WikiMarkup 

Wikipedia has it's own special "language" called "WikiMarkup". It is very important, therefore, to know a good deal of it when you begin to write an article.

 Links 
 External links 
An external link is a link that goes to another website, besides Wikipedia. They are formatted like this: [Name of website goes here].
For example: [http://www.google.com] becomes . 
To display alternate text for an external link, type [Name of website goes here Alternate text goes here]. Note the space between the website's name and the alternate text.
For example: [http://www.google.com Google search engine] becomes Google search engine.

 Internal links 
An internal link is a link that links to any page within Wikipedia. They are formatted like this:[[Name of page goes here]]
For example: [[Giraffe]] becomes Giraffe.
An internal link can display alternate text through the use of a pipe character "|"
For example: [[Giraffe|A long-necked animal that lives on the plains of Africa]]. becomes A long-necked animal that lives on the plains of Africa.
Normal text can also be blended into a link.
For example: I like [[Giraffe]]s. becomes I like Giraffes.
Internal links can link across namespaces.
For example: [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view]] becomes Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
They can also use Pipe tricks.
For example: [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|]] (note the pipe character before the two end brackets) becomes Neutral point of view
For example: [[Orange (fruit)|]] becomes Orange.

 Redirects 

A redirect is a page that, if accessed, sends you to a related page automagically. For an example of this, see Gill net. Note how at the top of the page it says (Redirected from Gill net). Voila!
For example: #REDIRECT [[United States]] redirects whatever page it was on to United States.

When you've finished this portion of the lesson, just tell me and I'll continue on to the next stage of your WikiMarkup lesson. Happy editing, ( ky )