Help:Source editor

The key to learning the Source Editor is learning the code used to format articles. This "wikitext" is just like regular writing, but it also includes special characters to create headings, italics, bolding, indented lists, etc.

First acquaint yourself with wikitext

 * 1) Find a page with some interesting formatting.
 * 2) Click on the "Edit source" or "View source" tab at the top of the window to show the wikitext for that page.
 * 3) Look at the wikitext responsible for creating the page. This may help you learn how to edit since the "code" is, in large part, pretty intuitive and easy to learn if you look back and forth between the article and the code responsible for it.

Learn the most important wikitext formatting
Here are the basics you should know:

{| class="wikitable" ! Description ! What you type ! What you see
 * Italic text
 * italic text
 * italic text
 * Bold text
 * bold text
 * bold text
 * Bulleted list
 * * Item 1
 * Item 2
 * Item 3
 * Item 1
 * Item 2
 * Item 3
 * Numbered list
 * # Electrolytes
 * 1) Cytokines
 * 2) Cytokine subgroups
 * 3) Cytokine sub-sub-groups
 * 4) Bananas
 * 5) Electrolytes
 * 6) Cytokines
 * 7) Cytokine subgroups
 * 8) Cytokine sub-sub-groups
 * 9) Bananas
 * Indented text
 * : cytokines
 * interleukins
 * IL-6
 * leukocytes
 * 1) Bananas
 * Indented text
 * : cytokines
 * interleukins
 * IL-6
 * leukocytes
 * leukocytes


 * cytokines
 * interleukins
 * IL-6
 * leukocytes
 * leukocytes


 * Block quotes
 * "this paragraph will be indented"
 * "this paragraph will be indented"
 * Headings of different levels
 * ==Section Heading==
 * Headings of different levels
 * ==Section Heading==

Sub-sub-section Heading

 * (not illustrated)
 * Link to another MEpedia page
 * Pace trial
 * Pace trial
 * Link to an external page
 * Wikipedia - Mitochondrion
 * Wikipedia - Mitochondrion
 * }
 * Wikipedia - Mitochondrion
 * }

Learn how to insert links
As shown in the above table, internal links are treated differently from external links:
 * Internal links use double brackets while external links use single brackets.
 * To give an internal link a visible name, use a pipe character “|” to separate the link from the name:
 * To give an external link a visible name, use a space to separate the link from the name:

Tip: Note that, in the Source Editor, a link to a category page must start with a colon ":", for example. If you forget the initial colon, your page will be added to that category instead!

A visual introduction
You will notice on the site that there are often superscript numbers in the text. When you click on them, they take you to the References section on the page, and a citation.



To add a reference, you will need two things: a web link for your source (academic sources are preferable, but a blog post or video is okay too) and the code to create the reference.

Here is a sample of what a reference looks like in the text. You can see the two sections of code, one before the web link, and one after.



The two pieces of code are:

(which goes at the end).

It is important to make sure that you include both pieces of code (yes, you're a coder now!), and note the direction of the "/" in the code that comes after the web link.

Simple References
To add a simple reference to a statement, use the

...

References

Which, when added to a page, is displayed like this in the References sections (the PACE trial is shown as an example):

The "authorlink" fields specify the name of the MEpedia article to go to when that author is clicked. The PMID number is the PubMed study ID. The DOI is the unique reference for the study, and when provided means the citation will include a link to the study, wherever it is published. All fields are mandatory, except for 'display-authors', which should only be included if you wish to hide some of the author's names.

For more information on this “Citation” template tag, see Wikipedia’s Citation Template tag.

To help you insert “Citation” template tags, here is a blank template to copy-and-paste into pages:

Images
To add an image use the "Upload a file" link on the left of any page, and make a note of the file name, then add it to the page. Add right or left, and a width (with a px suffix) to set the size):



See also: HELP:IMAGE

Videos
Videos that have been uploaded to MEpedia are linked to in the same way as images:



Videos can also be displayed from YouTube, Vimeo and other common websites.

See also: HELP:VIDEO

Learn more

 * View a video tutorial
 * Wikipedia's wikitext cheatsheet
 * Mediawiki's wikitext help