How to write a proper guide.

-By Ekthador & Brandeis-​

How to make a proper guide.

This will help you make a guide to the best of your ability.




Things to remember

• Grammar - Grammar is one of the most important aspects of a guide. Poor grammar makes you look unintelligent and childish; resulting in others not taking you or your guide seriously.
• Pictures - Pictures greatly help the quality of a guide. Guides that are only text are a pain to read and are often confusing. Include pictures for every step you do.
• Detail - Be as descriptive as possible. You want people to understand what you are trying to tell them.

1. Your topic
Choose something to write about. Make sure it is something useful that not everyone knows about. Make sure you understand everything you will be explaining.




2. Writing your guide
The first thing you should have in your guide is information about your topic. Include the following:

• What is your guide about?
• What is it used for?

When writing your guide, follow the steps you are saying to be sure they are accurate. Take screenshots or pictures with every step.

How to take a screenshot:
There are two ways to do this.

To take a screenshot of the entire screen (windows):
1. Press the Print Screen key on your keyboard (sometimes labeled SysRq). It can usually be found next to the F12 key.
2. Open MS Paint. Open the Run... box (from Start Menu, or press Windows+R and type pbrush or mspaint)
3. Paste your picture in to Paint (edit>paste or ctrl+v)
4. Save the picture.

To take a screenshot of only the window you are in (windows):
1. Press the ALT and Print Screen key on your keyboard (sometimes labeled SysRq).
2. Open MS Paint. Open the Run... box (from Start Menu, or press Windows+R and type pbrush or mspaint)
3. Paste your picture in to Paint (edit>paste or ctrl+v)
4. Save the picture.

Uploading a screenshot:
1. Go to http://imageshack.us. This is the most known image hosting site.
2. Click browse... and locate the picture you wish to upload.
3. Click upload.

Once it is uploaded you will be directed to a page with the link to your picture on it. Copy the direct image link.

To put an image in your guide:
Place image tags around the link to your picture:





4. Organizing your guide
Organization is important. It makes your guide easier to understand and read.

Tips:

• Make important details bold, italicized, or underlined. This is done by wrapping them in text tags:
  
  HTML:

  [b]TEXT[/b] [i]TEXT[/i] [u]TEXT[/u]

• Make your step titles in easy to see colors. This helps by showing people where they are in the guide.
  Colors to use: White, Red, Yellow, Lime Green
  Colors not to use: Black, Blue, Purple, Dark Green

Guide Format & Tips
*This is not something to be submitted to the 'User Education' forum, but a general format for users to follow with some great tips. By following this information, you should be able to construct an organized guide, providing your information is correct, hoping to increase the overall intellectual level of the guides.

Where To Start- For a good guide format you want to have the following things incorporated into your guide:

• A title, which should stand out from the rest of the guide, perhaps bolded, italicized, unlined, colored or increased size.

• Categories, which are smaller individual sections of the specific guide.

• Sub categories, which would just be smaller portions of information which pertain to the topic of the category.

• Pictures, these are great visuals which make learning a much more fun and more simplistic experience.

• Spacing, this will allow readers to accurately separate sections of the guide step-by-step.

• Background information, this information will provide a little bit to th reader about how you knowledge is voluminous on the specific subject.

• Outside information, this just gives the reader a bit more information to help them conceptualize the overall topic more accurately.

• No spelling errors and grammatical errors, this will make the guide more legible and easier to comprehend which is an over plus.

• Provide examples, this will give them an idea of how something is supposed to be done.

• Introduction, a small portion of the guide which should tell readers what the guides main points are about and what you will discuss.

Example:

If you have any suggestions, please tell me, and I will add them to this post if they help.

How To Productively Rate a Guide

 

Well I highlighted in red the content that seems confusing. Seeing as there is a rule against using sources, I just thought it should be looked at.

 

Edited.