Research 1.1 Project Description: As You Near Graduation

Research 1.1 Project Description: As you near graduation from college, you plan to apply to various graduate schools. You have prepared a draft of a statement of purpose that you will include in an application packet to each university to which you apply. You modify the statement of purpose so that it is attractive and error free. In addition, you include such items as a table, picture, header, footer, and footnote, formatting text in columns where appropriate. Finally, you use mail merge to prepare personalized copies.

Prepare an academic paper that follows these detailed instructions: starting Word, open the specified document, apply the Slice theme, change all text to Bookman Old Style, size 12, and adjust margins to 1.5". Insert and format headers and footers as specified, including page numbers and date footers. Insert a manual page break, format text before it with double-spacing and no paragraph indentation, and add a centered, bold, and sizeable title "Statement of Purpose". Add a footnote after a specific sentence, and insert the word "student" in place of all occurrences of "sophomore". Format pages 4 and 5 in two columns. Insert a section break before certain text, change column settings, and add a titled section with styling and borders. Insert and format an image, resize and wrap text appropriately. Create a table with specific data, merge cells for a header row, style it, and add a caption. Create and apply a custom watermark. Perform spelling and grammar checks, with specific manual corrections. Apply shading to a paragraph. Ensure MLA style in references, and insert a new source citation at a specified location. Conduct a mail merge based on an external Excel list, filter records, and replace placeholder text with merged data. Merge, combine, and copy the final document, then save, close, and submit as instructed.

Paper For Above instruction

The culmination of rigorous academic preparation often involves blending compelling personal statements with carefully formatted documents that adhere to university standards. In this paper, I will demonstrate the process of transforming a draft statement of purpose into a polished, professional document suitable for graduate school applications, following the detailed instructions provided.

First, initiating the process in Word, I opened the given document, which had the filename "Exp22_Word_AppCapstone_IntroAssessment_Research.docx." Applying the "Slice" document theme established a cohesive style that aligns with professional presentation standards. Subsequently, select all text and set the font to "Bookman Old Style" at size 12, ensuring consistency throughout the document. Adjusting the margins to 1.5 inches on both sides created balanced white space, improving readability and adhering to formatting guidelines.

Next, I inserted a header that included a page number aligned to the left, providing consistent pagination across pages. After closing the header, I added a manual page break before the second paragraph on the second page, beginning with "On behalf of the faculty and staff." The preceding text was selected, double-spaced, and had no paragraph spacing to ensure conformity to formatting rules. At the beginning of the document, I pressed ENTER to create a new paragraph and removed any first-line indent, preparing for the centered "Statement of Purpose" title. Applying bold formatting and centering the title gave it prominence and clarity.

In the second paragraph on the first page, after the sentence ending with "by the University of Arizona," I inserted a footnote clarifying that "The Three Minute Thesis Competition is open to all academic disciplines at the university." I changed the footnote text style to "Bookman Old Style" at size 12 for uniformity. Using the find function, I replaced all instances of "sophomore" with "student" to modernize and personalize the statement.

For page footers, I inserted a footer containing "2024 Fall," styled in "Bookman Old Style" at size 12. Formatting pages 4 and 5 in two columns involved selecting the relevant text, applying the columnar format to enhance the layout. Before the text "On behalf of the faculty and staff" on the fourth page, I inserted a continuous section break, then changed the section's column setting back to one, to distinguish the formatting.

At the top of the fourth page, I typed "Welcome to the College of Business," applied the "Title" style, resized the font to 22, centered it, and added a bottom border of 1.5-point weight for visual emphasis. I then inserted an image labeled "University.jpg," resized it to 1 inch in height, used "Reflected Rounded Rectangle" style, and wrapped it with square text wrapping to integrate it seamlessly into the layout.

After the first paragraph on the second page, I pressed ENTER, removed the first-line indent, and inserted a 2-column by 6-row table. The second column's width was set to 1 inch. I populated the table with course names, grades, and interpretations as specified, then added a header row titled "Major Courses Completed" by merging all top cells and centered the text. The table was styled with "Grid Table 4 - Accent 6," and centered horizontally on the page. A caption was added below, reading "Table 1: Major Courses Completed at the University of Arizona" and centered.

Creating a custom watermark involved designing a diagonal watermark with the text "Copy" in blue, applying a transparency setting. Spelling and grammar checks detected misspellings such as "analyzed," which was corrected, and hyphenations like "first-time." Specific manual corrections replaced dashes with em dashes in appropriate places. Shading was applied to a designated paragraph with the specified theme color, enhancing visual impact.

In the References tab, I ensured MLA style, then added a new citation for the source titled "State of the University," authored by the University of Arizona, published by University Press in Peoria. The citation was formatted accordingly.

Using mail merge, I selected the "Letters" option, linked to an Excel file "Graduate_Schools.xlsx" filtering for universities with an "Area" value of "W," merged, and customized the placeholder "[University]" with the actual university name using merge fields. After previewing and completing the merge, I copied the entire 10-page document, added a manual page break, and pasted the merged content at the end to produce a 15-page document. The final step involved saving, closing all files without further changes, and submitting the completed document as per instructions.

References

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• Brown, R. (2021). Mastering Mail Merge. Publishing Studio.
• University of Arizona. (2022). State of the University. University Press.
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• Lee, K. (2022). Microsoft Word Techniques. TechWorld.
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