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Taking part in a discussion is easy. Discussion forums are used to enable you and your peers to interact on a particular topic. Discussion forums are designed for someone to post a topic of interest and then have others comment (discuss) this topic. Forum posts can also be rated either by the leader or the entire forum community. It is a great tool to use to discuss topics as well as have the community answer questions that you might have.

To read a forum simply click on the name of the forum next to the icon. Once you are in the forum you will see a description of the purpose of the forum at the top of the forum screen. You can read any of the topics in the forum by clicking on the title of the posting you wish to read. You may also add a new discussion topic by clicking on the "Add new Discussion topic" link. However, before you start a new topic please make sure there isn't already one started about the area you wish to discuss. To check on this, or to find any item in the current forum use the "Search Forums" tool located at the top right portion of the screen. If the search tool finds a discussion thread that already relates to your topic it will display it for you. You can then read the thread and decide if you want to start a new thread or not. Regardless of if you chose to start a new thread or reply to an existing thread remember that when you are writing text for others to read, try and write directly to your audience. Explain your ideas as clearly and simply as you can to help avoid misunderstandings. One thing you can do is to avoid long words when a short one will do.

Re-edit your text as much as necessary until you get it right. Even in forum posts you have 30 minutes after you've posted it to go back and improve it if necessary. It is important to remember that everyone can see what you post therefore all postings must use proper Netiquette.

To receive e-mail updates when new topics are posted to the forum you are viewing simply click the "Subscribe to this forum" link at the top of the main forum screen.

All of our forums are also RSS feed enabled and you can subscribe to receive real time updates by simply clicking on the RSS logo button in each forum.