User talk:Mark Jones

Welcome

Welcome to Wikipedia. You definitely have skills in some areas that Wikipedia really needs help in, so I hope you like the place and decide to stay. I saw your contribution of Erie doctrine, and as a member of the community for a while I wanted to thank you for that and offer some advice and tips. I made some minor changes to the article, so feel free to discuss those on the talk page for that article.

Here are a few good general links for newcomers:

• How to edit a page
• Editing, policy, conduct, and structure tutorial
• Picture tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Naming conventions
• Manual of Style
• If you're ready for the complete list of Wikipedia documentation, there's also Wikipedia:Topical index.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and vote pages using four tildes, like this: (~~~~) which (if you are logged in) produces your name and the current date. But sign on the talk pages, not the article page itself. Lots of people will contribute to the article page and your contributions are already saved in the article history.

A few more specific things for you. The naming conventions article should help you because you'll find that articles should be in all lower case except the first word unless the whole title is a proper noun. So some of the red links on your user page actually have articles if you link to the lower case version. And try as hard as you can to cite the best sources available for your topic. Your text book or the book you used to check the facts would be a great start. Wikipedia is not for essays, it is a reference work meant to report what other sources have found.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! - Taxman 21:44, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)