ELWOOD EDUCATION
  • HOME PAGE
  • See Beyond Magazine
  • About the Instructor
  • Agenda
    • AP Lit 2021-2022
    • Senior English 2021-2022
  • Contact page
  • Parent Letters and CCSS
  • WHS Map and Calendar
    • Evacuation Maps
    • WHS Map
  • Contests and Opportunities
  • Naviance
  • Bullying
  • Home Work Tracking Document
  • Vocabulary Work
    • Word Origins
    • Correct Word Choices
  • Writing
    • Long Quote Set Up
    • Template: Lit. Techniques
    • "TDCT" Editing / Annotated
    • Avoiding Babyish Diction
    • Editing Out To-Be Verbs
    • Better Word Choices
    • Spelling Tips
    • Accent Marks
    • Hyphenation
    • Introductions and Conclusions
    • Primary vs. Secondary Sources
  • Plagiarism
  • MLA Format Set UP
    • MLA Essay/WC Instructions and Sample
    • Date Structures
    • Header in Google Docs
    • EM DASH, EN DASH, HYPHEN
    • Default Setting in Google Docs
    • Essay Quotes / Blue Sheet
    • TRANSLATED TEXTS
    • Parentheses in an Essay
    • Widows and Orphans
    • Citing a Poem or Song in an Essay
    • Spaces after a period or colon
    • Same page quotes in a single paragraph
    • Works Cited Pages
    • Quoting / Citing a Play
    • Quoting conversation in a Play
    • Ellipsis and Brackets
    • Punctuation with Quotation Marks
    • Accent Marks
  • Reading
    • Motivation to Read
    • Recommended Reading
  • Studying Tips
  • Strategies for Instructors
    • CATE Conference 2015
    • CATE Conference 2014
    • CATE Convention 2013
    • CCSS Tree Assignment
  • Research
  • Grammar Quizzes
  • Printing at local libraries
  • PASS (Yellow Sheet)
  • If / Then and Split Infinitives
  • Avoiding Ambiguity
  • Instructional Videos
  • IT IS I or IT IS ME
  • College Essay HELP
  • COLLEGE PROMPTS AND HELP
  • TUTORIAL CLUB
  • ASB NEWS
  • Instructions Checklist / Survival Checklist
  • "Everyday Use" Guidelines
  • AP LIT TESTING INFORMATION
  • PRACTICE
  • AP LIT FOR JUNIORS
  • Fix Google Docs and Slides
  • NOTES EXPECTATIONS
  • AP LIT TESTING
  • Back-to-School Night
  • NOVEL/PLAY PREP
  • CAREER TIPS
  • AP Lit Past Agenda
WIDOWS AND ORPHANS
Does your word processor pull sentences from the bottom of one page and place them at the top of the next page? If so, you have the widows and orphans function turned on.  


To Eliminate WIDOWS AND ORPHANS: 
  • In "Home" or "Page Layout" or "Format" you will find the Paragraph option. 
  • In the Paragraph box, click on the button that will show you a larger box of options. (Lower right-hand corner)
  • You should get a box that has two categories at the top: Click on "Line and Page Breaks."
  • Under the "Pagination" options, you will see a box for "Widow/Orphan control."  Uncheck that box.  
  • At the bottom of the "Paragraph" box, second from the left, you will find a "Set As Default" button.  Click on that.
  • Then select "OK."   
WIDOW:
  • A widow is the name of a line that begins a new paragraph at the bottom of a page. When the widows and orphans function is on, your word processor will automatically pull that last sentence of the page (which is the first sentence of a paragraph) onto the next page, thereby making your bottom margin extra large. 

ORPHANS:
  • When the orphan function is on, your word processor will automatically correct for a partial sentence that ends up all alone on a page. Since that is visually unappealing, the word processor pulls a line or so of print from the previous page, thereby again making that bottom margin on the previous page too large. 

Turning off Widows and Orphans does not mean that it’s OK to have a partial sentence all alone on the last page of a paper. Here are some suggestions for solving that problem:

1. Do a little more editing. Certainly, you could eliminate a couple of words either in that paragraph or in a paragraph or more in the entire paper. Look for any paragraph that has just a few words on the last line. It could take just a small adjustment anywhere in such a paragraph to pull those last few words of that paragraph up, which would also pull the orphan off of that last page.   

2. Or cheat a little on the side margins, top and bottom margins or all four. After all, who is going to notice the difference between a .9” margin and a 1” margin? If you examine margins from a variety of papers where students have all set their margins at 1” all around, you will find some slight differences, possibly attributable to differences in printers. 

For further information, read "Typography Concepts: Widows and Orphans" written by J. Edward Casteele, published on <BrightHub.com>.  To access, click here.