The preceding discussion indicates that you are to take your manuscript and type it into the editor in exactly the same way as you would at a typewriter. While this is a possible way of proceeding it is not really the best way to do things. In order to you to understand why this is true, you have to understand that once you have functioned as a typist, the next thing you have to be is an editor.
An editor's job is to make sure the text looks good and that
the printer knows how he is supposed to layout the copy which
he receives.
For example, he has to know:
how much space to put between lines of text,
what font to set chapter headings in, how much space to skip
before and after a chapter heading, which math symbols are
exponents, greek letters etc.
Since you are the editor and TEX is going to be the printer,
you have to mark up the copy so that TEX and/or PHYZZX knows
what to do with it.
This feat is accomplished by including editor's comments (or marks)
in the text.
These comments (or commands to TEX) have to have a special
character in front of them so that TEX will recognize them
for what they are; this character is the
\, and the
combination of a
followed by a string of characters
is called a control sequence.
One example of a control sequence is
par which tells
TEX to begin a new paragraph.
Note that this is not a trivial thing since TEX has to know
to skip some extra space between the text in different paragraphs,
indent the first line by some amount, etc.
The basic version of TEX has lots of control sequences
which tell TEX to do lots of wonderful things.
To learn about these things (probably more than you initially
want to know about how TEX operates) you have to read
selectively in the TEXbook written by Knuth.
Since this discussion is between friends, let me warn you
this book stinks as a reference manual and ain't so hot
as an introduction to TEX.
Knuth has a philosophy of learning by ever increasing levels of
mistakes which I (and many of my acquaintances) find
at best distracting and at worst impenetrable.
Unfortunately, this book is all that is
available as an in depth introduction
to the basic version of TEX.
If you want to know how to do sophisticated things which lie
outside of the purview of PHYZZX you will have to read quite a
lot of it.To get a feeling for TEX it is advisable to browse through the first three
chapters and read about boxes and modes.
If you just wish to type papers in the most straightforward way
you can defer this reading until you are more experienced so long as
you use PHYZZX.
However, in any event, you must
read the sections on typing math formulas,
typing displayed equations and a little bit about making boxes
since I have neither the time nor inclination to go into those things
in this writeup, and you must have a basic idea of how this stuff
works in order to proceed.
After all, ostensibly this writeup is about how to use PHYZZX
and is not a primer on TEX.
A really good thing to read to get an idea of the basic
things you can do with TEX and to learn about the important control
sequences is a primer entitled First Grade TEX A Beginner's
TEX Manual by Arthur L. Samuel.
This is short, readable and contains everything you need to
supplement this discussion of PHYZZX.
You can request a copy of this manual from the SLAC Library
Since you are going to be both typist and editor it pays for
you to combine these jobs and mark up the manuscript at the
same time that you type it.
To be precise, this means that you want to type in equations
so that superscripts,
subscripts, etc., are clearly indicated.
You also want to type chapter headings, subchapter headings, etc.,
in such a way that the font to be used, the space to be skipped
above and below the heading, etc. are all clearly indicated.
In general you want to tell the printer how to lay out the
resulting copy as you type it in.
This of course requires that you make many formatting decisions
and then use the basic TEX control sequences in order to tell
it what to do.
It will come as no surprise to you that this can get very
complicated very quickly.
That's where PHYZZX comes in.