Valerieraynard

Hello Valerieraynard, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC) Getting started Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Finding your way around Table of contents Department directory Editing articles How to develop an article Manual of Style Getting help Frequently asked questions Cheatsheet Where to ask a question Help pages New contributors' help page How you can help Contributing to Wikipedia Community Portal Follow Wikipedia etiquette Practice civility

Almost there

You tried to add your name to the list, I see. You almost did it. You need to add the code * {{user2|valerieraynard}}, whereas you put * {{user2valerieraynard}}. The two are almost the same, but not quite. The former will give the following result:

• valerieraynard (talk · contribs · count)

Anyhow, we can troubleshoot this tomorrow. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

models

To have a sense of what you should be aiming at as you work on your article, you are advised to look at relevant good articles and featured articles. A recent featured article about an author is Mario Vargas Llosa, for instance. This was written by a UBC class last semester. You may also want to consult the Literature Wikiproject. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

reminders: regular editing and plan

Two reminders, from our project page:

Over the course of the semester, you need to log in and make at least one edit, again however minor, to your article twice a week.

By September 19, each group should have their plan in place, and have written it up on their article's talk page.

--jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:06, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Re. Wikipedia for Dummies

(copied over from my talk page:) Valerie, I just had a look. Thanks for the suggestion. I can't really see that you've done anything wrong. Everything looks just fine!

NB, however, that the protocol is usually to add comments to the bottom, not the top, of talk pages. If you hit "edit this page," just scroll down until you hit the bottom. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:42, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see that the marvellous User:Mike Christie came in and sorted things out at Talk:Chicano literature. You see what I said... that you can't really screw up on Wikipedia, because everything can be undone. So don't worry about making mistakes. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

How to add comments

Valerie, I saw your note to jbmurray; I hope you don't mind if I drop an explanation here. The reason your note at the top produced a long comment that stuck out on the right is that it started with a space. Wikipedia uses that initial space to mean "don't format this, leave it just the way it is."

This line starts with a space, for example.

So if you ever see that happen again, just edit it again and delete any leading spaces and you should be fine.

How to make your comments show up under other things: the convention is that you comment underneath, rather than on top, of the comment you want to respond to. So you get a series of comments like this:

First comment

First response

Reponse to the first response

Second response

The indentation levels tell you who's responding to who. In your case I think you wanted to be all the way at the bottom so I reorganized the talk page to be the way I think you meant it to be. (And I deleted your paragraph at the top; I can get it back if you want it.)

If you look at a talk page, you'll see it's in sections, each of which has an "Edit" link next to it. If you click that link you'll be editing just that section. If you click the "Edit this page" button at the top of the Wikipedia page, you'll be editing the whole page -- all sections at once. The sections will show up with equals signs around them, like this: ==Section title==. Then if you click inside the editing box that will appear, and scroll to the end, you'll find your post will appear at the end of the section you're editing.

You can try out editing at Wikipedia:SANDBOX if you want to; you can't hurt that page -- it's there for messing around with. Just edit it and see what happens. If you have any questions, you can ask me on my talk page -- I'm usually around evenings and weekends, eastern and central time. I hope this helps! Mike Christie (talk) 00:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

October

Valerieraynard, I see that the last time you made an edit was over a week ago... --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

FA-Team

We have been adopted by the renowned FA-Team! Please add the project page to your watchlists, and feel free to ask FA-Team members if you have any queries or need help. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

happy face!

You get my happy face for your work on Talk:José Martí... but time also to contribute to the article itself! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)