User talk:Richard Van Noorden

Welcome!

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! D. Matt Innis 16:14, 3 October 2008 (CDT)

Welcome! I created a sandbox for you.

Richard, I have taken the liberty of creating a personal sandbox page for you. To access your sandbox, just click on the link labeled My sandbox in the upper, left-hand corner of your User page. Once you get there, you can click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the page and you can:

• Practice writing articles in the Wiki markup language.
• If you already know the Wiki markup language, you can draft any articles you want to write and keep changing them until you are completely satisfied with them ... and then you can create a new article by cutting and pasting the sandbox article into the new one.
• You can invite other Citizens to visit your sandbox, review a prospective article that you wrote in sandbox, and ask for their comments/critique before you proceed to cut and paste it into a new article.

Don't know what the Wiki markup language is? Click ==>CZ:How to edit an article    Another excellent way to learn the Wiki markup coding is to click on the "Edit" tab at the top of any article and see how the markup coding was used there.

Enjoy! Milton Beychok 17:31, 3 October 2008 (CDT)

Some ideas for contributions

Hello Richard, welcome aboard CZ. Matt and Milton have already given you some hints as to how things work here in general, and I wish to add some more practical hints on what possibilities you have to contribute. Since you are a journalist, you could perhaps help to make the rather technical aspects of some science-related articles more accessible. For a start, I display below the current state of CZ articles that may be of interest to you (for icon documentation, see Template:Rpl/Doc):

•  Biology: The science of life — of complex, self-organizing, information-processing systems living in the past, present or future. ^[e]
•  Chemistry: The science of matter, or of the electrical or electrostatical interactions of matter. ^[e]
•  Physics: The study of forces and energies in space and time. ^[e]
•  Fossil: A naturally preserved record of ancient life. ^[e]
•  Biochemistry: The chemistry of living things; a field of both biology and chemistry. ^[e]
•  Organic chemistry: The scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation (by synthesis or by other means) of chemical compounds of carbon and hydrogen, which may contain any number of other elements. ^[e]
•  Physical chemistry: The application of physics to macroscopic, microscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems within the field of chemistry traditionally using the principles, practices and concepts of thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mechanics and kinetics. ^[e]
•  Medicine: The study of health and disease of the human body. ^[e]
•  Biophysics: The study of forces and energies in biological systems. ^[e]
•  Brain: The core unit of a central nervous system. ^[e]
•  Brain development: The build-up of the brain from ectodermal cells to a complex structure of neurons, glia and blood vessels. ^[e]
•  Brain evolution: The process by which the central nervous system changed over many generations. ^[e]
•  Music psychology: The study of how, when, where and why people engage in music and dance. ^[e]
•  Magnetic resonance imaging: The use of magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation to visualize internal structures of non-magnetic objects non-destructively. ^[e]
•  Spherical harmonics: A series of harmonic basis functions that can be used to describe the boundary of objects with spherical topology. ^[e]

Of course, you can also start new articles (e.g. in the sandbox Milton created for you, or directly on the article's page). We still have lots of rather general topics not covered, e.g.:

•  Geology: The scientific study of the structure and composition of the earth's crust and its changes over time. ^[e]
• Music education: Add brief definition or description
•  Botanical garden: Also botanic garden; a usually large garden, created for public education and enjoyment, with species organised and marked for easy identification. Some private residences have botanic gardens as part of their house parks, but this is unusual. ^[e]

Looking forward to fruitful collaborative editing, Daniel Mietchen 04:43, 5 October 2008 (CDT)