Help:Quick guide to editing

This page provides quick tips on editing. You may also wish to review the more detailed formatting guide. Before you can edit, you'll need to quickly register with a valid email address, which is done to deter spammers and vandals. Once you've registered, editing a page is as easy as clicking the "edit this page" tab at the top of the window."

Editing cheatsheet
See SourceWatch:How to edit a page for more detailed explanations and advanced syntax.

Sourcing an article
See SourceWatch:References for more detailed explanations and tips on sourcing.

Every assertion made on SourceWatch should have an outside source. In most cases this should be a webpage or online document that can be linked to (see SourceWatch:References for help on referencing offline sources). To reference a source, you'll first need to collect these bits of information about your source:


 * 1) Author
 * 2) Url - the full internet address of the webpage. The url of this page is http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Help:Referencing_sources
 * 3) Title - Use the title of the post for blogs.
 * 4) Publication - Use the name of the blog for blogs (e.g. the name of this blog is "Eschaton". For books, use the book title for the publication and skip the "title."
 * 5) Date of publication - Using the format of "January 2, 2007".

Now format your source so that the title of the piece is in quotes and is a link and the publication is italicized, like this:

Your source should show up as a nice numbered footnote. Make sure to click it after saving to see how the source is displayed and to make sure you formatted it correctly. Remember that the reference information is stored in the body text, so if you want to go back and change it, go back up to the section that contains the information you were sourcing and click "[edit]" there.

If editing someone else's writing, leave a note
If you are editing or deleting someone else's writing, it's a common courtesy to leave a note on an article's discussion page (found by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the article) explaining your reasons why. It would probably then be a good idea to check back a little later to see if other editors responded. Remember: be cool, be collaborative and talk things out. "Edit wars" are never fun and rarely productive.

Creating a new page
See SourceWatch:How to start a page. Remember to follow the naming conventions in titling the page.

Acknowledgment: The first chart on this page was originally copied from Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Cheatsheet.