COMM 207: Beginning to use HTML tags

If you already know how to use Hypertext Markup Language, here's a review. If you don't yet, you will soon enough. Here's a first exercise. Basically, I want you to find a website and write a link to it. You can start by posting a comment to this blogpost. That's right. Now. Today. Blogger lets you do that.

Next step: We'll create a class blog. We had one last year. Follow this link to last year's COMM 207 blog if you want to see it. Students liked it pretty well, once they got used to HTML. And it's a good skill to have. For a pretty good tutorial or to review what you already know, go to the W3 Schools tutorial.

But for now, let's just get started. I learned it monkey-see, monkey-do, and I think that's the best way. And we can look at the theory later. So here goes ...

To create a link, go to the comments field at the bottom of this post and open it. Decide what you want to link to, and type something like: "Here's a link to ..." that introduces the hypertext. The hypertext is just the part you click on that takes you where you want to go. By typing in an address (URL) and putting a code around the text, using angle brackets and letters, you tell your browser to find the indicated address. Confused yet? Let's just do it.

How to Post a Link
I like to do this with two windows open, one to the page I'm posting the link to and the other to the comment (or create post) field in Blogspot. Here are the steps:

1. In the address field in the header, highlight the address (or URL). Copy it.
   
2. Go to the comment field. Type in Here's a link to <a href="
   
3. Paste in the address with no space between the "less than" and the address.
   
4. Type "> with no space between the address and the quote mark.
   
5. Type in whatever words you want in the link, for example where you want to go
   
6. Immediately after those words, type </a>
   
7. Your link should look this this <a href="address">where you want to do</a>

One last step: Be patient. It takes forever to get all the details right, and even then I get little red-and-yellow error messages all the time in Blogger. If you don't yet know what I mean by that, you will very soon!