Re-wiring a lamp is perhaps the most practical and common “how to” in creation, as evidenced by the number of seemingly disparate publications that show you how to do it.

Martha Stewart Living suggests a safe, practical approach; replace plugs when they are “cracked, discolored, or warm to the touch.” Their guide suggests a certain amount of electrical repair foreknowledge, though, advising the use of a “Western Union” splice. (I had to look up what a Western Union splice was; it’s a twisting of two wires around each other.)

JANE magazine’s approach involves lots of blurry pictures of a woman in gloves—one Beatrice, who owns a furniture store in Red Hook, Brooklyn—but goes light on the technical and safety details. They also suggest keeping we meddling men out of the mix: “Oh, I nearly forgot, be sure to attack this project while men are out of sight, because they will only try to take over (need I say more?).” Oh, men!

Home and Garden TV kindly lists the equipment needed and keeps the steps to a bare minimum. Their pictures, obviously screen captures from a show on the network, are also blurry.

eHow, an online “how to” repository, skips the pictures almost entirely, except when discussing the “Underwriter’s knot,” a double loop that prevents the wires from being tugged back through the lamp body.

How Stuff Works has the largest diagram of all (an exploded, ugly lamp), as well as plenty of illustrations clearly scanned in from a print source. The “How to Rewire a Lamp” section is part of a greater “How to Do Home Electrical Repairs” feature that starts with explaining how the electricity gets into your home in the first place, from the pole down, through the circuit breaker, out of the wall and into your child’s brain. It’s the only one of these articles I ended up bookmarking.

New York magazine’s “Everything Guide” illustrates “How to Rewire a Lamp in Three Easy Steps” by condensing several steps into paragraphs. I can do them two better: Replace all the old lamp innards with new stuff.