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How to set up an APA format paper in Google Docs

  • How to use Google Docs' APA format templates

How to write an APA format paper in Google Docs using a template or other built-in features

  • You can write an APA formatted paper in Google Docs using its built-in tools or a template.
  • The basics of APA 7 format include double-spaced lines, a running header, and a title page — all of which can be done in Google Docs.
  • Google Docs' templates page includes pre-made APA 6 and APA 7 documents you can use as well.

While some students write in MLA format, others write in APA format. APA — short for American Psychological Association — is a standardized format for writing academic papers, especially in the fields of sociology, psychology, and other behavioral or social sciences. It has specific rules for what your essays should look like, and how they should be structured.

APA format has changed a few times over the decades (right now we're on APA Seventh Edition, or "APA 7"), but the basics have stayed the same. And no matter which version of APA format you're using, you can set it all up using Google Docs.

Here's how to make an APA essay in Google Docs, either manually or using a template.

Like other style guides, APA format has a variety of rules and standards. Here are the most important guidelines for structuring your paper, along with tips on how to meet those guidelines in Google Docs.

  • The font needs to be readable and consistent.

APA isn't strict about what font you should use, or even what size it should be. It just needs to be legible, and you need to use the same font throughout your entire paper (with exceptions for figures, computer code, and footnotes). Some common choices are 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Arial, and 11-point Calibri.

You can change your font and font size using the toolbar at the top of the screen. If you're trying to change text that you've already written, just be sure to highlight it first.

  • Your entire document needs to have one-inch margins and double-spaced lines.

All Google Docs documents have one-inch margins by default, so you probably don't need to worry about that. If you want to double-check or change them anyway, you can change the margins using the Page Setup menu or ruler feature .

Meanwhile, you can enable double-spacing with the Line & paragraph spacing menu in the toolbar above your document. Highlight all the text in your document, then select Double in this menu to turn on double-spacing . 

  • Every page needs a header with the paper's title in the top-left, and the page number in the top-right.

Google Docs lets you add headers to any page. You can add automatic page numbers through the Insert menu , and then double-click the header to add your title on the left if needed.

Remember that they need to be the same font and font size as the rest of your paper.

  • Your paper needs a title page with your name, paper title in bold, "institutional affiliation," and more.

Probably the most important part of an APA paper is the title page. It needs to include the paper's title in bold, your name, and your "institutional affiliation" — the school or organization that you're writing for. If you're a student, you also need to add the course number and name, your instructor's name, and the due date.

All this information should be centered in the upper-half of the first page. You can find Google Docs' alignment options in the toolbar at the top of the page. Highlight your text and select Center align in this menu to center everything.

  • Your paper should end with a References page, and each entry should be written with a hanging indent.

The last section of your paper is the References page. Make sure to put it on a new page (or pages, depending on how many you have to cite).

The word "References" should be centered and bolded on the very first line of the page. You can center the words using the alignment options mentioned above, and bold it by clicking the B icon .

List all your references in alphabetical order and use the ruler to give each one a hanging indent — in other words, every line after the first needs to be indented .

Your citations need hanging indents, which you can make with the ruler tool. Google; William Antonelli/Insider

How to use google docs' apa format templates.

While you can format your paper manually, Google Docs also offers two different APA templates — one for APA 7, and another for APA 6. These templates will let you meet most of the APA guidelines right away, but you'll probably still need to change some of it.

To use one of these templates:

1. Head to the Google Docs homepage and click Template gallery in the top-right.

2. Scroll down the templates page until you reach the Education section. In this section, click either Report [APA 6th ed] or Report [APA 7th ed] .

3. A page will open with an APA format paper already written in fake Lorem Ipsum language. Most of the formatting is there, so you just need to replace the pre-written words with your own.

You can find these templates in the mobile app by tapping the plus sign icon in the bottom-right, and then selecting Choose template .

fake essay google docs

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10 Google Docs Hacks That Make Writing More Seamless

by Carson Kohler | Apr 30, 2021

Two people sitting at a picnic table looking at a laptop

I’ll just come out and say it: As a professional writer, editor and content manager, I can’t work — no, I can’t live — without Google Docs .

If you too are a fan, you get it. If not, here’s the quick elevator pitch: Google Docs makes writing, sharing and collaborating easy. It’s also free, and you can access your work anywhere (even without internet — see more on that below).

Even more, Google Docs has some nifty tricks up its sleeve that’ll make your life as a writer easier.

fake essay google docs

10 Google Docs hacks every writer needs to know

Want to elevate your Google Docs experience? Try these 10 hacks.

1. Tap into your revision history

Ever write something, delete it, then feel your heart sink five minutes later because, Darn it, that actually would have been perfect ? Yeah, me too. All the time. But that’s the beauty of Google Docs’ revision history. It keeps a record of (almost) everything you write.

To tap into your revision history, all you have to do is go to: File → Version history → See version history .

Expand detailed versions, and you’ll find minute-by-minute versions of your document. Click through to see your changes and find that pesky paragraph you want to copy and paste back into your story.

If you’re super organized, you can also name versions of your document (e.g. Draft I, Draft II, Edited I, Edited II, etc.) so you can keep better track of them.

2. Work offline

If you’re traveling, Google Docs makes it easy to work offline , meaning you can work in your doc without being connected to the internet. To do this, go to your settings in Google Drive, and select “work offline.”

fake essay google docs

This has been a lifesaver when I’m stuck in an airport with bad Wi-Fi, on a plane where I have to pay for bad Wi-Fi or even on a road trip. You can also download the Google Docs app to become even more mobile.

Pro tip : If you’re struggling to stay focused and find yourself compulsively clicking through Facebook, checking emails, online shopping and doing everything except writing (me, way too often), then consider turning off your Wi-Fi and working offline. Even if you’re home and have perfectly good internet access, this will allow you to pseudo-unplug and limit your distractions.

3. Self-edit with suggested changes and comments

Sure, suggested changes (also known as track changes in Google Docs ) are great for editors working with writers, but have you ever used these tools for self-editing ? 

Suggested changes can be particularly helpful when you’re working on a story’s organization. You can move paragraphs around here and there in suggestion mode to see what it “feels” like. If you like it, accept changes!

To turn on suggested changes, select the pencil in the top right corner of your doc, and turn on suggesting mode. When you’re done making suggested changes, go back to editing mode.

fake essay google docs

Leaving comments can also be handy. If you’re at a loss for words or need to leave a reminder to fact-check a section later on, add a comment for yourself. It’s basically a virtual sticky note. There are a few ways to do this:

  • Insert → Comment
  • Command+Option+M
  • Highlight your sentence and click the blue comment box on the right side of your document. (You can switch to suggestion mode this way, too!)

fake essay google docs

4. Use Google Docs Add-Ons

Did you know Google Docs has add-ons? Think of these like a Chrome extension — they’re added features that’ll level up your Google Doc.

To explore Google Docs add-ons , select Add-ons → Get add-ons . Or, if you’re not in Google Docs right now, just head to the Google Workspace Marketplace .

There are dozens of add-on options, but here are a few that may be particularly helpful for writers:

  • Easy Accents : This add-on makes it easy to insert accent marks into your document without searching through that pesky special characters box or copying and pasting from Google.
  • ProWritingAid Grammar and Writing Coach : This highly rated add-on will point out spelling and style inconsistencies, help you eliminate cliches and redundancies, check your spelling and grammar, spot overused words, and more. (Note: The free version runs on the first 500 words of your doc. You’ll have to buy the premium version for more, but the reviews make it sound worth it. Here’s our ProWritingAid review. )
  • Doc Tools : Consider this your Google Docs toolbox. You get 13 straightforward tools, including easy font size change, highlight, eraser and alphabetical sorting. (Google Docs offers these features, but they’re a bit tricky to find. These are just an added toolbar!)

5. Compare documents

If you have two pieces of text you’d like to compare, Google Docs makes this easy. Select Tools → Compare Documents . You’ll select another Google Doc to compare your current one with.

For writers, and especially freelancers, this may be particularly helpful to see what changes an editor has made to your published work. What you can do is copy and paste the published text into a Google Doc then compare it with your submitted draft.

This simple hack can help you better understand — and meet! — your editor’s expectations.

6. Cite sources

If you’re in academia, you likely have to cite sources. (As an English major, this was my least favorite thing ever.) There are online tools out there that’ll help you with formatting — or you can just use Google Docs’ free built-in citations tool.

Head to Tools → Citations .

In the sidebar, select APA, MLA or Chicago style. Then, enter the material’s information and save the source. Find where in your text you need to add the citation, and select “ Cite .” At the bottom of the citations sidebar, click “ Insert bibliography .” Google Docs will keep this updated as you add more citations.

7. Let Google type for you

Tired of typing? Or maybe you just want to dictate some general brainstorming ideas into a doc. Give your fingers a break with Google’s voice typing feature. ( Tools → Voice typing .)

This opens a little speaker. Just click and start talking. Say “period” when you want to end a sentence or “new line” when you want to insert a paragraph break. Of course, it doesn’t always translate perfectly, but it’s a good tool to have on hand!

8. Keep organized with a table of contents

If you’re working on a big project, making a table of contents at the top of your document can be life-saving. This will make it easy to jump from section to section and also get a clear view of the content’s structure.

If you’re using various headings and subheadings to break up your document (e.g. Heading 2, Heading 3), all you have to do is insert a table of contents ( Insert → Table of Contents ). Google Docs will automatically generate a table of contents for you, with each section of your document linked.

You can then add more sections and customize it.

9. Easily track your word count

As a writer, word count is often important. Maybe you’re trying to hit a specific count for an assignment or maybe you just need to prove to yourself that you’re actually making progress.

Ever wondered how to see your word count in Google Docs without navigating to Tools → Word Count each time you want an update? 

There’s an easy hack that allows you to see your word count while you’re typing. When you’re viewing word count, simply select the box that says “ Display word count while typing .”

fake essay google docs

This opens a little tab at the bottom of your document that keeps a running update going. You can even highlight sentences or sections to see more granular word counts.

fake essay google docs

10. Open a new doc and start writing!

Here’s one final, life-changing tip before I send you on your way: To open a new, blank document, rather than going to your Google Drive and creating a new document, simply type docs.new into your address bar, and a new Google Doc will automatically load.

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Google Docs Phishing Scam: What You Need to Know

How to avoid falling prey to fake emails and apps seeking confidential info

Phishing key on keyboard.

A sophisticated new phishing campaign uncovered yesterday serves as yet another reminder for consumers to be careful what they click on.

Reports of the Google Docs phishing scam, which used emails to trick people into revealing confidential information by opening a fake Google document, were trending on social media Wednesday afternoon. In a statement released later in the day, Google said it had been able to stop the campaign, which reportedly affected less than 0.1 percent of its users, within about an hour.

Google confirmed that victims' contact lists were accessed and used by the hackers, but said no other data was exposed. The company responded with security updates. No further action is required by its users, Google stated.

While the attack added a new twist to phishing, this kind of scam has been around for many years. Here’s a look at how phishing works and what you can do to protect yourself .

What Exactly Is Phishing?

Phishing emails often masquerade as legitimate communications from, say, a bank, a human resources department, or an email provider. In reality, they’re part of a scam designed to gain access to a computer network or steal the personal information stored in your home computer.

Spear phishing adds an extra layer of customization. Instead of sending a generic spam email to millions of people, the attacker uses personal details to craft a message targeted right at you, making it much harder to spot the fraud.

Social media accounts that blast your personal information to the world give hackers plenty of fodder to work with. For example, an email that appears to come from the bank you "like" on Facebook may not immediately arouse suspicion.

So, if you didn’t already have a reason to restrict your social media accounts to just your real-life friends, you do now.

How Did the Google Docs Attack Work?

According to research done by Talos, the threat intelligence division at the computer network firm Cisco, the emails in yesterday's attack appeared to be authored by a real contact from each victim's address book.

The email invited the victims to open a Google Doc and, once that happened, they were asked to authorize a “Google Docs” application. This fake app put a new twist on the traditional phishing scheme, says Lance Cottrell, chief scientist at the cybersecurity firm Ntrepid.

Instead of directing victims to a fake website or a malware-filled attachment, it asked them, through the actual Google authentication process, for a handful of permissions, including total access to their Gmail accounts.

“There’s almost nothing technical about this,” says Cottrell, who was one of the many people to receive the fake Google Docs invitation. “They just built an app that looks like Google Docs."

The user experience was remarkably similar to the real thing, too. When victims agreed to the request, the hackers could read, delete, and send emails that appeared to be coming directly from the victim's account. They also got access to all of the contacts in the victim’s account. In fact, the hackers then used the accounts to send even more emails out to those contacts.

The scam worked much the same way as the fake apps that once plagued the app stores of Google and Apple, says Cottrell, except that those scams used permission requests to steal information from smartphones.

“Using multi-factor authentication and the best password in the world doesn't help," he adds, "because you’re logged into Google and you’ve given [the hacker] permission to use your account.”

If you fell victim to the phishing attack, you don't need to do anything with your Google account, including changing your password. Google has purged the fake applications and other malicious content from its system.

But there's nothing you can do about the fact that your contact list is now in the hands of hackers. People and businesses on that list are more likely to be hit by spam and future phishing attacks.

How Can I Protect Myself From Phishing?

Limor Kessem, executive security adviser for IBM Security, says you need to be wary of all emails. If you are not expecting one with a file or a link in it, don't click on it—even if it comes from someone you know. “If you're not sure if someone sent you a file or link," she explained by email, "pick up the phone and ask, especially at work.”

Kessem also encourages people to take a good look at sender names. If the domain has typos in it or looks bogus, report it to the company it's likely imitating. Placing your cursor over hypertext links in emails will show you where the URL leads. If the URL looks phishy, it probably is.

If you're invited to check your bank or credit card account information, type the web address into your browser, she says, instead of clicking on an email link. And if you happen to click on a bad link and end up on a malicious website, don’t enter any personal information. Close your browser immediately and report the email to the company that has been misrepresented.

And always make a point of creating good passwords for your accounts, changing them frequently and setting up multi-factor authentication.

What Do I Watch Out for Now?

Cottrell warns that a slew of copycat scams may soon surface. And, he says, since this sort of scam could easily compromise social media platforms, people should be wary about granting third-party apps permission to access their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

That includes those popular Facebook quizzes that ask for access to “friends,” then go on to ask those friends personal questions that reveal their ideal Star Wars name, Starbucks order, or career choice. The answers could be used for marketing, but also for cracking account passwords.

It’s up to consumers to be on their toes.

“When an app or a quiz says, ‘I want to do this with your information,’" Cottrell says, "you need to pause and think, ‘Do I really want to give access?’”

How to Avoid Online Scams

Do you know how to protect yourself from online threats? On the " Consumer 101 " TV show, host Jack Rico and Consumer Reports' digital privacy expert Thomas Germain play a quiz game to reveal important steps you can take to keep your personal information safe.

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Don't Open That Google Doc Unless You're Positive It's Legit

GooglePhishTA.jpg

If you get a Google Doc link in your inbox today, scrutinize it carefully before you click---even if it looks like it comes from someone you trust. A nasty phishing scam that impersonates a Google Docs request has swept the internet today, including a decent chunk of media companies. You've heard "think before you click" a million times, but it really could save you from a whole lot of hassle.

Google has taken steps to neutralize this particular phish. The company said in a statement that it has "disabled offending accounts. We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again." But when it comes to phishing defense there's always an element of cat and mouse. Large-scale phishing attacks and those impersonating popular services like Google log-in pages regularly stalk the internet.

"The importance of this phish is not how it spread, but rather how it didn’t use malware or fake websites tricking users to give up their passwords," says Aaron Higbee, chief technology officer at the phishing research and defense company PhishMe, which analyzed data from the fake Google Docs campaign. "This phish worked because it tricked the user into granting permissions to a third-party application. This is the future of phishing, and every security technology vendor is ill-equipped to deal with it."

Similar Google Docs scams in particular have been circulating since at least 2014, but that doesn't make them any easier to spot, in part because they seem so authentic. Phishers can use real Google accounts and develop third-party plugins that can interact with Google services, so they can lure victims in through the most perfect-looking Google web pages of all: Genuine ones. And variations on this approach hit over and over, much like waves in the ocean . Fishing? Phishing. You get it. Here's how to stay vigilant this time, and going forward.

This round of Google docs phishing emails works like so: You get an email saying someone added you to a Google Doc; click this link to view it. That takes you to a legitimate account screen, listing all the Google accounts you're logged into. From there, you choose the one you want to use to view the document (or log in, if you weren't already authenticated in your browser). There, a malicious service called "Google Docs" awaits, asking for privileges to access your account, your contacts, your password rests, your emails, everything.

If you already clicked this type of link today (or any day), go to the Permissions page of your Google account as quickly as possible and, in this case, revoke access to the service called "Google Docs." Again, it's a fake. Then change your password and make sure you have two-factor authentication turned on, which you totally already did, right?

GooglePhishinline.jpg

To help protect yourself even further in the future, Google offers a tool called Password Alert that warns you if you type your Google account credentials into any page that isn't officially Google's. If phishers have made a realistic-looking fake, Password Alert instantly suggests that you change your password and secure your account as soon as you've made the mistake. But this doesn't necessarily protect you when scammers are manipulating genuine Google processes. And, of course, it doesn't help you identify fake log-in pages related to other companies' services.

Resisting the urge to click remains the best first line of defense out there. When you can spot inconsistencies or suspicious content in an email that may help tip you off---in this case, a "To:" field populated by "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" should raise suspicions---and listening to those instincts is important. But in the case where a phishing email (or a spear phishing email tailored to you) is perfect enough to convince you, it takes a general habit of thinking before you click to give you a chance.

Downloading attachments or clicking links shouldn't be automatic even when they seem to be from the people closest to you. Particularly if you're not expecting a message, you should take a moment to examine any URLs it contains in a plaintext editor, or double-check with your friend through another means of communication that they really sent you a Word document of recipes. These quick checks can make a big difference. Sometimes a second look is all it takes to realize that your coworker probably wouldn't send a Google Doc to your entire company out of the blue.

This post has been updated to include comment from PhishMe's Aaron Higbee.

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Fake academic papers are on the rise: why they’re a danger and how to stop them

fake essay google docs

Professor of Methodology and Integrity, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Disclosure statement

Lex Bouter is the founding chair of the World Conferences on Research Integrity Foundation and co-chair of the 8th WCRI in Athens, 2-5 June 2024.

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An illustration of a magnifying glass poised over two wooden discs. Fake is written on one; real on the other

In the 1800s, British colonists in India set about trying to reduce the cobra population, which was making life and trade very difficult in Delhi. They began to pay a bounty for dead cobras. The strategy very quickly resulted in the widespread breeding of cobras for cash .

This danger of unintended consequences is sometimes referred to as the “ cobra effect ”. It can also be well summed up by Goodhardt’s Law , named after British economist Charles Goodhart. He stated that, when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

The cobra effect has taken root in the world of research. The “publish or perish” culture, which values publications and citations above all, has resulted in its own myriad of “cobra breeding programmes”. That includes the widespread practice of questionable research practices, like playing up the impact of research findings to make work more attractive to publishers.

It’s also led to the rise of paper mills, criminal organisations that sell academic authorship. A report on the subject describes paper mills as (the)

process by which manufactured manuscripts are submitted to a journal for a fee on behalf of researchers with the purpose of providing an easy publication for them, or to offer authorship for sale.

These fake papers have serious consequences for research and its impact on society. Not all fake papers are retracted. And even those that are often still make their way into systematic literature reviews which are, in turn, used to draw up policy guidelines, clinical guidelines, and funding agendas.

How paper mills work

Paper mills rely on the desperation of researchers — often young, often overworked, often on the peripheries of academia struggling to overcome the high obstacles to entry — to fuel their business model.

They are frighteningly successful. The website of one such company based in Latvia advertises the publication of more than 12,650 articles since its launch in 2012. In an analysis of just two journals jointly conducted by the Committee on Publications Ethics and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, more than half of the 3440 article submissions over a two-year period were found to be fake.

It is estimated that all journals, irrespective of discipline, experience a steeply rising number of fake paper submissions. Currently the rate is about 2%. That may sound small. But, given the large and growing amount of scholarly publications it means that a lot of fake papers are published. Each of these can seriously damage patients, society or nature when applied in practice.

The fight against fake papers

Many individuals and organisations are fighting back against paper mills.

The scientific community is lucky enough to have several “fake paper detectives” who volunteer their time to root out fake papers from the literature. Elizabeth Bik , for instance, is a Dutch microbiologist turned science integrity consultant. She dedicates much of her time to searching the biomedical literature for manipulated photographic images or plagiarised text. There are others doing this work , too.

Organisations such as PubPeer and Retraction Watch also play vital roles in flagging fake papers and pressuring publishers to retract them.

These and other initiatives, like the STM Integrity Hub and United2Act , in which publishers collaborate with other stakeholders, are trying to make a difference.

But this is a deeply ingrained problem. The use of generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT will help the detectives – but will also likely result in more fake papers which are now more easy to produce and more difficult or even impossible to detect.

Stop paying for dead cobras

They key to changing this culture is a switch in researcher assessment.

Researchers must be acknowledged and rewarded for responsible research practices: a focus on transparency and accountability, high quality teaching, good supervision, and excellent peer review. This will extend the scope of activities that yield “career points” and shift the emphasis of assessment from quantity to quality.

Fortunately, several initiatives and strategies already exist to focus on a balanced set of performance indicators that matter. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment , established in 2012, calls on the research community to recognise and reward various research outputs, beyond just publication. The Hong Kong Principles , formulated and endorsed at the 6th World Conference in Research Integrity in 2019, encourage research evaluations that incentivise responsible research practices while minimise perverse incentives that drive practices like purchasing authorship or falsifying data.

These issues, as well as others related to protecting the integrity of research and building trust in it, will also be discussed during the 8th World Conference on Research Integrity in Athens, Greece in June this year.

Practices under the umbrella of “ Open Science ” will be pivotal to making the research process more transparent and researchers more accountable. Open Science is the umbrella term for a movement consisting of initiatives to make scholarly research more transparent and equitable, ranging from open access publication to citizen science.

Open Methods, for example, involves the pre-registration of a study design’s essential features before its start. A registered report containing the introduction and methods section is submitted to a journal before data collection starts. It is subsequently accepted or rejected based on the relevance of the research, as well as the methodology’s strength.

The added benefit of a registered report is that reviewer feedback on the methodology can still change the study methods, as the data collection hasn’t started. Research can then begin without pressure to achieve positive results, removing the incentive to tweak or falsify data.

Peer review

Peer reviewers are an important line of defence against the publication of fatally flawed or fake papers. In this system, quality assurance of a paper is done on a completely voluntary and often anonymous basis by an expert in the relevant field or subject.

However, the person doing the review work receives no credit or reward. It’s crucial that this sort of “invisible” work in academia be recognised, celebrated and included among the criteria for promotion. This can contribute substantially to detecting questionable research practices (or worse) before publication.

It will incentivise good peer review, so fewer suspect articles pass through the process, and it will also open more paths to success in academia – thus breaking up the toxic publish-or-perish culture.

This article is based on a presentation given by the lead author at Stellenbosch University, South Africa on 12 February 2024. Natalie Simon, a communications consultant specialising in research who is part of the communications team for the 8th World Conference on Research Integrity and is also currently completing an MPhil in Science and Technology Studies at Stellenbosch University, co-authored this article.

  • Academic journals
  • Research integrity
  • Academic research
  • Publish or perish
  • Fake journals
  • Paper mills
  • Open Science movement

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Google Docs Phishing Scam: What You Need to Know

A widespread phishing scam involving Google Docs made its way across the internet today (May 3), with multiple Twitter users and at least two   Reddit threads documenting spam messages coming from "[email protected]". Google appeared to have shut down the phishing campaign within about an hour.

gmail phishing

The phishing email arrived in your inbox and said that someone you knew had shared a Google Doc with you. There was a button to "Open in Docs" — if you clicked it, you were redirected to a non-Google address, and everyone in your Google address book then got the same phishing email, only with you as the sender.

"I just got a Google Doc invite from a BuzzFeed email address, clicked on it, and it spammed everyone I've ever emailed," tweeted Joe Bernstein , a BuzzFeed technology reporter.

It's not yet clear what the aim of the phishing scam was. A posting on the official G Suite blog said that "the problem with Google Drive should be resolved."

If you received such an email and clicked on the"Open in Docs" button, go to https://myaccount.google.com/permissions and see if "Google Docs" is listed as one of the apps that has access to your Google account .

If so, that's the fake one — the real Google Docs shouldn't appear on this page. Select the fake Google Docs and click the blue "REMOVE" button. (We originally advised changing your Google password, but that doesn't seem to have been necessary.)

"This big phishing attack is clever; an OAUTH based attack. Tricks you into giving 'permission' to read your emails," tweeted Matt Tait , a British security expert.

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0Auth is a widely used credentialing standard that keeps you logged into accounts for a long period of time, and can also be used across accounts. For example, when you log into Gmail on one Chrome tab, then open another tab to open Google Drive, a 0Auth "token" logs you into the second tab's content automatically.

Likewise, if you keep a browser logged into a Twitter account indefinitely, that's OAuth at work. Malicious hackers love stealing 0Auth tokens because they can be reused until the user completely logs out of an account on all devices.

Tait added that the ongoing attack was very similar to a spear-phishing campaign last year carried out by APT28, aka Pawn Storm or Fancy Bear, and documented by the Tokyo-based security firm Trend Micro in a recent report. APT28 is one of the two Russian groups that hacked into the Democratic National Committee's email servers during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign.

However, the source code for today's attack was quickly found on at least two code-sharing websites. The code's availability indicated that this email virus may have been the work of "script kiddies," or juvenile pranksters, rather than cybercriminals or nation-state-backed hackers.

Illustration: Laptop Mag

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Write with AI in Google Docs (Workspace Labs)

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On Google Docs, you can use the “Help me write” prompt to suggest text using artificial intelligence. You can use the prompt to:

  • Write new text. For example, you can ask Google Docs to draft a letter or a social media caption.
  • Rewrite existing text. For example, you can rephrase text, or you can make it more formal, more concise, or more detailed.

This feature is currently available on desktop.

Before you use Workspace Labs

  • Workspace Labs feature suggestions don’t represent Google’s views, and should not be attributed to Google.
  • Don’t rely on Workspace Labs features as medical, legal, financial or other professional advice.
  • Workspace Labs features may suggest inaccurate or inappropriate information. Your feedback makes Workspace Labs more helpful and safe.
  • Don’t include personal, confidential, or sensitive information in your prompts.
  • Google uses Workspace Labs data and metrics to provide, improve, and develop products, services, and machine learning technologies across Google.
  • Your Workspace Labs Data may also be read, rated, annotated, and reviewed by human reviewers. Importantly, where Google uses Google-selected input (as described in the Privacy Notice) to generate output, Google will aggregate and/or pseudonymize that content and resulting output before it is viewed by human reviewers, unless it is specifically provided as part of your feedback to Google.

You can review the Google Workspace Labs Privacy Notice and Terms for Personal Accounts .

How Workspace Labs data in Google Docs is collected

When you use the “Help me write (Labs)” prompt in Google Docs, Google uses and stores the following data:

  • Prompts you enter or select
  • Text you select to rewrite
  • Generated text
  • Document content that is referenced to generate text
  • Your feedback on generated text

Use AI to write something new

  • On your computer, open a document on Google Docs .
  • In the document, click where you want to write.
  • “Write a poem about the life of a 6 year old boy”
  • “How-to guide for operating a lawn mower”
  • “Thank you letter after an interview"
  • Click Create .

fake essay google docs

  • Edit your prompt: At the top of the pop-up window, click the prompt. Edit your prompt and click Update .
  • Tone: Select Forma l or Casual
  • Summarize: Gives the key points of the text
  • Bulletize: Formats the text into a bulleted list
  • Elaborate: Adds details to build upon the text
  • Shorten: Makes the text more concise
  • Important : After creating a new version, you can’t go back to the previous version.
  • When you’re finished, click Insert.

Use AI to rewrite existing text

  • Select the text you want to rewrite.
  • Rephrase: Rewords the text
  • Custom: You can also write your own prompt to refine the text.
  • Continue refining the suggested text: Click Refine and repeat step 4.

and then

  • Important: After creating a new version, you can’t go back to the previous generated version.
  • Click Replace to accept the new text.
  • Click Insert to add the new text under the existing text.

Close

Give feedback on generated text

If you get a suggestion that’s inaccurate or that you feel is unsafe, you can let us know by submitting feedback. Your feedback can help improve AI-assisted Workspace features and broader Google efforts in AI.

  • Optional: To review data that will be attached with your feedback, at the bottom, select What data will be attached?  If you don’t want to include the data with your feedback, uncheck Attach collected data to your feedback to help us improve the product experience .
  • Select Next .
  • Review additional context that you can share with your feedback. If you don’t want to include the additional context with your feedback, uncheck Additional context (content referenced to create outputs) .
  • Select Submit.

To report a legal issue, create a request .

Turn off the “Help me write” prompt

To turn off any of the features on Google Workspace Labs, you must exit Workspace Labs. If you exit, you will permanently lose access to all Workspace Labs features , and you won’t be able to rejoin Workspace Labs. Learn more about how to exit Workspace Labs .

Related resources

  • Get started with Google Workspace Labs
  • Organize with AI in Google Sheets
  • Enhanced smart fill in Google Sheets
  • Create images with AI in Google Slides
  • Draft emails with AI
  • Google Workspace Labs Privacy Notice and Terms of Service

Need more help?

Try these next steps:.

fake essay google docs

Using Google products, like Google Docs, at work or school? Try powerful tips, tutorials, and templates. Learn to work on Office files without installing Office, create dynamic project plans and team calendars, auto-organize your inbox, and more.

12 Google Docs Hacks to Maximize Efficiency

12 Google Docs Hacks to Maximize Efficiency

Table of contents

fake essay google docs

Caroline Grape

A staggering 25 million people use Google Docs worldwide (2023). According to data from Statista, 29% of users make use of Google Docs daily and 35% use it two to three times a week (January 2022).

Even though many of us use Docs daily, most people aren’t aware of many time-saving features. As a content creator, making the most of these capabilities has taken my productivity to the next level.

Here are my top tips to boost your efficiency when using Google Docs. 

1. Create a new document instantly

Seamlessly create a new doc in a split second by typing docs.new into your address bar. This will automatically generate an untitled document. Once the document is loaded, it will also generate a full URL for your new doc, so you’ll be able to find it again quickly and easily. 

Screenshot of opening a brand new Google document by typing docs.new into the browser.

2. Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a must when it comes to quickly and easily formatting your text and paragraphs, editing your writing, adding headings, and more.

You can find a full menu of keyboard shortcuts in Google Docs in the Help Center, which is easily accessible from the toolbar in the “Help” dropdown menu. 

Some of the most common keyboard shortcuts include:

  • Command + B: Bold text
  • Command + I: Italicize text
  • Command + U: Underline text
  • Command + option + 1: Apply Heading 1
  • Command + option + 2: Apply Heading 2 
  • Command + F: find word or phrase in text
  • Command + shift + H: Find and replace a word or phrase in text

A list of common keyboard shortcuts available in Google Docs.

3. Instantly change capitalization

Reformatting can really eat into your productivity. Thankfully, it’s a snap to convert between capitalization cases in the “Format” drop-down menu on Google Docs. 

Simply highlight the text you want to change, then go to “Format” in the toolbar. Select “Text,” then “Capitalization.” You’ll be able to switch between lowercase, uppercase, and title case from this menu.

Accessing the “Format” menu to quickly change capitalization in Google Docs.

4. Use Google Docs as a generative AI tool 

Do you often suffer from writer’s block, struggle with grammar and spelling, or need a helping hand to improve your writing? By downloading the Wordtune browser extension , you can get an AI assistant integrated seamlessly into your Google Docs. 

Wordtune’s Spices tool is now available in the browser extension. This option can help you rewrite, continue a sentence if you’re stuck, come up with examples or analogies, and so much more. It’s an incredibly useful tool for anyone — from seasoned writers to students and those who are wanting to improve their writing or language skills. 

Once you add the Wordtune extension to Docs, you’ll see the purple Wordtune icon, with the Spices icon just below, hovering in the upper right-hand corner of your document. Click the icon or highlight a section of text, and Wordtune will offer you a list of options to choose from to improve your sentence. 

I love using these features to help me keep my writing flow going without interruption when I feel a bit stuck or need some inspiration. Plus, the extension includes all of Wordtune’s regular features for help with rephrasing, grammar, spelling, tone of voice, and more. 

Screenshot of the Wordtune browser extension button, which gives access to all of Wordtune’s great features directly in Google Docs.

5. Convert PDFs to text (and vice versa) 

If you’re uploading a PDF to Google Docs, it’ll automatically convert the PDF into text — simple! You can also download a text file as a pdf through Docs. 

If you want to download your Google Doc as a PDF, simply choose from the “File” menu, then go to “Download.” From there, you’ll be given a list of options — select “PDF document (.pdf).” Your download will start automatically. 

 Screenshot showing what to click to download a Google Doc as a PDF.

6. Hands-free writing: voice typing

For those with dyslexia, limited or no vision, or learning difficulties — or if you’re simply on the go — Google’s Talk to Type feature is an amazing tool. It allows you to write hands-free by dictating your sentences as Google Docs types for you. 

To access, select “Voice Typing” from the “Tools” menu or click “Command + Shift + S.” Start speaking and see Google Docs transform your voice into text! You may need to allow access to your microphone through your computer settings, but this will normally be requested when you first use this tool. 

If you want to add commas, periods, or other punctuation, simply say the word “comma,” “period,” etc. You can also delete what you’ve written by saying “delete.” Learn more about Voice Typing features here .

Screenshot showing the Voice Typing feature in Google Docs, including how to click on the microphone to start speaking.

7. Use the outline feature to stay organized

Staring at a huge document can be intimidating! Helpfully, Google Docs’ Outline feature can keep you organized and break your document down into sections.

By the way, if you need help writing your article outline, check out this outline guide .

How to access the Google Docs outline sidebar.

Viewing all your headings in one place is really useful if you’re just starting to draft your document, or if you’re reading a big document and want to jump to a specific section quickly.  

Highlight your text and format it as a heading, and it will be automatically added to your outline. You can do this by using the keyboard shortcuts mentioned above (“Command + option + 1: Apply Heading 1” or “Command + option + 2: Apply Heading 2” ). Or, select from the “Styles” drop-down menu in the toolbar to swap between headings. 

The Google Docs browser interface with the “Styles” drop-down menu in the toolbar circled in red.

8. Use the taskbar to keep on track

Have a big document that you’re collaborating on with your team? Need to keep track of who is doing what? Simply type @task into your document to add a new task to the taskbar, which will open automatically as you do so. 

You can assign tasks to collaborators or yourself. When you assign a task, you’ll be able to set a deadline and an assignee. Helpfully, Google Docs will send you a reminder email to your connected Gmail account when the task is due.

 Image showing how to complete the fields for title, assignee, and date to assign a task in Google Docs. 

9. Add and edit photos 

Easily add and edit photos to your document by selecting “Insert” from the toolbar. You can choose to upload a file from your computer, search the web for an image, or even insert a file directly from your Google Drive or Google Photos. You can also insert images using a URL or the camera on your device. 

Alternatively, drag and drop from your computer’s filing system or simply hit “paste” if you’ve copied an image already.

The “Insert” menu on Google docs with “Image” selected, showing different options for uploading an image.

Once the image is inserted, you can edit it further by choosing from the “Image Options” menu. There, you’ll be able to resize, format how the image sits alongside your text, and more. 

Access the “Image Options” menu by selecting an image in your document. A sidebar will pop up on the right-hand side of the document. From there, you’ll be given quick-access options for alignment, size and rotation, and other adjustments. If you want to see all of your options in one place, select “All image options.” 

The image editing options panel from the Google Docs browser.

10. Quickly access a dictionary 

Need to double-check you’re using a word correctly? Without interrupting your flow, you can access the Google Docs dictionary. Go to “Tools” in the menu bar and select “Dictionary.” You can either look up a word or highlight it in the doc directly and use the keyboard shortcut “Command + Shift + Y.”

fake essay google docs

11. Find and replace text within your doc

Search within your document by hitting “Command + F” (for iOS users). A small search bar will pop up in the top right-hand corner. Enter the phrase, word, or keyword you’re searching for. 

Results will be highlighted throughout the document, and you can use the arrows to quickly scroll to each result. I love using this when editing articles to ensure that all the keywords are included. 

 Use the Find function in Google Docs to scan a document for certain words and phrases.

A similar function can quickly replace any words or phrases in your doc. Say you’ve misspelled someone’s name throughout a document. You can use find and replace (Command + Shift + H) to search the document for all instances of a misspelling and replace it with the correct spelling. If you need to quickly change the case of a word, you can do this by checking the box for “Match case.”

The Google Docs find and replace pop-up with the box for “Match case” checked so it can replace the name “Google docs” with “Google Docs.”

12. Integrate with your favorite apps

Google Docs is the gold standard when it comes to productivity, remote working, and creating collaborative documents. And since the increase in remote working, it’s gotten easier to seamlessly coordinate Docs with your favorite apps like Slack, Asana, Monday.com, publishing platforms, Wordtune, and more. 

Integrations will either let you add an extension to your Google Chrome browser (perfect for when you’re working in Google Docs) or include Docs in your preferred workflow apps. 

Find your Google Chrome extensions by clicking the puzzle piece in the top right-hand corner of your browser.

Integrate extensions and apps with Google Docs for a seamless workflow.

When project managing or working with large teams, you can easily add Google Docs to your Slack or Teams channels. This way, they’re readily available for those working on a specific project for ease of reference! Just make sure to update permissions on your docs so anyone who needs them has access. 

Conclusion 

These twelve Google Docs hacks can help you maximize your productivity and collaborate efficiently with your team. With the Wordtune browser extension , you’ll be able to take your writing in Google Docs to the next level by using Spices to rewrite and break through writer’s block. Plus, seamlessly check your grammar and spelling in real time! 

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16 Ideas for Student Projects Using Google Docs, Slides, and Forms

July 31, 2016

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As you probably know, Google Drive is far more than a place to store files online. It also includes a suite of versatile creation tools, many of which perform the same functions as the ones we use in other spaces. These include  Google Docs,  a word processing program that behaves similarly to Microsoft Word,  Google Slides,  a presentation program similar to PowerPoint, and  Google Forms,  a survey-creation tool similar to Survey Monkey.  Although Drive also includes other tools, these three are particularly useful for creating rigorous, academically robust projects. If your school uses Google Classroom or at least gives students access to Google Drive, your students are probably already using these tools to write papers or create slideshow presentations, but there are other projects they could be doing that you may not have thought of.

Below I have listed 16 great ideas for projects using Google Docs, Slides, and Forms.

Annotated Bibliography By the time a student reaches the later years of high school, and certainly by the time she’s gotten to college, it’s likely that she’ll be required to write an annotated bibliography, a list of resources that not only includes the bibliographical information of each source, but also a short paragraph summarizing the resource and reflecting on its usefulness for a given project. Usually an annotated bibliography is required as a part of a larger research paper, but it could stand alone as an assignment that tasks students with seeking out and evaluating sources just for the practice of doing so. And the research tools in Google Docs allow students to locate, read, and cite their sources all in one place. To learn more, see this guide from Cornell University Library on How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography .

Book Review Instead of a book report, have students write a book review instead. This is certainly not a new idea, but publishing the work electronically allows students to enhance the final product with the book’s cover image, a link to the book’s page on Amazon, and even links to other titles the author has written or articles on related topics. For models and inspiration, elementary and middle school students can read student-written reviews on sites like Spaghetti Book Club . Older or advanced students might work toward more sophisticated, nuanced review styles like book reviews written on Oprah.com .

Collaborative Story Because Google Docs is cloud-based, multiple people can work on a Doc at the same time. So students can work together on a story, a script for a play, or any other kind of group writing project. They can use the comments feature to give each other feedback and make decisions together. And because students can work from any location with an Internet connection, collaboration isn’t restricted to school hours; each group member can work on the project from any location whenever they have time.

Media-Rich Research Paper Any kind of research paper can be given a big boost when done in a Google Doc, because students can insert images, drawings, and links to other relevant resources, like articles and videos. Using the research tools built into Docs, students can research their topics and include in-text citations with footnotes.

Super Simple Blog If you don’t want to mess with actual blogging platforms, but want students to be able to experience writing blog posts that contain images and hyperlinks to other websites, this could be accomplished easily in a single running Google Doc.

Table Being able to organize information visually is an important skill, and students who understand how to build a table in Google Docs will have a skill for presenting all kinds of information in the future. They can be used as a compare and contrast exercise, to display data from an experiment, or even put together a schedule. Yes, you could do these things yourself, print them, and have students fill them out, but why not have students practice creating the tables themselves? 

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story Because slides can contain hyperlinks to other slides, students could build a whole story where the reader chooses different options at key points in the story, leading them down completely different paths. The reader would consume the content as a slideshow, clicking on the links themselves as they go through. This could be a pretty massive undertaking, but we all know students who would be totally up for the challenge.

E-book These could take a variety of forms: mini-textbooks, children’s books, cookbooks or how-to manuals, personal art or writing portfolios, even yearbook-style memory books. To learn more about the possibilities, see my post from earlier this year on  Student E-Books .

Magazine Along the same lines as an e-book, students could use a similar template to create a PDF magazine or newsletter that is shared online on a regular schedule. The possibilities here are endless, useful for student clubs or sports teams, classroom or grade-level newsletters, or magazines put out by groups of students who share a common interest, like gaming systems, soccer, or books.

Museum Kiosk Imagine if we could enhance science fair projects with a looping video display that provides the audience with vivid visuals and text about our topic. Or imagine an art show, where a self-running informational slideshow could be placed beside an art display to share the story behind the piece and photos of the work in progress? This is possible and EASY in Google Slides: Simply create a slideshow, then use the “Publish to the Web” feature to create a slideshow that auto-advances and has no need for a presenter. Pop that up on an iPad or laptop and you’re all set. This mock-up of a slideshow on Coral Reefs shows you what it could look like (click the image to open in a new window).

Short Film Students can upload their own images and add text boxes to a slideshow to create an animated story, then record the slideshow with a Google extension called Screencastify . They can either record their own voice as narration, add background music, or both. There are so many different kinds of films students could produce: illustrated stories or poems, final reflections for a 20 Time or Genius Hour project, video textbooks on content-related topics, or news-like feature stories of school or community events. In this quick sample, I added music from YouTube’s library of royalty-free music that anyone can use to enhance their recordings:

Video Tutorial Using the same screencasting software mentioned above, students could also create their own video tutorials by creating a Slides presentation on their topic (such as “How to Open a Combination Lock”), then recording the slideshow with narration. This would make a nice final product for a unit on informational writing or a way for students to demonstrate their learning at the end of a unit in science (“How to Take Care of Lab Equipment”), social studies (“How to Measure Distance on a Map”), or math (“How to Multiply Fractions”). Student-made tutorials could even be created to teach classroom procedures. And any tutorials students make could be stored for later, so other students can also benefit from them.  Learn more about how Screencastify works right inside Chrome .

Peer Survey Whenever students need to gather data to support an argumentative essay or speech, let them gather data quickly and easily by creating a survey with Google Forms. Links to the survey can be sent out via email, QR codes , or through a post in a learning management system like Edmodo or Google Classroom. When results come in, students can use them to support whatever claim they are trying to make in their argument, or make adjustments based on what they discover in their research.

Feedback Form Have students provide feedback to each other’s presentations, speeches, even videos using Google Forms. Here’s how it would work: Each student creates her own form, asking for the kind of feedback she wants on the project. As other students view or the project, they can be sent to a form to offer praise or constructive criticism, which the creator would then be able to view privately and use to improve the project. Students could even use their feedback to write a reflection on their process after the project is done.

Quiz One great way to learn material is to create a test or quiz over the content. Have students use Google Forms to create their own multiple-choice, True/False, fill-in-the-blank, or open-ended quizzes on the content they are learning.

Visual Representation of Data Sets Whenever people enter responses to a Form, Google allows the form creator to view responses in charts and graphs. Have students gain a better understanding of how data can be represented visually by accepting responses (or entering their own fake ones) into a Form, then looking at how the numbers are represented in graphs. This could work well as a series of math lessons.

Way Beyond Worksheets

Just this morning on Twitter, someone posted a comment along these lines: “A worksheet on a Google Doc is STILL a worksheet. Students should be using tech to create!” I’ve heard this sentiment over and over, and it’s exactly why I’ve put this list together. Google offers some incredibly powerful tools if we know how to use them. I hope this list has given you a few new ideas to put into your students’ hands. ♦

What to Read Next

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Categories: Instruction , Technology

Tags: assessment , content area literacy , English language arts , Grades 3-5 , Grades 6-8 , Grades 9-12 , project-based learning , teaching with tech , tech tools

51 Comments

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This is wonderful.

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This is my first year teaching in an alternative high school. All students have IEP’s as well as social and emotional disabilities. I really want to focus on literacy as many are well below grade-level, ability wise. Writing of course is a big part of literacy. I’m looking for ideas that they can collaborate on, via Google Docs, Slides, etc. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

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Check out Boomwriter: A Fun Twist on Collaborative Writing . Lots of good resources there that you might like. Also take a look at Student-Made E-Books: A Beautiful Way to Demonstrate Learning .

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I am an RSP teacher in Anaheim. For summer school I am going to have them build a “Bucket List” in Google slides.

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Thanks for compiling these resources. I use many already but haven’t tried Screencastify yet. My district uses Google Classroom, but the forms app is blocked on student accounts- I think because it’s a perfect medium for under-the-radar cyberbullying (“How much do you hate Linda?…A little, a lot, a ton…”). Before teachers plan a lesson using forms, they should make sure the feature is enabled for students in their district. In my district, students can access forms and create them but they cannot send them to other students.

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Thanks, Robyn. Good to know!

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I love these ideas! You are so creative and now I have GREAT ideas for my SS project! Thanks! XD

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this is all true

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Our district is allowing extra credit this year and I have always been totally opposed to offering extra credit. These ideas are worth extra credit, and my focus this year is on what the students can teach me and the rest of their peers.

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This gave me some good ideas for culminating activities. Thanks!

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Thank you so much for sharing these ideas about creating projects by using the Google Drive! The middle school I teach at implemented a 1:1 program last year with Chromebooks, so the students have easy access to all of the Google apps. I had always grown up using Word docs and I was a little hesitant to start using Google docs at first. After just a few weeks, I absolutely fell in love with it! It is amazing how you can access all of your docs, forms, slides that you create from any device you’re using and the fact that everything automatically saves is just the cherry on top. I am grateful for this feature, especially working in a middle school where it is easy for students to forget to save something before exiting out. Although I teach Math, I found a lot of your project ideas to be utilized cross-curriculum and I truly appreciate it. I got my feet wet last year and had my students create google slides presentations in groups. At the beginning of this year, I started with a google form I created where students answered review questions from 6th grade Math. I love that when you get the results from all of the forms, you can easily see which areas students are struggling in and which areas they are proficient in because it is presented the results in graphs and charts. I just learned recently that you can create quizzes now, which is awesome because all of the testing in my district is done on the computers, so this will help prepare my students. I want to borrow your idea of having students create peer surveys that they can post on Google classroom in order to gather information and analyze results. This is a great skill for students to have. Thanks again, I truly enjoy reading your blogs!

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Be positive at all time

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Great collection of resources! Easy to read and very helpful for teachers who often do not get the tutorials they need to instruct with GAFE. I particular like the Museum Kiosk idea. It will work great will my history classes.

– Kevin

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Hi everyone! I also would like to suggest my own (free) templates site. Im designing these presentations using “free” resources from other sites such as FreePik, FlatIcon,… and I think the result is pretty good. I invite you to have a look. The site is https://slidesppt.com

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In the section of student blog posts, can you clarify how all the students in one class could be writing and posting a running blog which everyone in the class can read and respond to ?

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This is Holly Burcham, a Customer Experience Manager. The idea Jenn laid out here is to simply create a shared Google Doc where each student would basically be responsible for his/her own page (literally page 1, page 2, etc.). Within a shared Doc, everyone with permission can be in and typing at the same time. Once “posts” are written, students can go in and add comments to others’ work. The comments would show up in the margins and would be arranged by corresponding content, not time like a typical blog post.

But, as you can imagine, this could quickly become very convoluted and a bit messy. The thought behind using Docs as a student blog is more for writing practice, getting the feel for writing a blog post without doing the real thing…

So, if you’re interested in your students truly creating a blog, we highly recommend checking out Edublogs and Kidblog . Hope this helps!

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How are these good for projects? you said that these are for kid presentations, all I see are essay templates and idea’s for teachers to map out their classroom jobs(other then the coral)

Hi, Isaac! I’m not sure what could be used to map out classroom jobs specifically from this post, and I think the ideas here go way beyond essay outlines–please get back to me to clarify exactly what you’re referring to, because we believe all the ideas here are good for student use. Thanks!

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You might update this post. Google Forms now supports branching which would be much easier to create a “choose your own” adventure type experience.

Thanks for the suggestion. I can picture how that would work, yes, but I guess the aesthetic experience might be lacking in a Google Form. With Slides you have complete creative freedom to design the slides like a real book. I guess it would be a matter of personal preference?

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Where do I go to find accessibility features of Google docs, slides, and forms? I am a teacher of the blind and visually impaired. This technology is wonderful but without the ability to navigate the site independently, my students are at a lost. Can you direct me?

Hi! A couple of things that may be of help: Go to “Tools” in the menu bar and select Voice Typing (use Google Chrome). You can also click on Add-Ons in the menu bar and add the Speech Recognition Soundwriter extension for free. Here’s a link to find more Google Accessibility features — you just have to spend a bit of time looking through the list to see what may be relevant to your needs. I hope this helps!

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You can also combine Google forms and docs to simplify book reports for elementary students: https://electriceducator.blogspot.com/2016/03/elementary-book-report-machine.html?m=1

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Is there an available rubric or assessment piece for the museum kiosk activity?

Hi Colleen! No, sorry, I don’t have anything on that!

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Hi I am a teacher at a elementary school and I was wondering if you had any ideas for what I could do for an autobiography book report.

Hi Madison,

There really are so many things you can have the kids do — I would first think about what you’re expecting the kids to be able to do in the end. What will actually be assessed and what will they be accountable for? (I suggest checking out Understanding Backward Design if you haven’t already.) From there, they can choose how to present what they learned, meeting the assessment criteria. I think using some of the ideas in the Slides section of the post could work really well, especially Student Made E-Books , or making a short film.

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Madison, I love the idea of using Google Slides for autobiography book report. I’m thinking about Jennifer’s Slides suggestions and just tailoring it to your book report criteria/rubric. Thoughts?

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thank you very much!!

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Thank you! I can’t wait to explore some of these options more. This list is very much appreciated! 🙂

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I really appreciate your kindness and your efforts and I’m going to try everything you have mentioned in this wonderful article

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Thanks. Higher Ed ESOL Prof -no lesson prep for me… but I DO have my reading list for the next several (10-12) hours! All suggestions added to the original post are appreciated.

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I am a huge fan of Google resources, but you have showed me some new ways I can use these. Thank you for sharing!

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Thanks for some great ideas! I have another suggestion that I have used before- my students really liked it- a collaborative Google Slides presentation. I did this for types of organic molecules as an intro to organic chemistry. Each pair of students in the class was assigned a specific molecule to research. They had to create 1 slide with some specific information and add to a collaborative google slides presentation that I shared on Google Classroom. When the slideshow was complete, they could all access it, and they used it to take notes.

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Great suggestion Susan! Thanks so much for sharing this idea.

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I am wondering if I can find similar google instructions to send to my students now that we are teaching remotely and 90% of them probably don’t know how to use Google. This would be a fantastic use of their time. Thank you

Take a look at Jenn’s Google Drive Basics video course ! I think it’s got what you’re looking for – it’s for teachers and students!

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I am thinking about doing a Rap Challenge in which they (as teams based on which class period they are in) create lyrics using WWII vocabulary we have used.

I create raps for my students and my though was that I would take parts of ALL of their submissions and create a WWII rap to add to the collection they have heard already.

Which of the Google Drive features would be my best bet for collaboration like that while the students are all working from home?

Hi Jim! I think this could be done in Google Docs pretty easily, as they are just writing a script, correct? If you want to share video or audio, you can just put these files into a shared folder in Drive and give all students access to those files. I hope this helps!

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Amazing ideas

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An innovative way to eliminate paper.

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Hi! I love this site. I am beginning to use technology in my higehr education classroom. Could you help me to suggest some kind of game to use in Communication Skilss? Thanks a lot

Hi! Check out our Gamification Pinterest board and see what might be relevant. Hope this helps!

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I’m a college student (who is now a nanny which brought me to this page) and for the screen recording, I highly reccomend Loom over Screencastify. In my experience using both during the remote learning period, the video quality is much higher on Loom, the user interface is easier, and you can’t edit Screencastify videos in an external editor like iMovie. (I had to do a group presentation and since partner lived in Kuwait we used this vs Zoom, etc. to record the presentation since we weren’t recording at the same time. It was very difficult to figure out how to merge our parts of the presentation into a single file.)

Also with screencastify the time limit per video on the free version (5 min I think) was frustrating as my work was longer. May not be a problem for students but for educators using the tool who don’t have the premium, this could be highly inconvenient. With Loom there isn’t a time limit.

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What an adventure for me, who’s relatively new to this google drive thing. Mind blowing resources. It’s amazing. I’m excited as to what I can do with and in google drive. I’m definitely taking it one day at a time, will surely enjoy this ‘CRUISE’. Thank you Jennifer.

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What does it mean to type I am from Germany?

Hi Flannery! It can mean a few different things depending on the context–either typing on a keyboard or the “kind” of something (“What type of ice cream do you like?”). We’d love to give a specific answer, so please let us know which part of the post or which comment you saw that you’d like more clarification on. Thanks!

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Thanks for sharing these ideas. July 2021

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I love all the awesome ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. This post had so many options to choose from and some that I personally loved when I was in school. There are so many different ways to make learning fun with technology!

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So glad you enjoyed the post!

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Google Docs phishing scam — here’s how to protect yourself

A sophisticated phishing scam has tricked hundreds of unsuspecting email users into opening fake Google Docs links.

Reports on Wednesday suggest large numbers of people have clicked invites to view a fake Google Docs file. While this isn’t uncommon, this particular scam has been successful due to the invite looking remarkably similar to the real deal.

After clicking the document users are being transported to a new portal that also does a good impression of a Google.com URL.

Users are being asked to confirm which of their Google accounts they would like to use to read the file . Once that’s confirmed, it appears the attacker gains access to the Google account, meaning emails, contacts, documents and more.

This isn’t just some ‘Nigerian prince’ type scam, this is so sophisticated even a number of web-savvy tech journalists were caught out on Wednesday.

Here’s what the attack looked like in real time:

https://twitter.com/statuses/859843151757955072

Even though this is a sophisticated attack that can easily fool an unsuspecting user, there are a couple of easy ways to avoid this.

If you receive an unexpected email from an unknown contact featuring an invite to edit a Google Doc, the best policy is just to delete it immediately.

There’s also a telltale sign that its a scan: The sender’s email address is ‘[email protected]’. Unless this person had really mean parents, that’s not a real person.

In a statement, Google says the accounts associated with the scam have now been disabled and the fake pages have been removed, which should take care of things.

The company wrote: “We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs, and have disabled offending accounts.

“We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again. We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail .”

If you’ve been scammed, we’d recommend an immediate password change to lock out the attackers as quickly as possible.

Have you been caught out by the phishing scam? Share your tale of woe in the comments below.

Chris Smith

Chris Smith is a freelance technology journalist for a host of UK tech publications, including Trusted Reviews. He's based in South Florida, USA.  …

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Productivity - 10 min READ

The 25 Best Google Docs Hacks: Change the Way You Write

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Copper Staff

Contributors from members of the Copper team

One of the most essential tools for the workplace is word processing software. And one of the biggest mistakes professionals make is not choosing a word processor that empowers them do more than just put words on a blank page.

It doesn’t matter what you write either: blog post drafts, company documentation, meeting notes, or even whitepapers. You’ll have a much easier time creating these docs just from using a powerful platform like Google Docs .

With Google Docs, all of your documents are automatically saved as you’re working. So, you’ll never have to worry about forgetting to save the latest version again.

What’s more, Google Docs lets you get everything done in one place as you write, edit, and even translate and share.

First, let's look at useful Google Docs hacks that will transform the way you write.

(Be sure to catch the bonus hacks for G Suite users at the bottom of this post.)

Google Doc hacks for Gmail

For the most part, anyone with a Gmail account can access these features. However, G Suite teams have a couple of extras, like templating and user tracking. Let's look at the Google Docs hacks for Gmail users.

1. Use Chrome to find or create Docs

In our previous post about Google Drive hacks , you saw how easy it is to create, save, and manage Google Docs (and other file types) from your main drive.

But did you know you can do the same thing right from your Chrome address bar?

Type “docs…” along with a descriptive keyword, and Google will auto-populate matching results from your drive.

Or, if you want to create a new Google Doc altogether, just type “docs.new” in the address bar:

Chrome will immediately direct you to a brand new document:

The only thing it won’t do is place it in the folder structure of your choosing. However, you can easily do that from File > Move to….

2. Work in distraction-free mode

As you can see above, Google Docs comes with a standard menu bar and toolbar. But if you feel like all that extra stuff at the top of the document is getting in your way, get rid of it.

To set up distraction-free mode, go to View > Full screen. The top bars will disappear and all you’ll be left with is your document:

To return to the standard view, click your “ESC” key.

3. Learn keyboard shortcuts to have full control over your doc

Be careful with distraction-free mode. While it’s easy to bring the top bars back into view, the whole point of removing them is so you can work without distractions or breaks.

In order to keep yourself 100% in distraction-free mode, you’ll want to master Google Docs’ shortcuts:

This way, if you decide to copy and paste a paragraph to a new spot, you won’t need the Edit menu to do it. Just Command + C and V—your fingers won’t even have to leave the keyboard. With a couple of keyboard clicks, you can get almost anything done in seconds.

Shortcuts are helpful for more than just editing content too. You can use them to format and style your page, open Google Docs features, and even insert comments into the doc.

Image for post More hacks 👇

More hacks 👇

Hack your spreadsheets too. Learn how to transfer your spreadsheet data + workflows over to your CRM in this webinar.

4. Talk-to-type for hands-free writing

Let’s say you have a bulky bandage covering your finger. No matter how much you try to watch what your typing, your oversized middle finger keeps typing “u” or “8” when what you really want to type is the letter “i.”

You could try to power through it, but it’s going to drive you nuts. Especially if you have a lot of writing to do.

Or you know, maybe your hands are just occupied.

Thankfully, Google Docs has a talk-to-type option available under Tools > Voice typing…. Click the microphone icon when you’re ready to start speaking and Google Docs will start typing your words on the page:

Keep in mind that you’ll need to dictate punctuation as well. It’ll take some getting used to, but it’s a good option if your hands are otherwise busy—and it beats the frustration of typing with a busted finger.

5. Make it available offline

The offline feature is really handy for when you need to keep working, but wifi access isn’t available.

And if you didn’t remember to turn on offline access from Google Drive, you can do so from any of your open Google Docs. You’ll find this under File > Make available offline:

6. Use the outline to plan and optimize your content

For single-page and other short documents, you probably won’t need an outline. However, when you use Google Docs to create things like documentation, ebooks, or articles, you could end up with a couple dozen pages in the end.

If you want to keep things organized while you’re working, open the outline sidebar on the left:

Pro-tip: Your outline will only populate once you’ve used the Title and Heading styles on the page.

If you look at the snippet above, you can see that the title is the first item in the outline. The first heading, “Nailing the voicemail greeting,” is the next one.

The other points in this outline are indented to demonstrate hierarchy. For instance, if you used a Heading 2 for the overarching topic and then Heading 3 for sub-topics, you’d have a really nice outline to work with — as well as a post that’s easy to scan and read.

You can also click on chapter headings in your outline to quickly move to different sections of your post, rather than scroll and scroll until you find it.

7. Embed and edit photos in your docs

Google Docs don’t just accommodate text. You can embed images into them as well.

To do this, go to Insert > Image. You then have the option of embedding images from:

  • Your computer
  • Google Drive
  • Google Photos
  • Your camera

Be careful with images from the web or a URL though. If your document is only for internal company purposes, you’re free to use whatever you like.

However, if your document is for commercial purposes (like in a company flyer or on your website), there are limits to what you can use. To be safe, get your images from stock photo websites like Unsplash where you’re allowed to use any image for free on the web.

Once you’ve found images that work, go ahead and make edits inside Google Docs.

For example, you can drag-and-drop the image’s borders to resize it.

Also, when you click “Image options…” in the toolbar, you can even apply shading to your image:

Another useful image editing feature is the crop.

When an image is selected, a crop icon will appear to the left of “Image options…” When selected, your image will look similar to this:

The lighter shaded area is where the boundaries of the image originally stretched to. However, by dragging the black border lines inward, you can cut the image to where it needs to be.

If you’re unhappy with it, you can click on the crop icon again and restore or fix the image (since you never lose the original edges entirely). Or you can use the keyboard shortcut Command + Z to undo it.

8. Insert custom visuals

You can embed other kinds of visuals into your documents, too. For example, you can insert a table like this from Insert > Table:

All you have to do is pick the dimensions of the table from the menu and Google Docs creates it for you. If you want to edit how many rows or columns there are, right-click on the table and use the options to adjust accordingly.

Another kind of visual element you can create is a drawing or shape. You can add this under Insert > Drawing:

To add a new drawing, simply create it in the newly opened Draw application. Then, Save and Close it. Your new image will now be embedded on the page.

What’s more, if you keep it connected to the original that lives in Draw, you can make edits there and sync them to your doc so you don’t have to recreate the drawing if changes are needed.

The same goes for any charts or graphs you create through Insert > Chart:

Your data may change or someone may provide feedback that forces you to remove or edit an item. By creating that connection between Google Docs and the custom visual element in another Google app, you only have to make edits to one copy of it.

9. Add a ToC, footnotes, and page numbers for reports and ebooks

For longer, more formal documents, you may want to use elements like:

  • A table of contents to organize chapters
  • Footnotes to provide additional information and links
  • Page numbers for easier reference points

Rather than add each of these into your doc manually, let Google Docs to do the work for you:

You’ll be able to find all three of these report- and book-friendly elements (and more) under the Insert menu. Choose the format you prefer and Google will auto-populate the doc with what you need.

10. Use the dictionary if you get stuck

Google Doc’s built-in dictionary will come in handy whether you get stuck on a word while writing or you want to double-check someone else’s spelling:

The doc itself will clue you into spelling errors with a little red squiggly mark. However, if you want to confirm spelling and context, the dictionary may be more useful in finding the exact word you need.

11. Customize your dictionary

One of the frustrating things about any online spellcheck or dictionary is that it will only recognize works in the general lexicon.

But what if your company uses its own acronyms or taglines that Google constantly flags as incorrect? The same happens with certain people’s names, too:

Go to Tools > Spelling and grammar > Personal dictionary… and you’ll find a place to enter these custom words into the dictionary.

Not only will this remove the annoyance of the red squiggly under words that are correct, it’ll also help the rest of your team spell your company’s terminology correctly every time.

12. Set a language so the spellcheck is accurate

Your Google account settings allow you to set a default language and region, which then applies to all of your Google apps.

In some cases, though, you may want to deviate from your native language or dialect when creating a document.

Under File > Language, you can update the specific document’s language:

As you can see, both languages and regional dialects (like U.S. English vs. UK English) are available.

Once enabled, the spellcheck will analyze your text based on the language you’ve chosen.

13. Create a translated version of the document

To create a fully translated version of your document without having to write a single word in another language, use Google Doc’s built-in translation tool.

You’ll find this under Tools > Translate document….

Pick the target language for the translation, give your document a new title, and click “Translate.”

Google will create a completely new doc in your drive that’s translated into your target language:

As you can see, it’s not just the text that’s preserved. Any images you’ve embedded in the page or text formatting are also preserved. The only thing that won’t translate over is any image alt text you’ve created.

14. Use Preferences to save time typing and clicking

One of the reasons to configure your preferences is to let Google automatically capitalize the first word in sentences, suggest the right contacts to attach to comments, etc.

You can find this setting under Tools > Preferences:

Preferences also limit how much typing and clicking you do. In the example above, you can see that commonly used symbols can be typed on the keyboard without having to use the Special Characters menu to create them.

You can also use the Replace/With feature to quickly add phrases, sentences, and even paragraphs with just a few keystrokes.

For example, let’s say your company’s motto is “I’m lovin’ it.” You could type it out each time it appears or you could create a shortcut where “luv” is instantly replaced by the full tagline.

15. Explore the web from your Google Doc

If you like the idea of staying in your Google Doc to do all your research, Google has made this easy with its Explore feature (which is basically Google search from your doc).

Go to Tools > Explore and Google will open a search explorer on the right side of your page.

You can search for articles on the web if you want to verify a point, find a useful statistic or quote to cite, or do other research:

You might also want to use Explore to reference things you’ve written and saved in your drive.

You can search through images on Google, too:

16. Share your doc with others

Once you’ve written what you need to, it’s time to open it up for review, feedback, and/or editing.

The blue “Share” button in the top-right corner of the page allows you to share your document with others:

The first thing you have to decide is what you want others to be able to do:

  • View means they can read what’s on the page.
  • Comment means they can leave notes on parts of the page where they have questions or feedback.
  • Edit means they can actually change the content on the page.

If you want to send the document to a large group of people, change the setting by clicking “Anyone with the link…”

If you want Google to send a link to the document to your users instead, enter their email addresses under the “People” field. Then, click the pencil icon to switch their access rights.

17. Email others from your doc

The “Share” option is best for the first time you send a document to someone. Once they’re attached, though, you’ll have to email them to let them know when their attention and feedback is needed.

There’s no need to move to your Gmail tab to do that.

When you want to message someone about a page they already have access to, use File > Email as attachment… instead:

What’s nice about this option is that you can automatically convert your Google Doc into another file format and have Google attach it to the message for you.

If you’d rather keep it as a Google Doc, that’s fine, too. Just change the “Attach as” option to what you need.

18. Add comments or suggestions to the doc

Let’s look at what happens after you share a document with someone else or they share a document with you:

Just as there are three options under “Share,” there are three options under the access dropdown in the top-right. That is, the creator of the page (you) will see these options. Everyone else will only see what they’re allowed to do.

Viewing is straightforward. They’re allowed to read what’s on the page, but can’t make any changes to it. They won't be able to “Comment” or “Suggest edits” like this:

When Suggest mode is turned on, people can highlight a bit of text or an image and leave a note for the author or admin of the page.

They can also suggest edits which will show up on the page as markups, along with a corresponding comment on the sidebar:

It’s then up to the author to accept, reject, or resolve the comments using the buttons in the comment boxes.

Anyone with Editing access won’t need to use the suggestion or commenting tools as they’ll have full access to the page—unless you’re working collaboratively on a doc and want everyone’s suggestions, including your own, to be tracked.

That said, if you want to review what others do before including the changes in your document, it would be best to assign them specific privileges.

19. Assign comments to others to handle

Within the comments themselves, you can do a number of things besides resolve them.

You can edit or delete the comment you just wrote, and even copy a link to the comment in case you want to bring someone’s attention to a specific question or comment.

Or, even better, you can tag them in the comment or reply field like this:

It’s the same as how you’d tag someone on social media. Either type “@” or “+” and then enter their name or email address. If they’re in your contacts list, Google will fill the rest in for you.

If you want to assign the comment as a task, click the “Assign to” option and they’ll receive an email about the comment and to-do:

This is how the new comment/task will show up on your page. This is now assigned to a specific person to handle, which can come in handy if you have different subject matter experts who can deal with certain questions better than others.

20. Make text edits in bulk

In general, it’s very easy to edit in Google Docs. Just place your cursor where it needs to be, or highlight a string of words, and make your changes.

But when you need to make the same change throughout the page, it can quickly become a tedious process.

To make the same change and just do it once, go to Edit > Find and replace…. It will open a text box like this:

Type whatever it is you want to find, enter the replacement text, and then click “Replace all”.

This isn’t just useful for spelling issues either.

For instance, you might have someone who’s written something with extra spaces placed after periods. You could ask them to clean it up—or you can just use find-and-replace to clean out double or triple spaces hanging around in a matter of seconds.

21. Revert to previous version

Sometimes, the new-and-improved version of a page doesn’t work. Or you’re just curious about what kinds of changes other people have made to your document.

Thankfully, you don’t have to dig through emails or your hard drive to try to find previous versions.

With Google Docs, go to File > Version History:

Since Google autosaves whatever you write, it usually has a bunch of versions you can look back through. It will show you:

  • The date and time it was saved.
  • The last person who edited it.
  • What the exact changes were on the page.

You can use your version history to check on edits to the page, and also restore a previous version. Choose the one you want and click the blue “Restore this version” button.

Version history is also useful if you want to better organize your drafts.

When a version is highlighted, a button appears in the right corner of the block:

Click on it and give the version a name. Then, if you want to remove all the excess “noise” of the unnamed versions, click the “Only show named versions” toggle up top.

This allows you to keep better track of what each of your deliverables looked like and how the page has progressed from start-to-finish.

22. Export your doc as other file types

Unless you’re using Google Docs to create internal company documentation, you’ll probably need to export them into other formats. Like PDFs for company flyers. Or web pages for your developers to use on the website.

Unlike some word processing tools that make it difficult to change from one format to another, Google Docs makes it easy to convert your documents.

Go to File > Download as and you’ll find other file formats available:

Your document will instantly download to your hard drive in the chosen format.

23. Improve your content with add-ons

If you’re using Google Docs to create content for your business (like blog posts, ebooks, or reports), you should use more than just the hacks above.

Under Add-ons > Get add-ons, you’ll find a lot of different tools to help you create better content:

In the example above, you can see that there are three already installed:

  • Better Word Count, which shows exactly how many words and characters are on the page or in a highlighted selection of the page.
  • Grammar and Spell Checker, which provides advanced spelling and grammatical checks for other languages and dialects.
  • SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant, which assesses the quality of content for the web.

There are many more too, including add-ons for voice-to-type, thesaurus, diagram creation, SEO, templates, GIFs, signatures, and more.

To use any of these extensions, install them from the list of add-ons. Then, choose the one you want from the Add-ons menu.

One thing to note about these add-ons is that you can only use one at a time as it fills the same sidebar space.:

When you’re ready to take your content to the next level, these add-ons are waiting for you.

Google Doc hacks for G Suite

Now, here are a few Google Docs hacks for those of you who have access to G Suite.

24. Create a template for your organization

When creating a new Google Doc from your team drive, you can start with a business template as your base:

You might want to tweak the template or create your own in order to give your business collateral a look that’s unique to your brand.

You can do that with Google Docs. However, in order to ensure your team uses the same templates for their own documents, you’ll need to save it somewhere.

Gmail users don’t have the ability to save templates, but G Suite users do.

From your Template gallery, select the option to submit your own template:

Then, save it in your team drive and let everyone know it’s available to use.

25. Use the Activity Dashboard

G Suite provides users with another neat tool. This one is called the Activity Dashboard. You’ll find a link to it in the top-right corner of the app.

When opened, you’ll discover a number of details about your doc:

When sharing a document that’s meant to be viewed and read (like required company training docs or orientation packets), this lets you know who’s actually done the work.

If you’re sharing a document for the purposes of collaboration, like a team brainstorming doc, you can also get a sense of who's participating and who’s not.

In general, if you’re ever curious about what people are doing with your documents and if they’re using them as intended, this dashboard will let you know what’s going on.

Improve your writing with Google Docs

Wouldn’t it nice to be able to do more than just type words onto a page?

With Google Docs, you gain the ability to complete the entire lifecycle of writing, from research to writing to sharing and editing. And you can do it all from the same page.

If your team is spending more time than it needs to on working across different apps and delivering documents in various formats, Google Docs will get everyone on the same page — literally.

Try Copper free

Instant activation, no credit card required. Give Copper a try today.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Google Docs Email Phishing Scam

A n alarming phishing scam began spreading around the internet Wednesday in an attempt to access Google accounts through an email embedded with a fake Google Docs file. This scam is more convincing than most — the email takes users who click on the file to a legitimate Google sign-in screen to grant permissions, so it’s no surprise to see widespread reports of the hacking across social media platforms like Twitter.

If you received the email or are concerned you might be targeted next, here’s what you need to know:

Who was affected by the Google Docs scam?

The phishing appears to have been aimed at journalists at first. News began making its rounds across Twitter after Joe Bernstein, a reporter at BuzzFeed, tweeted the following:

Because the scam appears to target everyone in the victim’s address book, it didn’t take long before more reports from people outside of the media world began to flood in.

What happens if you open the Google phishing link?

You don’t want to find out by clicking yourself. But Zach Latta, a San Francisco-based hacker, tweeted a GIF that showcases the entire process.

Just got this as well. Super sophisticated. pic.twitter.com/l6c1ljSFIX — zach latta (@zachlatta) May 3, 2017

As the clip shows, clicking on the file actually brings you to a real Google sign-in page, where it asks users to choose an account to continue. If you grant permissions to the link, the email spams every person in your contacts, and the cycle continues from there. We don’t know what exactly happen after that, but it’s definitely concerning that hackers have access to all of this contact information.

The Google Docs email came from a ‘Mailinator’ address. What’s that?

Mailinator is a type of disposable email address service that lets users access emails on the Mailinator site without having to sign up for an account.

“Any email name you can think of already exists @mailinator.com and you can use any of them,” the official Mailinator site reads. “Want [email protected]? You got it. Want PrettyMothra? ScaryGavyn? No problem. Those and any other mailboxes you think of @mailinator.com are created when email arrives.”

One of the main advantages of using this service is that there is no connection to your real email address, making it difficult to track any emails sent from an Mailinator back to you.

What should I do if I opened the Google Docs phishing email?

As with any hacking case, you’ll want to immediately change your passwords to secure any sensitive personal information. Google is working to restore order, according to a statement it released in a series of tweets:

(1 of 3) Official Google Statement on Phishing Email: We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs... — Google Docs (@googledocs) May 3, 2017
(2 of 3) & have disabled offending accounts. We’ve removed the fake pages, pushed updates through Safe Browsing, and our abuse team... — Google Docs (@googledocs) May 3, 2017
(3 of 3) is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again. We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail. — Google Docs (@googledocs) May 3, 2017

TIME will update this story if new information comes to light.

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How To Make an Essay Look Longer on Google Docs? (Proven Tips)

When it comes to writing essays, length can be an important factor in quality.

Whether you’re trying to meet a minimum word count requirement or simply trying to make a good impression, it’s important to know the tricks and tips to make your essay look longer on Google Docs.

And that’s exactly what we’ll be covering in this article! We’ll look at the benefits of making an essay appear longer on Google Docs, how to increase font size and line spacing, increase margins, use longer phrases and sentences, avoid contractions and abbreviations, add detailed descriptions and examples, as well as tips for editing and proofreading.

So let’s get started!.

Table of Contents

Short Answer

To make an essay look longer on Google Docs, you can use the font size and line spacing to add more content onto the page.

You can also increase the margins to add extra space for the text.

Additionally, you could add more subheadings to break up the text and make it look longer.

Finally, you could research more information and add it to the essay to make it longer.

Benefits of Making an Essay Appear Longer on Google Docs

Making an essay appear longer on Google Docs can be incredibly beneficial for students and writers alike.

There are certain instances where an essay must meet a certain length requirement and with the help of a few simple tricks, you can easily reach that minimum.

For students, making an essay appear longer on Google Docs can be the difference between passing and failing a class.

Length requirements are often set in place by schools and universities and if the essay is not long enough, it may not be accepted.

Additionally, making an essay look longer can help students to fit in more information and present a more in-depth analysis of the topic.

For writers, making an essay appear longer on Google Docs can help them to meet their publisher’s length requirements.

Often times, magazines and newspapers have a minimum word count that must be met before an article can be accepted for publication.

With the help of a few simple tricks, writers can easily make their essays appear longer and make them more likely to be accepted.

Finally, making an essay appear longer on Google Docs can also help to make the essay more engaging and interesting.

By increasing the font size, spacing between lines, and adding more detailed descriptions and examples, readers can be more captivated by the essay and its content.

In conclusion, making an essay appear longer on Google Docs can be incredibly beneficial for students, writers, and readers alike.

With a few simple tricks, you can easily make an essay look longer and more engaging, which can make all the difference in the world.

Increase Font Size & Line Spacing

Making an essay look longer on Google Docs is possible with a few simple tricks.

One of the easiest ways to create more white space on the page is by increasing the font size and line spacing.

This can be done by selecting all of the text in the document and then going to the Format tab and selecting Font.

From here, you can increase the font size and the spacing between lines.

This will create more space on the page and make your essay look longer.

Additionally, you can also increase the font size of specific words or phrases to draw attention to them and make them stand out.

This can be done by highlighting the words or phrases, clicking on the Format tab, selecting Font, and then increasing the font size.

Increase Margins

When it comes to making an essay look longer on Google Docs, one of the simplest and most effective methods is to increase the margins.

Increasing the margins can create more white space on the page and make the essay appear longer than it actually is.

For example, if you are using a single-spaced document, increasing the margins from one inch to one and a half inches can create more space on the page.

To do this, simply select the text you want to modify and click the Page Setup button in the Format menu.

From there, you can enter the desired margin size and click OK to save your changes.

You can also use the ruler at the top of the document to adjust the margins as needed.

Increasing the margins can be a great way to make an essay look longer on Google Docs.

Use Longer Phrases & Sentences

When it comes to making an essay look longer on Google Docs, using longer phrases and sentences is one of the most effective tricks.

This is because longer phrases and sentences help to fill up the page, creating more white space and making it appear as if your essay is longer than it actually is.

To use this trick, try to focus on using descriptive language and avoid overly simplistic phrases.

Additionally, you should avoid contractions and abbreviations, as these make the essay seem shorter.

Instead, use the full phrase or sentence, and add more examples and descriptions to your points.

This will make your essay look much longer and make it more interesting to read.

Avoid Contractions & Abbreviations

When youre trying to make an essay look longer on Google Docs, one of the best tricks is to avoid contractions and abbreviations.

Contractions are common in informal writing, but they can make your essay look shorter and less professional.

For example, instead of writing dont, use do not.

Abbreviations should also be avoided, but if you must use them, make sure you spell out the entire word first and then insert the abbreviation in parentheses.

This way, your readers will still be able to understand what youre saying.

Additionally, using full words and phrases will make your essay look longer.

For instance, instead of using the abbreviation etc.

, use the phrase and so forth.

This will help add length to your essay without compromising the quality of your writing.

Add Detailed Descriptions & Examples

One of the easiest ways to make an essay look longer on Google Docs is to add more detailed descriptions and examples.

Whether youre writing a persuasive argument or an informative piece, adding more detail can make a big difference.

For example, if youre writing about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, you can include more concrete examples such as eating more fruits and vegetables or exercising regularly.

If youre writing about the importance of education, you can include specific examples of how education can open up opportunities or help individuals reach their goals.

Adding more examples also gives the reader a better understanding of the topic.

For example, if youre discussing the role of technology in society, providing specific examples of how technology is used in everyday life can help readers make connections and think more deeply about the topic.

Additionally, if youre writing a persuasive essay, providing real-life examples of how people have benefited from following your argument can help to illustrate your point and make it more convincing.

In addition to providing more detailed descriptions and examples, you should also make sure that your writing is clear and concise.

This means avoiding unnecessary words or phrases and using more active verbs to make your writing more engaging.

Additionally, if youre using technical terms or jargon, make sure to explain them clearly so that the reader better understands your argument.

Finally, make sure to proofread your work and double check for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

This can help make sure that your essay looks professional and well-written.

Tips for Editing & Proofreading

When it comes to making an essay look longer on Google Docs, the key is to focus on both the content and the presentation.

Editing and proofreading your work is an essential step in ensuring that your essay looks its best.

Here are some tips to help you successfully edit and proofread your work: 1.

Read your essay out loud.

Hearing your essay can help you find mistakes that you may have missed while reading silently.

Take a break between writing and editing.

It’s easy to overlook mistakes when you’re too close to the material.

Taking a break will help you come back to your work with fresh eyes.

Don’t forget to check your spelling and grammar.

Even the most experienced writers make mistakes, so it’s important to double-check your work for any errors.

Read your essay from the bottom up.

Reading your work from the last sentence to the first sentence can help you spot mistakes that you may have missed.

Have someone else read your work.

Another pair of eyes can help you catch mistakes that you may have missed.

Print out your essay and read it on paper.

Reading your work on paper can help you spot mistakes that you may have missed while reading on a computer screen.

Following these tips can help you ensure that your essay looks its best before you submit it.

With carefully crafted content and a polished presentation, you can make an essay look longer on Google Docs and increase your chances of success.

Final Thoughts

By following the tips outlined in this article, you can easily make an essay look longer without sacrificing quality.

Increasing font size and line spacing, increasing margins, using longer phrases and sentences, avoiding contractions and abbreviations, and adding detailed examples and descriptions can all help to create a longer essay without compromising its effectiveness.

So get out there and start making your essays look longer with Google Docs today!.

James Wilson

James Wilson has extensive knowledge in the information technology industry.His second love, besides dealing with computers, is smart home technology. He is continually updating information to better comprehend this problem and has a deep understanding of the apartment’s support system.

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Make your to-do list virtual: Here's how to strikethrough text in Google Docs

I n 2024, there isn’t much we can’t do online. We can pay our bills virtually , chat with friends over social media and work remotely. We can even make a task list on our computers or phones.

If you’re ditching the paper to-do’s in favor of a Google Docs planner, there are some tips you can use to make assignments a bit more visually appealing .

Here’s how to digitally cross off your tasks, plus a few more Google Docs tips and tricks to implement into your digital workspace .

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

How to strikethrough in Google Docs

A strikethrough is as it sounds – a digital slash through your text. It can be useful for task lists or adding edits to papers. Here’s what a strikethrough looks like. 

You only need to make a few clicks to access this feature on Google Docs:

  • Highlight the text you want to cross out
  • Select “Format” from the top menu
  • Choose the first item on the dropdown menu: “Text”
  • Select “Strikethrough”

Another, hassle-free approach to strikethrough is to find it by searching in the “Help” option in the top left-hand menu. Highlight your text first, and then you should only have to type a few letters of the word “strikethrough” before the option comes up.

What is the shortcut for strikethrough in Google Docs?

You can also use a keyboard shortcut to strike your text. To do this, highlight the text you want to cross out and simultaneously press Alt+Shift+5 on your keyboard.

To undo a strikethrough, hit the same combination of keys again or “undo” the action.

How to insert a checkbox in Google Docs

If you want the satisfying press of a checkbox for your to-do list, try the checklist function in Google Docs. Checklist operates similarly to a bullet-pointed list but allows you to check and cross off the items.

To insert a checkbox list, select the “Checklist” option on the second toolbar menu. You’ll find this function nestled between the “Line & paragraph spacing” and traditional bullet point options. There’s also a dropdown menu that allows you to choose how you check off an item – with a checkmark and a strikethrough or just a checkmark.

To insert a checkbox with a keyboard shortcut, press Ctrl+Shift+9.

Looking for more Google Docs tips?

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Make your to-do list virtual: Here's how to strikethrough text in Google Docs

The strikethrough function can be found under the "Format" menu on Google Docs.

Brazilian Supreme Court justice orders investigation of Elon Musk over fake news, obstruction

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A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice has included Elon Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news, and has opened a separate investigation into the U.S. business executive for alleged obstruction.

In his decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes noted that Musk on Saturday began waging a public “disinformation campaign” regarding the top court’s actions, and that Musk continued the following day — most notably with comments that his social media company X would cease to comply with the court’s orders to block certain accounts.

Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX who took over Twitter in late 2022, accused De Moraes of suppressing free speech and violating the Brazilian Constitution, and noted on X that users could seek to bypass any shutdown of the social media platform by using VPNs, or virtual private networks.

Musk will be investigated for alleged intentional criminal instrumentalization of X as part of an investigation into a network of people known as digital militias who allegedly spread defamatory fake news and threats against Brazilian Supreme Court justices, according to the text of the decision. The new investigation will look into whether Musk engaged in obstruction, criminal organization and incitement.

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“The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil,” De Moraes wrote Sunday.

X’s press office did not reply to a request for comment from the Associated Press, and Musk hadn’t publicly commented as of Monday morning, apart from brief posts on X.

Brazil’s political right has long characterized De Moraes as overstepping his bounds to clamp down on free speech and engage in political persecution. In the digital militias investigation, lawmakers from former President Jair Bolsonaro’s circle have been imprisoned and his supporters’ homes raided. Bolsonaro himself became a target of the investigation in 2021.

The justice in March 2022 ordered the shutdown of messaging app Telegram nationwide on the grounds that the platform repeatedly ignored requests from Brazilian authorities, including a police request to block profiles and provide information linked to blogger Allan dos Santos, an ally of Bolsonaro’s accused of spreading falsehoods. Dos Santos’ account is one of those blocked on X in Brazil. Less than 48 hours after issuing his order in 2022, De Moraes said Telegram had complied and permitted it to resume oeprations.

De Moraes’ defenders have said his decisions, although extraordinary, are legally sound and necessary to purge social media of fake news as well as extinguish threats to Brazilian democracy — notoriously underscored by the Jan. 8, 2023, uprising in Brazil’s capital that resembled the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

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“Judicial decisions can be subject to appeal, but never to deliberate non-compliance,” Luís Roberto Barroso, the Supreme Court’s chief justice, said in a statement Monday.

On Saturday, Musk — a self-declared free speech absolutist — said on X that the platform would lift all restrictions on blocked accounts and predicted that the move was likely to dry up revenue in Brazil and force the company to shutter its local office.

“But principles matter more than profit,” he wrote.

Brazil is an important market for social media companies. About 40 million Brazilians, or about 18% of the population, access X at least once per month, according to the market research group Emarketer.

Musk later instructed users in Brazil to download a VPN to retain access if X was shut down and wrote that X would publish all of De Moraes’ demands, claiming they violate Brazilian law.

“These are the most draconian demands of any country on Earth!” he later wrote.

The Brazilian Constitution was drafted after the 1964-1985 military dictatorship and contains a long list of aspirational goals and prohibitions against specific crimes, such as racism, and, more recently, homophobia. But freedom of speech is not absolute.

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Musk had not published De Moraes’ demands as of Monday morning and prominent blocked accounts remained so, indicating X had yet to act based on Musk’s previous pledges.

De Moraes’ decision warned against doing so, saying each blocked account that X reactivates would entail a fine of 100,000 reais ($20,000) per day, and that those responsible would be held legally to account for disobeying a court order.

“Including Elon Musk in the digital militias investigation is one thing. Blocking X is another. With this, [De] Moraes is making a nod, saying that he didn’t remain inert amid provocations from Elon Musk,” Carlos Affonso, director of Rio de Janeiro-based think tank Institute for Technology and Society, said by phone from Washington. “It is a warning shot so that lines aren’t crossed.”

Affonso, a professor of civil rights at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, on Monday was attending a symposium at Georgetown Law School about Brazil’s business climate and legislation, and that the implications of De Moraes’ decision for Musk and X were “the talk of the town.” Affonso also wondered what the brewing spat might mean for Musk’s Starlink satellites, which provide internet service to remote Brazilian regions such as the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands.

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Bolsonaro — who bestowed Musk with a prestigious medal when he visited Brazil in 2022 — was among those encouraging Musk to follow through with his promises to publish documents, saying they would reveal how the top electoral court was pressured to interfere in the 2022 election that he lost. Bolsonaro has often made such claims, without any evidence.

“Our freedom today is largely in his hands,” Bolsonaro said about Musk in a live broadcast on social media Sunday night. “The action he’s taking, what he’s been saying, and he hasn’t been intimidated and has said that he’s going to put forward this idea of fighting for freedom for our country. That’s good.”

The lower house lawmaker who is in charge of handling a bill that aims to establish rules for social media platforms said on X that the episode underscored the urgency of bringing the proposal to a vote. It was approved by the Senate in 2020. Brazil’s attorney general on Saturday night had already voiced his support for regulation.

“We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable,” Jorge Messias wrote on X.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s minister of institutional relations, Alexandre Padilha, wrote Monday on X that the administration will support the Supreme Court and its probes, and work with Congress and civil society to build a regulatory framework.

Biller and Sá Pessoa write for the Associated Press. Sá Pessoa reported from Sao Paulo. AP videojournalist Tatiana Pollastri contributed to this report .

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COMMENTS

  1. DocuTyper: Prank Your Friends With Your Fast Essay Typing Skills

    DocuTyper makes it look like you're actually typing an essay on any topic you choose. Enter an essay topic and just start typing, we'll take care of the rest ;) Announcing DocuTyper: Just Like Hacker Typer But For Essays Step 1: Select an essay topic below, then start typing gibberish on your keyboard.

  2. Google Docs

    Create and edit web-based documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Store documents online and access them from any computer.

  3. 9 Google Docs Hacks for Students

    Google Docs hacks for essays and notes. ... Her story for BuzzFeed News won the 2022 American Journalism Online award for Best Debunking of Fake News. In addition to her journalism, Lindsey is a ...

  4. How to Set up an APA Format Paper in Google Docs

    Head to the Google Docs homepage and click Template gallery in the top-right. Head to your account's template gallery. Google; William Antonelli/Insider. 2. Scroll down the templates page until ...

  5. 10 Google Docs Hacks That Make Writing More Seamless

    10. Open a new doc and start writing! Here's one final, life-changing tip before I send you on your way: To open a new, blank document, rather than going to your Google Drive and creating a new document, simply type docs.new into your address bar, and a new Google Doc will automatically load. Voila!

  6. Google Docs Phishing Scam: What You Need to Know

    Reports of the Google Docs phishing scam, which used emails to trick people into revealing confidential information by opening a fake Google document, were trending on social media Wednesday ...

  7. A Google Docs Phishing Scam Is Sweeping the Internet

    A sneaky new phishing scam has taken Gmail inboxes by storm. If you get a Google Doc link in your inbox today, scrutinize it carefully before you click---even if it looks like it comes from ...

  8. Fake academic papers are on the rise: why they're a danger and how to

    Peer review. Peer reviewers are an important line of defence against the publication of fatally flawed or fake papers. In this system, quality assurance of a paper is done on a completely ...

  9. Prank Your Friends Using Google Docs! [TUTORIAL]

    Wow, I finally did it, I became a prank channel. At least it's semi tech-related because we're using Google Docs, right? Who cares anyway, it's January, nobo...

  10. Google Docs Phishing Scam: What You Need to Know

    By Paul Wagenseil. published 3 May 2017. A widespread phishing scam involving Google Docs made its way across the internet today (May 3), with multiple Twitter users and at least two Reddit ...

  11. Write with AI in Google Docs (Workspace Labs)

    Use AI to write something new. On your computer, open a document on Google Docs. In the document, click where you want to write. On the right, click Help me write. Enter a prompt. For example: "Write a poem about the life of a 6 year old boy". "How-to guide for operating a lawn mower".

  12. 12 Google Docs Hacks to Maximize Efficiency

    Here are my top tips to boost your efficiency when using Google Docs. 1. Create a new document instantly. Seamlessly create a new doc in a split second by typing docs.new into your address bar. This will automatically generate an untitled document.

  13. 16 Ideas for Student Projects Using Google Docs, Slides, and Forms

    Older or advanced students might work toward more sophisticated, nuanced review styles like book reviews written on Oprah.com. Book Review. Collaborative Story. Because Google Docs is cloud-based, multiple people can work on a Doc at the same time. So students can work together on a story, a script for a play, or any other kind of group writing ...

  14. Free AI-Powered Essay and Paper Checker—QuillBot AI

    Our free essay checking tool gives your essay one final review of usage, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. You can feel great every time you write an essay. Utilize our AI-powered essay and paper checker for precise analysis and correction. Enhance your writing with our efficient AI essay and paper checker tool.

  15. Google Docs phishing scam

    The company wrote: "We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Google Docs, and have disabled offending accounts. "We've removed the fake pages, pushed updates ...

  16. The 25 Best Google Docs Hacks: Change the Way You Write

    What's more, Google Docs lets you get everything done in one place as you write, edit, and even translate and share. First, let's look at useful Google Docs hacks that will transform the way you write. (Be sure to catch the bonus hacks for G Suite users at the bottom of this post.)

  17. How to Make an Essay Look Longer on Google Docs

    This video shows how you can make an essay longer in Google Docs. You can use formatting and page setup options to achieve this.

  18. Google Docs Phishing: Everything to Know About Email Scam

    May 3, 2017 6:02 PM EDT. A n alarming phishing scam began spreading around the internet Wednesday in an attempt to access Google accounts through an email embedded with a fake Google Docs file ...

  19. How To Make an Essay Look Longer on Google Docs? (Proven Tips)

    Short Answer. To make an essay look longer on Google Docs, you can use the font size and line spacing to add more content onto the page. You can also increase the margins to add extra space for the text. Additionally, you could add more subheadings to break up the text and make it look longer. Finally, you could research more information and ...

  20. Essay Outline Template

    Essay Outline Template. I. Introduction. a. General Background Information (1-2 sentences) i. Attention grabbing intro. ii. Who, What, When, Where - establish topic. b. Write your Thesis Statement i. an arguable sentence, which is debatable and worth proving c. Summarize Body Paragraph Sub-points / Arguments (1 sentence)

  21. Google Docs: Online Document Editor

    Seamless collaboration, from anywhere. Edit together in real-time with easy sharing, and use comments, suggestions, and action items to keep things moving. Or use @-mentions to pull relevant ...

  22. Google Docs: Sign-in

    Access Google Docs with a personal Google account or Google Workspace account (for business use).

  23. Remove FAKE "Google Docs" Extension [Virus Removal]

    The fake Google Docs add-on is a malicious Chrome browser extension that displays advertisements in the browser. When installed, this extension will open new tabs in the browser that display advertisements trying to sell software, push fake software updates, and tech support scams. When the fake Google Docs browser hijacker is installed on a ...

  24. Make your to-do list virtual: Here's how to strikethrough text in ...

    You can also use a keyboard shortcut to strike your text. To do this, highlight the text you want to cross out and simultaneously press Alt+Shift+5 on your keyboard. To undo a strikethrough, hit ...

  25. Brazil's top court orders investigation of Elon Musk over fake news

    April 8, 2024 5:37 PM PT. RIO DE JANEIRO —. A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice has included Elon Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news, and ...