Dear all,
Instructions, suggestions etc. are, naturally, meant to be shared in the forum so that we can help each other. However, there are certain “rules” or guidelines when it comes to, for instance, borrowing or copying material someone else has posted 
I am sure we have all come across posts where the content was copied – verbatim – from other posts without indicating the original author of the material or properly highlighting the borrowed content as cited. Quite often, people who copy material without asking for permission in advance or without properly referencing the borrowed material are not even aware that they are doing something which is generally considered...antisocial, to put it rather mildly 
I thought I would just list a few pointers on how to cite properly in the forums, especially in order to keep up the great atmosphere and bonhomie in here I hope you won't regard me as fussy or bossy...or both 
Citing correctly means that you give proper credit to the author; it belongs to the conventions of courtesy both online and offline; in addition, this practice contributes to establishing a positive forum reputation and experience.
Indicating that you have copied a text from someone else is very straightforward and quick. There are basically three ways.
1) Link directly to the message in your post. To link to a specific message instead of to a whole thread, navigate to the message, go to "Options" and click on "Highlight". The background of the post will change colours (it will become yellow in this case) and in the browser address bar, the URL of the message will be indicated. You can copy the URL and embed it in your post.
2) Copy the relevant text from the original post, then proceed to visually highlight the borrowed material by modifying the colour and/or font, that way the citation stands out from your text. Also, please indicate the source of your borrowed material by either linking to the post which contains the original material or by indicating the author's screen name. Below are two very good examples (Yogesh_Mohan's posts). The citations are highlighted in blue colour and their authors are indicated. Bonus: embedded links leading to the authors' profile pages:
You can also use square brackets to include the name of the original poster and the link to the original post, as displayed in this example:
http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-360/I-wan-to
A brief and courteous sentence of thanks is another possibility, such as in this post by floplot (last sentence)...:
...or in this post by Phil_D:
3) If you are not sure, ask the author of the original material 
Obviously, there is far more room when it comes to links. In some cases, someone may post a link which is more difficult to find, in which case borrowing a "rare" link offers the opportunity to thank the person who found the link.
I hope this mini-guide will be useful Cordial thanks goes to Yogesh_Mohan, who helped me type up this guide, and to floplot and Phil_D for their model posts
An exciting experience to you all 
Thank you very much, floplot I was thinking of writing up a mini-guide for quite some time, but it was only when a poster mentioned to me that someone had borrowed his instructions without indicating the source that I decided to type it up, with Yogesh reading it through and giving me excellent suggestions during the process
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