Welcome, Ladytwentytwo! First, is that what you would like me to call you, or is there something else you would rather be referred to as? And also, are there any specific questions right off the bat? Feel free not to sign your name at the end of your entries.
Thank you Brambleberry of RiverClan, just call me Ladytwentytwo and is Brambleberry ok with you? I've been looking where you create a draft article before you ask for it to be created. I have been trying to do things in my Sandbox, but I can't see where you would make a draft article. Thanks again, it's great having your support.
Brambleberry is fine; most Wikipedians call me that. And this sounds perfect for our first lesson.
What you will soon learn about me is that I give my instruction in titled lessons based on what an adoptee wants to learn.
Before creating a large article, it's generally a good idea to create a draft of it so you don't have a half-finished blob in article space. The sandbox is the perfect place to do that. I could tell that you were a little confused by that. Let me start out with the basics of an article:
Lead
The lead of an article is a small portion at the beginning telling a little bit about what the rest of the article is going to be about. Smaller articles may only have one paragraph, medium-sized articles should have three to five meaty paragraphs, and large articles should have over five decent-sized paragraphs. This section can include an infobox, which is a quick little chart to the right saying what the topic is all about. For example, to the right of Warriors (novel series) there is a box with a picture of the books, the books in the series, who they are written by, et cetera, et cetera.
Body
The body is where all the details go, under various headings. A level 2 heading is for large topics, a level 3 heading is for smaller topics that fall under the level 2 topic, a level 4 heading is for smaller topics that fall under the level 3 topic, and a level 5 heading is for smaller topics that fall under the level 4 topic. You can't go smaller than a level 5 heading, though most articles only go to level 3 maximum. The "level" is shown by how many equal signs are to either side of the topic. This section should be filled with references.
References
Ah, referencing. The easiest way to do this is to use the little helper in the toolbar. All the way to the right above the editing box it should say "Cite". If you click that you get another toolbar below it. This one has the word "Templates" in a white box. Click on that and you get "cite web", "cite news", "cite book", and "cite journal". Click on one of those and a handy little helper comes up. Fill in the information in the boxes, click insert, and you have a reference.
Categories
Once an article is in article space, you can add categories to it that fall under the topic. For example, in Infanticide in carnivores the categories are Category:Infanticide and Category:Carnivores.
Something that I had to do with you is move your sandbox. Right now it was in the article space, which is generally only for published Wikipedia articles. Anything that's just for you should be in the user space. To add something to the user space, just preface it with "User:". For example, this page is "User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/Adoption/Ladytwentytwo". Those are the only two that you should worry about now, not counting Talk. We can move on to Wikipedia-space later.
What were your specific issues with using your sandbox?
Thank Brambleberry, I will keep reading it and I appreciate your help regards my Sandbox and thanks to your help I've no problems there now. It's like I'm blind and the light's starting to flicker through. Appreciate what you're doing.(Ladytwentytwo (talk) 11:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC))
I looked at the article you submitted at Articles for Creation and saw that it was rejected. This can be discouraging, but a little push and nudge here and there will help get you on the right track. Allow me to show you some of the things that I saw about it:
Referencing. The proper way to reference a Wikipedia article is directly after the period at the end of the sentence without a space. Multiple references there is no break between, just bam bam bam bam bam. In addition, it's generally nice in an article if the references have more than just the URL link. Any extra information helps, at the bare minimum when it was retrieved and the page title.
Headings. Only the first word in a heading is capitalized unless it includes a proper noun. In addition, I would change the heading of "A musical influence" to just "Influences".
History section. This is blank. Most of the time the thing to do if a section is blank is just to remove it, but if it's something where you either plan to add information or if you plan to add to it, then just put {{Template:Empty section}}. I would add the information from "Irreconcilable differences" as a level 3 heading under "History" if I were you, as that's part of the history.
Infobox. Most bands need an infobox that includes the basic information about them. Copy and paste everything at Template:Infobox musical artist#For articles about musical groups and paste it at the very top of the article, above everything else. Fill in all the information that you can and delete the extra.
Thank you Bramble, much appreciate the advice and I have had a go at cleaning it up. Hope you like the results. I just need a picture now. Thanks again. (Ladytwentytwo (talk) 00:49, 9 February 2013 (UTC))
I noticed that you were having trouble when a lot of your contributions disappeared. Here's how to fix it in the future: Go to "View history", which is just to the right of edit. Try to find the last good edit. It will usually be the edit right before a sharp drop in numbers, which can be told by something like (in your case) this: (-6,329). Click on the date and time for that, which in your case will be 17:01, 15 February 2013. You will get two different edits. Look at the one on the right. There should be "edit" in parentheses next to it. Click that, add some random extra space somewhere, and save. Presto! You have everything back!
Thank you Brambleberry, very handy to know indeed! (Ladytwentytwo (talk) 23:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC))
