Using Microsoft Word: Track Changes

By Douglas Eyman

The Track Changes feature is located on the Tools menu in Microsoft Word. Accessible from the Track Changes menu are three options: Highlight Changes, Accept or Reject Changes, and Compare Documents.

• Highlight Changes allows you to insert recommendations directly into a text (which is more intrusive than using the commenting feature, but which allows you to make suggestions for revision so that the student can see a model of how you expect him or her to approach the process of revision).
• Accept or Reject Changes allows the writer to accept a correction (thus making it part of the revised document) or to reject a suggestion. This is particularly useful when using the Track Changes feature as part of a peer-review process.
• Compare Documents allows you to quickly see the changes that have been made between revisions.

Highlight Changes/Accept or Reject Changes
The University of Massachusetts at Lowell has an excellent tutorial on using the Track Changes feature in Word at http://continuinged.uml.edu/online/tutorial/word_tracking/

To use the Compare Documents feature, open the most recent version of the draft (the revision) in Word. Next, go to the Tools menu and select Compare from the Track Changes option. Select the second document (the original, pre-revision draft) and click the Open button. Word will then display a merged document with all differences (additions and deletions) marked in red.

Further Resources
Ohio State University has a tutorial on Word Revision: Track Changes, Annotations, & Merge Documents, located at http://ccl.english.ohio-state.edu/handouts/miscellaneous/word_revision_track_changes.htm.

An excellent tutorial that uses Mac examples has been created by Bryn Mawr College; it also includes an example Word document: http://www.brynmawr.edu/itt/word/collaborate.htm.

Resources for Working with Microsoft Word

• General Word Resources

• Commenting with Word

• AutoCorrect