Monday, June 04, 2007
(12:16 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
My Ongoing Battle With Microsoft Word
I spent this weekend writing my mysterious paper for the Judith Butler seminar (thankfully now completed and even revised), and I have an observation: Word does not handle the pagination of double-spaced documents well at all, especially if footnotes are involved. Being the absolute dork I am, and always in search of new modes of structured procrastination, I of course put considerable effort into fine-tuning the formatting to avoid huge white spaces on the bottom of pages.I will also note that composing a paper in double-space mode always feels somehow more intimidating than single-space. Probably it's the feeling that "this is for keeps," since it's in the same format that I'll be turning it in. A good strategy might be to use single-spacing for the "first draft," then "edit" it by turning on double-spacing.
One might think that such self-deception would backfire, but just as self-knowledge does not help me to solve my problems, it also does not interfere with my solutions. The first level of reflexivity is powerless -- it's that second meta-level where you really start seeing results. That's why I try to maintain as many levels of reflexivity as possible at all times. There may be a point of diminishing returns, but if so, I haven't found it.
