How do you prevent Microsoft Word from automatically selecting more text than you want?

Most of the time, Microsoft Word works perfectly and makes our work much easier to do, but there are times when a particular built-in "function" serves as a constant source of frustration rather than being helpful.. Today's Super User Q&A post has a quick and easy fix to help the reader disable a problematic feature.

Today's Q&A session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser, a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of question and answer websites.

The question

Superuser reader Dave Chen wants to know how to prevent Microsoft Word from automatically selecting more text than desired:

I would like to select (¬Q) without Microsoft Word selecting both brackets (see image below).

I know that if I move the cursor to the same position, Microsoft Word will select the text correctly, but it's annoying having to do it every time. Are there any settings that allow me to disable automatic text selection?

How do you prevent Microsoft Word from automatically selecting more text than you want?

The answer

Superuser contributor Aganju has the answer for us:

Go to Proceedings, Choices, later Advanced. Look for the option By selecting, auto select entire word (is enabled by default). You can disable the 'function’ deselecting (checkbox).

Do you have anything to add to the explanation? Speak in the comments. Want to read more responses from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here..