At times, turning your cross stitch pattern and project upside down can simplify your stitching and keep the backside of your work neater. Let me show you the first situation:
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To stitch this pattern right side-up, you would have to carry the thread over many squares from one row to the next. However, if you turn your work and the chart upside-down, the pattern looks like this:
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A much easier group of stitches to work with! And your stitches will be laying in the proper direction. This does not work if you are only turning your work sideways! It only works when your turn your work a full one hundred and eighty degrees so the the top of the work is at the bottom and the bottom is at the top. Remember to turn both your pattern and your work upside down.

Please note: The red and green stitches I have used in the following illustrations are to make the directions easier to understand. You would just use one colour of floss.

Turning your work upside-down is also helpful in the following situation:
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In this situation, this is what I do:

1. with your work right-side up, cross stitch the first three stitches in the top row
2. drop down to the second row and work the first half stitches ( / ) to the end of the row. In this example, eleven half stitches
3. complete the second half of the stitch ( \ ) on the eleventh stitch only (the one in red).
4. now turn your work upside-down, drop down to the first row, and complete the cross stitches from the first row (the stitches in green).
5. once you have finished these green stitches, turn your work right-side up again, and continue to complete the stitches ( \ ) in the second row as you normally would.

If you look on the backside of your work, you will see all the stitches lie straight up and down as they are supposed to! This is very hard to understand just by reading these directions. But give it a try on a scrap piece of fabric, following the directions one step at a time, and you will see what I mean. It's a great trick!