Difference between revisions of "User:JZambrano/Guide To Editing"

Revision as of 03:53, July 31, 2012

In case anyone's interested, I'll divulge some of the method to my madness here. These are just some practical tips for anyone looking to edit and research more quickly.

• Keyboard Shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts will quickly improve your productivity. CTRL+C is the shortcut to copy highlighted text. CTRL+V is the shortcut to paste. CTRL+F is the shortcut to find text on a given webpage. CTRL+X is the shortcut to cut highlighted material, both copying it and removing it from its current location. CTRL+A is the shortcut to highlight all material, useful with the CTRL+C shortcut for copying large amounts of material. CTRL+Z is the shortcut to undo your last action. CTRL+Y is the shortcut to redo an action. These 7 in particular are extremely useful.
• Google News: If you go to Google.com and look on the left side of the screen, you'll notice there is a section called "News" that lets you search Google's News database.[1] But the search can be even more useful. You can search within a given date range by going to the left side and looking for the "Any Time" section. You can search within the past hour, past 24 hours, past week, past month, archives (specific years), or even a custom range that you set. This can be extremely useful for finding news sources quickly and easily.[2]
• Google Search: As a general rule, the more specific and rare your search terms are, while still being applicable, the better your results will be. Use quotation marks (for example, "the Zambrano Report") around words to search for a specific phrase that you're sure will be in the search results you want. Use a minus sign in front of a word or phrase (for example, -Pelosi) to exclude it from search results. If your search results are providing numerous references to something you don't want, put a minus sign in front of a word or phrase that applies to the material you don't want, to narrow the search down to your desired material.
• Coding: The following are some codes to learn for editing:

* <ref> and </ref>: Any material contained within the <ref> and </ref> tags will be considered a footnote, and placed in the References 
  section at the bottom of the page. You can re-use footnotes by using <ref name=>, for example, <ref name=hersz>Herszenhorn, D.M. & 
  Hulse, C. (2009, December 19). [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/health/policy/20health.html?pagewanted=all Democrats Clinch Deal 
  for Deciding Vote on Health Bill]. ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> will let you re-link to this footnote in multiple places by using  
  the <ref name=hersz /> tag anywhere in the page. A </ref> tag isn't needed when using the <ref name=> tag to refer to already 
  created footnotes.
* '' and '': Placing two sets of two single apostrophes one after another will italicize any material between them. For example, ''New 
  York Times'' will italicize the words New York Times.
* ''' and ''': Placing two sets of three single apostrophes one after another will bold any material between them. For example, 
  '''Coding''' will bold the word Coding.
* []: Placing material within single brackets will create an external link to another site. The format is to place the URL or 
  web address first, and then use a space afterward, with the text you want to appear. For example, [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/
  12/20/health/policy/20health.html?pagewanted=all Democrats Clinch Deal for Deciding Vote on Health Bill] links to the New York 
  Times article, but shows the text Democrats Clinch Deal for Deciding Vote on Health Bill. Placing just the URL within the brackets,
  without a space and text afterward, will show a number where the text would have been, linking to the URL. 
* <br>: This is an HTML tag which stands for body row, and essentially forces a line downward. Unlike most tags, it can be used 
  without a closing </br> tag and can be used alone.
* :: Using colons acts as indentation. For example, putting ::Hello on a single line in a wiki page will indent the word Hello two 
  tabs to the right. However, the indenting will not activate unless this is at the start of a new line, if it is placed within a 
  line (for example, how are you ::Hello) it will not activate. 
* *: Think of asterisks as bullet points. When you use one it bullets any material placed afterward, until a new line is start. 
  For example, *Asterisk, if placed on a new line, will create a bullet with the word Asterisk after it.
* == and ==: Two equal sets of two or more equal signs will create a section or subsection within a page and be listed in the 
  page's Table of Contents (assuming there are multiple sections). For example, ==Fox News== will create a page section 
  called Fox News, and placing ===Juan Williams=== after it will create a subsection within the Fox News section titled Juan Williams.

• Footnotes: There are two ways to make footnotes. The first is to use the cite web template here[3], which takes more time because you must paste the template and tags. The second is to just code the footnote yourself using MLA or APA style. I personally prefer APA style myself but it's a matter of preference. To use APA style within a footnote, just use the following format.

<ref>LastName, FirstInitial (Year, Month Day). [ArticleURL ArticleText]. ''PublishingOrganization''.</ref>
  For example, <ref name=spivak>Spivak, Todd (2008, February 28). "[http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-
  me/ Barack Obama and Me]." ''Houston Press''.</ref>
  For sourcing a journal, use the following format: <ref>LastName, FirstInitial (Year, Month Day). [ArticleURL ArticleText], 
  Volume(Number), pages. ''JournalName''.</ref> Since we are actually citing online material online, I do not post the URL out 
  as "Retrieved from..." but place it as a link for the article title.

More information about APA style formatting can be found here.[4][5][6][7]:

--Joshua Zambrano 22:27, 30 July 2012 (EDT)