Those are good questions, Charity. Thanks for asking them.
Just do what I always do:
If you're using any version of Microsoft Windows, open your "Notepad" program (usually by clicking on Start-->
Programs-->Accessories-->Notepad).
Then, copy-&-paste every post to which you want to respond into Notepad, one-by-one.
Then just formulate your entire response right there in Notepad. When you wish to enclose someone's words into a "quote box," put the following characters in front of their material, WITHOUT THE SPACES:
[ quote ]
Then put the following characters at the end of their material, WITHOUT THE SPACES:
[ /quote ]
EXAMPLE: Say you see the following paragraph by me that you want to respond to:
"I feel as though membership in the LDS Church can be time-consuming."
You would copy and paste it into Notepad, then type the following at the front and back (without the spaces, of course):
[ quote ]I feel as though membership in the LDS Church can be time-consuming.
[ /quote ]
It would turn out like this:
I feel as though membership in the LDS Church can be time-consuming.
Of course, if you
really wanna look cool--or if you want to differentiate between many varied people's material--type the person's name between quotation marks after an "equal" sign within the "quote" tag. Specifically, if you want to attribute the above quote to me, you'd type:
[ quote="Dr. Shades" ]I feel as though membership in the LDS Church can be time-consuming.
[ /quote ]This would give the following result:
Dr. Shades wrote:I feel as though membership in the LDS Church can be time-consuming.
Once you're done, copy-&-paste the entire thing from Notepad into a reply here on the board.
Presto!