Editing Merriam-Webster (section)

==Writing entries==
Merriam creates entries by finding uses of a particular word in print and recording them in a database of ''citations''.<ref name=":0" /> Editors at Merriam spend about an hour a day looking at print sources, from books and newspapers to less formal publications, like advertisements and product packaging, to study the uses of individual words and choose things that should be preserved in the citation file. Merriam-Webster's citation file contains more than 16 million entries documenting individual uses of words. Millions of these citations are recorded on [[Index card|3-by-5 cards]] in their paper citation files. The earliest entries in the paper citation files date back to the late 19th century. Since 2009, all new entries are recorded in an electronic database.<ref name=":0" />