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A video that articulates the diversity and enthusiasm of the Wikipedia Community by editors like you. (4:10 min)

As a new contributor, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of this project. Don't worry too much if you don't understand everything at first, as it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. We encourage you to be bold in a fair and accurate manner.

The community portal is a central location to find collaborations, tasks, and news about Wikipedia. To find internal project pages of interest, see the department directory. If you do get stuck, there are volunteers available to answer your questions, see asking for help for more information.

Tutorials

Longer tutorials

Introductions

Protocols and conventions

Editing with Wiki Markup

  • Introduction to editing: a five part guide to editing. Editing pages. Formatting. Links and Wikilinks. Saving your changes. Summary.
  • Introduction to referencing: a five part introduction to referencing. Verifiability. Inline citations. RefToolbar. Reliable sources. Summary
  • Introduction to uploading images: a six part guide on uploading images. Introduction. Free content. Non-free content. Wikimedia Commons. Using an image. Summary.
  • Introduction to tables: a four part guide to putting tables in pages. Introduction to tables. Creating tables manually. Sortable tables. HTML and tables.
  • Introduction to talk pages: a five part guide to using talk pages. Talk pages. User talk pages. Layout. Examples. Summary.

Editing with Visual Editor

Training for student assignments

These self-guided trainings help users involved with student assignments to learn the basics of Wikipedia.

  • Training for students: students start here! A four-part, 57-page, training intended for students doing assignments on Wikipedia, with more detailed introductions to core Wikipedia policies, editing basics, and more specific editing advice for students. Welcome (4 pages). The Core (14 pages). Editing (24 pages). Advanced and background (15 pages).
  • Training for educators: educators start here! A five-part, 97-page, training for professors and other educators who want to run Wikipedia assignments for class, with introductions to core Wikipedia policies, editing basics, and an overview of best practices for designing and implementing Wikipedia assignments.
  • Training for Wikipedia Ambassadors: Ambassadors start here! A four-part, 86-page, training for Wikipedia Campus and Online Ambassadors, with introductions to core policies and editing basics for those new to editing and an overview of best practices for Wikipedia assignments.

Guides

Quick guides

Overviews

Books and videos

  • The Missing Manual: a comprehensive how-to book that explains everything about contributing for novice to expert editors.
  • Wikipedia instructional material for a listing of screencasts, videos and books.
  • The Bookshelf - A vast collection of high-quality, freely licensed, user-generated informational material about Wikipedia.


Editing Wikipedia Illustrating Wikipedia Evaluating Wikipedia

Help resources and assistance