Yahoo! Tutorial for BetaWolf
Yahoo!
These instructions may work for other Internet-based e-mail services, but Yahoo! is what I use, so that's what I'm going to refer to throughout this tutorial.
First, login to Yahoo! and go to your mail.
Now, click on the link to open the e-mail with the story text.
As mentioned on the main Tutorial page, it's likely you'll see the text just like it appears below, with no spacing between paragraphs and all scrunched together. If that's the case, I suggest you read the story using the Web page version or the Word file. You can then make your edits in Yahoo! without being distracted by the poor formatting.
Click the Reply button at the top of the screen as shown below:
You should now be in the Compose Mail window with the original message included as shown below (if it isn't, please change your settings):
Also, make sure you're using Rich Text to compose your reply. You'll know you're in Rich Text mode if you see the tool bar and a link that says Plain Text as shown below (clicking on the Plain Text link takes you to Plain Text mode). If you don't see the toolbar or the link says Rich Text, go change your settings and reload the e-mail so that the toolbar appears. If you just click on the Rich Text link to take you to Rich Text mode, none of the original formatting will be reinstated. Changing your settings so that the Compose Mail window initially loads in Rich Text mode is the only way to preserve the original formatting, like italics.
You can go ahead and delete the first part with my message if you want, unless you need it in order to respond to it.
Now for the actual editing.
First, to undo anything you've done, right-click within the message window and select Undo (it's buggy about how many steps it'll let you go back, so don't rely on it).
To delete text, first select it.
Now, since this system doesn't have a Strikethrough option, you'll have to let me know you're deleting the text by another method. I prefer underlined gray text. Click on the Text Color icon (a "T" with a little color palette) and select one of the light grays.
Now, while the text is still selected (I know it doesn't look like it in the image, but the text is selected), click on the Underline icon (an underlined "U").
Click anywhere to deselect the text and you should now see it as light gray and underlined.
To add text, place your cursor where you want to begin and click the Text Color icon to select the red font color.
Now you should be able to begin typing and your text will appear red. If you type first, you'll need to go back and select the text and turn it red afterwards.
You can add comments the same way. Just put them in parentheses (...) or put the word "COMMENTS:..." in front of them, whichever makes the most sense, as long as I can tell a comment from a direct edit. You should also add a comment if you change something easily overlooked in the text, like adding a comma.
If you have overall comments you've added at the top of the message (meaning they're not buried in the story text), you don't need to change their color.
And if you only have comments at the top, please delete all of the story text, so I won't go searching through it for more.
Also, if you only make a few edits/comments here and there, please only include those parts of the story text and delete the rest. Include the paragraphs above and below the paragraph where your edits/comments occur, so I can figure out where they go, but that's all. Make sure to put some kind of visual break between various sections, as well, such as 2-3 line breaks (hit Enter several times) or a couple line breaks, then a dozen dashes (-) or tildes (~), and then another couple line breaks.
And that's basically it.
When you're done with your review, just hit Send.