There are four basic steps in the solution of a cryptogram. Although you needn't follow these strictly, they are a good guide for the beginner. After several cryptograms, the steps will become second nature to you.

1) Determine the Language In Use To find the plaintext of an encrypted message, you have to have a general idea of what the plaintext should be. There is little to do with respect to this step other than using your common sense or intuition. If you're decoding a friend's message, just use the language that he or she knows. If you're decoding a top secret message from France, try French. This is usually your easiest step.

2) Identify the Encryption System Used This is more difficult. In this step, you have to try and determine which system of encryption was used on the message. Certain systems give away telltale signs that you will be able to learn to notice easily. Others are more difficult and a large amount of trial and error must be completed.

3) Find the Key Most ciphers use a 'key' or sorts that allows the sender and receiver to encode and decode the message properly. Finding a key through cryptanalysis is difficult and will lead on long roads of hours of work, all to find that it was a dead end. Finding the right key is one of the most exhilarating moments of cryptanalysis, though.

4) Put the Message Together With the key and the system known, you can now create the plaintext of the message. Some cryptanalysts lose interest at this point since they've already 'cracked it' and there is no challenge in this step -- but for others, the message itself is the most important aspect (such as the message to the Captain Kidd's buried treasure in Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug.) In the case of this site, discovering the plaintext of our Weekly Cryptograms and Challenges will led to points and an interesting factoid/quote (that's almost as good as finding decoding the message to secret buried treasure.)

In addition to those four steps, you may want to remember the words of Captain Parker Hitt from a U.S. Army cryptography textbook: "Success in dealing with unknown ciphers is measured by these four things in order named: perseverance, careful methods of analysis, intuition, [and] luck."

To complete the four basic steps of solving a cryptogram (which is much harder than just reading them), you'll make use of several basic, fundamental cryptanalysis tools that will assist you throughout your efforts.