This page is a how-to guide detailing a practice or process on the English Wikipedia.

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Editing tutorial for Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a wiki, meaning that anyone can easily edit any unprotected page, and save those changes immediately to that page, making the alterations visible to every other reader. You do not even need to register to do this. After your first edit, you will be a Wikipedia editor!

Editing

Editing most Wikipedia pages is easy. Simply click on the "edit this page" tab at the top of a Wikipedia page (or on a section-edit link). This will bring you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the current page. You can type your text, however, using wiki markup to make links and do simple formatting greatly adds to the wiki. Wiki markup is described below and a quick reference is always available when editing by using the 'Editing help' link near the 'save page' button. The cheatsheet opens in a new window so your edits are not lost. The Wikipedia community has developed style guidelines to make articles and facts appear in a standardized form, and Wikipedia easier to use as a whole.

Edit box showing the wikimarkup for this page. You can see the markup for a level-two heading, and bold-face.

If you add information to a page, please provide references, as unreferenced facts are subject to removal. When you are finished with an edit, you should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box. You may use shorthand to describe your changes, as described in the legend. To see how the page looks with your edits, press the "Show preview" button. To see the differences between the page with your edits and the previous version of the page, press the "Show changes" button. If you're satisfied with what you see, be bold and press the "Save page" button. Your changes will immediately be visible to all Wikipedia users.

Edit commands

Talk (discussion) pages

Talk pages differ from articles in that they also have a "new section" tab to start a new section, or edit the whole page in the same way as an article page.

Minor edits

A check to the "minor edit" box signifies that only superficial differences exist between the version with your edit and the previous version: typo corrections, formatting and presentational changes, rearranging of text without modifying content, etc. A minor edit is a version that the editor believes requires no review and could never be the subject of a dispute. The "minor edit" option is one of several options available only to registered users.

Major edits

All editors are encouraged to be bold, but there are several things that a user can do to ensure that major edits are performed smoothly. Before engaging in a major edit, a user should consider discussing proposed changes on the article discussion/talk page. During the edit, if doing so over an extended period, the {{Inuse}} tag can reduce the likelihood of an edit conflict. Once the edit has been completed, the inclusion of an edit summary will assist in documenting the changes. These steps will help all to ensure that major edits are well received by the Wikipedia community.

A major edit should be reviewed to confirm that it is consensual to all concerned editors. Therefore, any change that affects the meaning of an article is major (not minor), even if the edit is a single word.

There are no necessary terms to which you have to agree when doing major edits, but the recommendations above have become best practice. If you do it your own way, the likelihood of your edits being reedited may be higher.

When performing a large edit it is suggested you copy the code of the article you are working on and placing it in a text editor (preferably one without formatting, such as Notepad) periodically and before pressing save page. This ensures that in the case of a browser crash you will not lose your work. It may also be a good idea to save the page in stages as you add substantial amounts of work.

Wiki markup

Wiki markup is the extra information (apart from the text which will be displayed) you enter in the edit window which tells the the Wikimedia software how to display the page, categorize and process the article.

More information on editing wiki pages

Getting started

• Starting an article

Policies and conventions

Make sure that you submit information which is relevant to the specific purpose of the wiki, or your content might be deleted. You can always use the talk pages to ask questions or check to see if your idea will be accepted. Please make note of the license your contributions will be covered with.

• Policies and guidelines

Helpful tips

• Contributing to Wikipedia
• FAQ/Editing
• Cheatsheet
• If you have problems editing a long article

Naming and moving

• Moving a page
• Naming conventions
• Namespace

Style and layout

• Layout
• Manual of Style
• Annotated article

Tools

• Text editor support

See also

Meta has related information at: How to edit a page

• WikiProjects, if you are writing an article about something that belongs to a group of objects, check here first!