about pitfalls in basic punctuation and
spelling.

PUBLISHING:  Students see their Paragraph Draft and can save it, print it,
or move it to a word processor. The publishing function keys are:

F1 Help  =  See help message

F2 Topic  =  See topic chosen by the student

F3 Print  =  Print Paragraph Draft

F4 Text Save  =  Save Paragraph Draft for word processor only

F5 Start Your Word Processor  =  Accesses your word processor
and exits Paragraph Punch

F9 Back  =  Go back to Editing - Overview

F10 Exit  =  Exit program

[Shift] F10 Save and Exit  =  Save and resume feature saves Paragraph
Draft, which may be returned to at another time, and exits program.
This is not available for use after "Start Your Word Processor."

F3 Print: Name and date appear at the beginning of the printout. To change
the default printer assignment, access PRINTER.CFG on the Paragraph Punch
program, and change the contents of the ASCII file (currently PRN) to the
device name of your choice.

F4 Text Save:  This key allows the student to move his/her Paragraph Draft
to a word processor after exiting the program. It creates a file in a word
processor format.

The student must enter a standard DOS file name. A file name can have no
more than eight characters, which may be followed by a period and a
three-character extension. Sample: A:BARRY.TXT or A:BARRY  Note: the file
name can contain the full DOS drive and path name. If you wish students to
save their paragraphs to a floppy disk, they should enter the drive
followed by a file name. Sample: A:DORIS.TXT or A:DORIS

1. Generic Text Saving Option:  This option is for word processing
programs that can import TXT files. If you are uncertain of your word
processing program, try this option first. Most word processing programs
accept the generic format, which places a carriage return and a line feed
character (ASCII codes 13,10) at the end of every line. This is also
referred to as the Standard ASCII format. This format can be sent directly
to most non-PostScript printers with the DOS command: COPY file LPT1

2. Commercial Word Processing Programs Text Saving Option:  Use this format
if your imported text comes in double spaced. A carriage return and a line
feed character (ASCII codes 13,10) are appended only at the end of the
paragraph.

F5 Start Your Word Processor:  This key provides automatic access to a
word processor. If the student has not used Text Save, the program will
ask for the Text Save information before automatically accessing the word
processor.

If you need to change the default word processor assignment, access WP.CFG
and change the ASCII file (currently DEMOWP) to the path and file name of
your word processor. For example, C:\DOS\EDIT. If you do not want students
to access a word processor, delete WP.CFG and the F5 Start Your Word
Processor key will not appear on the screen.

CONFIGURATION FILES

PRINTER.CFG = Printer configuration. You may change the contents of the
ASCII file (currently PRN) to the device name of your choice.

WP.CFG = Word processor configuration. If you need to change the default
word processor assignment, access WP.CFG and change the ASCII file
(currently DEMOWP) to the path and file name of your word processor. For
example, C:\DOS\EDIT. If you do not want students to access a word
processor, delete WP.CFG and the F5 Start Your Word Processor key will not
appear on the screen.

DIRECTOR.CFG = Lets you define where Paragraph Punch stores the students'
data. This is a plain ASCII file that most editors can edit and save (as
an ASCII file). There are three basic ways to configure Paragraph Punch
DIRECTOR.CFG.

CURRENT (default for single user)
ENVIRONMENT (default for network)
user defined

CURRENT: With this word as the first line in DIRECTOR.CFG, Paragraph Punch
will store its files in the directory where it was installed.

ENVIRONMENT: With this word as the first line in DIRECTOR.CFG, Paragraph
Punch uses three environment variables that can be modified by the DOS set
command (see your DOS manual for more information on the set command).
These variables are automatically maintained by I-CLAS, but for generic
networks you can set them up as follows:

HV      (home volume, or drive)
G       (students' parent directory)
D       (students' directory)

Sample setting of master environment:

SET HV=sys:
SET G=students

Sample setting of the students' login batch:

SET D=student_._ _

Paragraph Punch will then assemble these variables to the path
sys:\students\student_._ _ \ and keep its working files there.

user defined: Any other text as the first line of DIRECTOR.CFG will
be used as the Paragraph Punch working directory. Sample: C:\working

UTILITY PROGRAM

CLEANUP = Deletes all texts saved with Save and Exit, and deletes
paragraphs saved with Text Save if students were instructed to enter a
file name without an extension. CLEANUP will only work if the DIRECTOR.CFG
file is set to CURRENT. (It will not work on Networks.)

Incorrect exiting may cause a problem with the student text file. Cleanup
may enable you to correct the problem yourself by replacing the damaged
texts with the structure for a new student text file.

copyright 1992-1996 Merit Audio Visual
All rights reserved GTDR
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

We hope you enjoy previewing this trial version of PARAGRAPH PUNCH.
The complete program contains the following:

Five ways to develop an effective paragraph: through reasons, details,
sequence, example, and cause and effects, with three themes per type
of paragraph

A program guide that contains teaching suggestions

SCHOOL VERSIONS permit entry of as many student names as disk space
allows and include an editor that enables teachers to create their
own themes.

HOME VERSIONS block entry of multiple student names, but still provide the same content as the school version.

Merit Audio Visual offers a full range of educational software for writing,
reading, grammar, vocabulary, ESL, and math. Merit also offers networking
for Novell and other LAN, and licensing. School or Institutional Purchase
Orders accepted.

We will be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Call us Monday through Friday between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM Eastern time at

800 / 753-6488 or 212 / 675-8567.  FAX: 212 / 675-8607.

Or write MERIT AUDIO VISUAL, 132 W. 21 Street, New York, NY 10011
for free software catalog.

This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware
Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle
works for you.  If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem
with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to
help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an
ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products.
Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI
49442-9427 USA, FAX [phone] or send a Compuserve message via
CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.