Word-Processing “Efficiency”—By Means of Personalized Word-Frequency Lists

This article examines the concept of the efficiency with which text is entered into a word processor—from the perspective of effective use of keyboard shortcuts (sometimes called “hot keys” or “accelerator keys”). The article makes reference to the Autotext facility which is available in Microsoft Word. The article illustrates how the possibility for productiveness offered by shortcuts, available through the use of features such as Autotext, are often under-utilized by many word processor users, academics being no exception. The method involves constructing a word list from a corpus of one's own writing. This word list can then be taken as the basis for a personalized set of shortcuts of the most frequent words in an individual's writing.