CONTRIBUTING: take my hand to the prose

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,10 +1,6 @@
 # Contributing
 
-We welcome contributions to Julia and appreciate your interest. There are capabilities to grow, interfaces to write, and bugs to squish. Area experts may contribute by writing software that supports work in their own field. To keep things percolating as smoothly as possible, we ask that you follow the advice and guidelines given here.
-
-## ready, get set
-
-Before contributing to Julia, you should join the [dev list](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/julia-dev), read the user manual and library guide, and create a free GitHub account. Follow these steps to get Julia copied to your machine in a way that lets you to work locally, rewind your edits, keep a remote backup, and safely contribute to Julia.
+Hi! Thanks for checking out Julia and contributing. Please consider joining the [Julia dev list](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/julia-dev). If you have questions or problems, that's a good place to post them. The [online Julia docs](http:https://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/) might also be helpful. To contribute changes, you'll need a free GitHub account (if you're reading this on GitHub, you probably already have one). And of course, you'll want a working copy of Julia, preferably built from source. In list form, here are the recommended things to do:
 
 * Join the [dev list](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/julia-dev)
 
@@ -19,23 +15,24 @@ Before contributing to Julia, you should join the [dev list](https://groups.goog
 
 * Keep Julia current
  <p>
- Julia is a fast-moving target, and many details of the language are still settling out. Keeping your repository up to date and rebasing your work in progress requently 
+ Julia is a fast-moving target, and many details of the language are still settling out. Keeping your repository up to date and rebasing your work in progress frequently 
  </p>
 
 * Relax
 
-## submitting your contributions
+## Submitting your contributions
+
+The Julia team uses [GitHub issues](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues) to track and discuss problems, feature requests, and pull requests. By contributing code to Julia, you are agreeing to release it under the [MIT License](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/tree/master/LICENSE.md).
 
-The Julia team uses the [GitHub issue tracker](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues) for accepting pull requests. Note that by contributing, you are agreeing to release your code under the [MIT License](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/tree/master/LICENSE.md).
+You can make pull requests for incomplete features to get code review, in which case we have a convention of prefixing the pull request title with "RFC:" to indicate that the work is incomplete so it doesn't accidentally get merged into the master branch before it's baked.
 
-You can make pull requests for incomplete features to get code review. Please prefix your pull request title with "RFC:" to indicate that the work is incomplete so it doesn't accidentally get pulled early.
+Before submitting, make sure that all tests pass by running `make testall`. Even better, add your own tests for your change or feature to the test files in `tests/`. If your contribution includes changes to Makefiles or external dependencies, do make sure you can build Julia from a clean tree using `git clean -fdx` or equivalent.
 
-Before submitting, please make sure that all tests pass by running `make testall`. Even better, add your own tests for your change or feature to the test files in `tests/`. If your contribution includes changes to Makefiles or external dependencies, make sure you can build Julia from a clean tree using `git clean -fdx` or equivalent.
+## Getting help
 
-## getting help
-While getting familiar with Julia, and when using unfamiliar aspects of the language, the first recourse is to take advantage of the [docs](http:https://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/). When [searching the docs](http:https://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/search/), if you use a script blocker then you must unblock the page. The [source code](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia) is an excellent source of examples. Use the [dev list](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/julia-dev) as a resource whenever you are stumped or curious or in need of other feedback. It is always a good idea to search the dev list before posting -- there is already guidance helpful for common questions.
+While getting familiar with Julia, and using unfamiliar aspects of the language, remember to check out the [docs](http:https://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/). The docs are [searchable](http:https://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/search/), but if you use a script blocker then you'll have to unblock that page. The [source code](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia) is an excellent source of examples and, of course, always the most definitive resource on how things work. If you're still stumped, post something on [the dev list](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/julia-dev), but it won't hurt to search first to see if there's already a discussion about what you're stuck on.
 
-# resources
+# Resources
 
 * Julia
  - [Julia](http:https://julialang.org)