You download them from the Files menu in SourceForge, under "test data."¹ Put them in the same folder where you plan to keep your own research data. Import them into Wordcorr as explained in Wordcorr Help.

Once a demo file is imported,

• Go to its Views menu
• Click on the Original view
• Then click on the Copy button
• On the Copy View dialog box, give it the name Demo.
• Choose the Varieties Only mode
• Click OK.

Now you have all the data at your fingertips, but as far as annotations and tabulations are concerned, you have a clean slate.² You don't have to enter data, but you are free to try out any analytical ideas you want. If things get too messy to keep track of, there's a Delete button on the View panel that will wipe out your first Demo view and let you start over. Just do what the preceding paragraph says and try again.

The most productive way to introduce people to Wordcorr is this: have them

• Click on Entry 1 (the gloss at the top of the gloss list on Data or Annotate).
• Fiddle around with annotating it - assigning every form in the entry to one group or another on the basis of which ones could reasonably go back to the same protoword.
• For all the forms in the largest group, add Indel symbols (/) and maybe Ignore symbols (.) to line up corresponding segments in all the forms that are to be compared. Doing that should make all the forms come out the same length.

Wordcorr Help gives you examples and explains Indels and Ignores (and metatheses and grapheme clusters, which we only mention here). Repeat for the other groups.

Once all the forms in the entry are annotated, go to Tabulate. It shows the correspondence sets implied by the decisions you made in annotating.

• Assign each correspondence set to a protosegment. (If they're all p, assign them to proto p. If they're not all the same, use your imagination or your linguistic training.)
• Characterize the environment each correspondence set is in - maybe for that you'll want to take a look at existing annotations on the other views.
• When every correspondence set for the group has a protosegment and an environment assigned, click Save.

Then look at Refine. If it clarifies things to make changes, make changes. Wordcorr Help tells you how.

After you finish with Entry 1, do the same thing for Entry 2, and so on. Take a break for eating and sleeping every so often. Have fun. Bring in your friends. Start a new fad. It won't be long until you're comfortable with Wordcorr, and you'll know what the textbooks are talking about - in detail.

¹You may want to check the install page for additional information about downloading
²If you want to sneak a peek at how other people have annotated your demo to get a feel for their thought processes, choose any other view than your Demo view. Compare its Data panel, which is for all views, with the Annotate, Tabulate, and Refine panels. You'll learn a lot that way. You'll learn even more by thinking your way through your own Demo view.

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