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This is a tutorial for all students/users who are interested in Wikipedia or are involved in the Wikipedia India Education Program. It is aimed especially towards students who are in the education program. It is a step by step guide for students on how to get set up on Wikipedia plus some basic information about Wikipedia. For problems, corrections or questions regarding this tutorial, please leave a message on the discussion page.
First step: creating a username
One of the first major steps is to create your user account. This is necessary since it is using this id, your professors will track you, your contribution on the article which will enable them to grade you.
Do not forget to add an email address even though it is not necessary. This will be useful for us to contact you, for you to recover your password.
Congratulations!! You are now a proud owner of a Wikipedia username. Always remember to login when editing Wikipedia.
Second step: filling out your information
Congratulations on registering your username. Now you need to tell the Wikipedia India Education Program who is using this username. This step is one of the most important. If you make any mistakes here, please contact your Campus Ambassador personally or leave a message on their talk page.
Please select the link for your school below and complete the associated user identification form.
Now the Wikipedia India Education Program knows you are a participant.
Third step: creating your user page
Now you have your username, you can create your user page (unless you already did this in the registration process). Your user page is the page where other users/editors will come to learn more about you.
Click on your username on the top right or click on this link to go to your user page.
If you have not already created your user page the text editor will open so you can start adding content to your user page.
If you have already created your user page you need to open the text editor on your user page by selecting "Edit" at the top of the page.
Now add a line or two of text with some basic information about you into the text editor. This will help you in learning basic editing skills.
Add a blank line and then copy the following "wiki-code" exactly:
{|
|-
| {{User WikiProject India Education Program}}
|-
| {{My sandbox}}
|}
This will cause the following info boxes to be displayed.
The first box will tell other editors that you are a participant in the India Education Program.
Selecting the "My sandbox" link in the second box will take you to your sandbox after you create your sandbox in the fourth step.
Click the "Save" button at the bottom of the text editor. This will save all the changes you made and you can see how your user page looks.
Fourth step: creating your talk page and sandbox
When you created your userpage, Wikipedia automatically created your personal user talk page. Go to to your talk page by selecting "My talk" at the top of the page. Edit the page and add the following tag. This will let other editors know that you are a student editing Wikipedia on school assignments.
{{WAP student|course=course page title}}
where course page title is the title of the Wikipedia page for the course you are enrolled in.
Student assignments should always be carried out using a course page set up by the instructor. It is usually best to develop assignments in your sandbox. After evaluation, the additions may go on to become a Wikipedia article or be published in an existing article.
Click the red text to create your sandbox: My sandbox page
Click on the red link, "My sandbox page," to create your sandbox page. Your sandbox page will open with the text editor so you can type anything you want in there and then click the "Save" button. Now you have a page where you can safely try out edits without interfering with public Wikipedia articles. You can read more about your sandbox here: Wikipedia:About the sandbox.
Your user page, your talk page, and your sandbox are now done. Do let your friends know :)
Fifth step:learn basic editing skills
Now that you have a username and a userpage, the time has come to learn how to edit Wikipedia, the shortcuts and so on. Some of them will be covered in this section.
Editing wikipedia is not as tough as it sounds. It is actually very simple.
If you have followed the third step and created your user page, you have already learnt some editing skills.
Some important things to remember.
Always leave your signature when leaving a comment on anyone's talk pages or discussion pages for articles. Just add the following sign to leave a signature: ~~~~. This makes it easier for the user to check your comment and reply. (You can edit your signature by going into your preferences.)
New sections are created using the = symbol based on heading size ==Section name here ==for heading size 2 and using === Section name here ===for heading size 3.
To link to a Wikipedia article, use [[''Article name here'']].
For your first edits, please go to your friends' and Campus Ambassador's talk page and leave a comment. Do not forget to add your signature with ~~~~. :)
Resources
Getting started
Printable guides
These printable PDF documents have instructions related to the basics of Wikipedia.
Wiki markup quick reference – This one-page quick reference (included in theWelcome to Wikipedia brochure) helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup codes.
References – This handout explains why references are important, what the expectations for sourcing on Wikipedia are, where to place references, and the basics of adding "ref" tags.
Reference formatting – This handout explains in more detail how to create footnotes for citing sources, and how to cite the same source multiple times.
How to get help – explains the recommended way to get help and feedback. It also includes a glossary of additional help resources you can avail yourself of.
Plagiarism – explains what plagiarism is on Wikipedia—including "close paraphrasing"—in addition to why and how to avoid it.
