Basics of Editing

From Unmcomm

Editing a "wiki" site such as this is very easy. A few simple commands will help you organize content for future reference.

[edit] Editing Overview

When you are reading an article, say about the "Journal of Communication" and you want to update the journal's editoral information because the listed editor is from last year.

• Once you have created an account and logged into it (accounts are free & easy to make) simply click the "edit" tab that is located at the very top of every article and page on this site. You will see a large WYSIWYG editing box with text, very similar to using Microsoft Word. You may edit, delete, spell check, or add any information you wish that contained with that article or page. When you're done editing you can either preview everything to see how it will look when published or just click the "save page" button at the bottom of the page to finalize the editing. It's just that easy.
  

Say you come across a journal that is not listed on this site yet. It is a good idea to create a page for it and add useful information from that journal to this wiki. Doing this not only familiarizes you with the journal but stores this information for easy reference later on.

• To add this journal to this site, first click on the alphabetical area it would be under. For example if the journal is called "The Ultimate Journal of Communication" you would click U-V since the journal starts with a U. Once you are on the U-V page listing all journals that start with U to V click on the edit page (as described above) now just add a link to the article you are creating. If there are existing article links in the U-V section find where you would type in "The Ultimate Journal of Communication".
• To make a link to a new page or article all you do is write the name of the page in double brackets [[ ]]. For example to create a page for the fictional journal I would pick where in the list I wanted to add the journal then I would type in [ [The Ultimate Journal of Communication] ] (without spaces between the brackets, if I took out the spaces it would actually link the page and not show you the brackets) then just click save page. Now when you see the page after you safe it, click your new link. Once you click the link the page will say "There is currently no text in this page, you can search for this page title in other pages or edit this page." You may either click on the words "edit this page" or click the edit tab at the top of the page I previous discussed. Once you are in "edit mode" you can type, cut and paste, and edit information as you see fit. Clicking save page will save all changes and put this page up on the wiki for many others to see. You can edit and add content in phases as much as you see fit.
• Some simple tips for organizing content is to use headings. If you want to have one section on the page you are creating for a list of editors and another for journal statistics and another section for journal history, its allot easier to put all of that information under its own respective header. You would use special wiki text commands like when you created [ [ The Ultimate Journal of Communication ] ] using [[ ]]'s. For header sections just type =='s on each side of the words you want to be the header. If you wanted to create headers for the sections I mentioned above you would type them like this:
• == List of Editors == == Journal Statistics == == Journal History == Keep in mind to place each header on its own seperate line, not in paragraph form like it appears here.
• _NOTE When you save changes to the page, if the edited page actually shows the [[ ]]'s or == marks and does not create links and headers, go back into editing mode and click the button that says "Wikitext" in the tool bar. Clicking this button will show you all the special wiki commands the page contains, then just click the save page button. This should then set the wiki to read your wiki marks like making links with [[ ]]'s as those special commands and not literal text. You can click edit on this page and then click the "Wikitext" button in the tool bar to get an idea of what all the special wiki commands look like.
• Lastly, you may want to add links to other websites and resources outside of this wiki on any pages you edit or create. To link to a website it is very similar to making a link for a new wiki page, instead of two [[ ]]'s you only do one set like so: [ ]. An example would be if you wanted to link to www.unm.edu, you would just type in http://www.unm.edu between [ ], one [ on each side. Then you put one space after the end of the website address and type in the text you want to show for the link. For example "http://www.unm.edu UNM Official Website" would create a link showing the words "UNM Official Website" that takes you to unm.edu, It's just that easy! However, if you dont type in a word after the address in the [ ] brackets then it will just show the name of the website as a link, as shown above.

Remember, anyone can edit this wiki, so chances are if you make a mistake or don't know how to do something, you can simply note it on here and some one else can easily edit it for you.

[edit]
Creating Discussion About Journals

One of the most powerful features to using a wiki to collect information is the ability to create discussions for each article or page in the wiki. Every page you view on this site has various tabs at the top.

I previously explained the "Edit" tab. "History" will show you the chronological editorial history of that page and all the pages of the article. The "Discussion" tab allows you to make comments and leave advice about the article.

• For example, the page I explained how to create above for the fictional journal called "The Ultimate Journal of Communication". You could click on the "Discussion" tab when you are looking at the page for this journal, then click edit. Under discussion you type what you would like to tell people.
• When your finished close your discussion text with four tildes ("~" - Next to the numerical 1 on your keyboard) in a row containing no spaces, this will automatically put in your name, the date and time you wrote it. Click on save page and now people can see your helpful advice or recommendations when reading that page!
• If you look at the top of this page at the "Discussion" tab it is probably colored red, the color red means that there is currently NO text or discussion under that tab.
• If the "Discussion" tab is colored blue, this means that some one HAS left comments or added text to that tab, and you may want to look at it.

It is a good idea to leave updates and notes on the journals you are submitting work to. Let us know how the process is going, what you think about it, and maybe some tips or suggestions for future scholars who may be considering submitting to the same journal! Any knowledge or insight you can add to this Wiki is going to be helpful to some one.

After reading this short tutorial on adding pages to this wiki and creating discussions, you know how to use all the functions of a wiki. See how incredibly easy this is! Now with people all adding their own information to this site we can create a great resource for publishing our academic work, with ease!

[edit] Further Information On Using Wikis

• Wiki Manual of Style A general style guide for editing wikis such as Wikipedia
• User's Guide - Information for Readers and Editors of Wikis
• Examples of Wiki text and how to do neat stuff!