Begin work on updating contributing guidelines

CONTRIBUTING.md

-## On Contributing
-<legend></legend>
+# On Contributing
 
-### Working on Issues
-First take a look at [github flow](https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/) as this is how Go handles version control.
+## git
+First take a look at [github flow](https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/)
+as this page gives a good starting point on understanding how to work with `git`
+in an open source repo.
 
-If you decide on taking on an already listed issue for Go you will need to work in a branch off of master.
+### Branches
 
-This can be done with:
+Each branch off of the development branch serves one and only one purpose: to
+add, modify, or remove features/bugs from Go. Our list of tasks can be found on
+the issues page.
 
-`git branch issue##`
+If you decide to take on an issue for Go you will need to work in a branch off
+of the current development branch (ie. `2.2-dev` with 2.2 being the version in
+    development).
 
-NOTE: replace "##" with the issue number that you are working on. (ie. issue42)
+This can be done with the following chain of `git` commands within `go/`:
 
-and then you need to checkout that branch in order to write code in it.
+    git pull
+    git checkout 2.2-dev
+    git checkout -B ##-shortdescription
 
-`git checkout issue##`
 
-If you are working on something that does not have an issue please open a new issue before creating your branch.
+**Note:**
+
+Replace `##` with the issue number that you are working on, and replace
+`shortdescription` with a few words (<=4) that in brief describe what the branch
+does.
+
+**Example:**
+
+    git pull
+    git checkout 2.2-dev
+    git checkout -B 102-readmeUpdates
+
+If you are working on something that does not have an issue please open a new
+issue before creating your branch.
 
 ### Commits & Their Messages
 
-It is important to commit more often than not such that if we run into issues we can narrow down which commit started to cause issues.
+It is important to commit more often than not such that if we run
+into issues we can narrow down which commit started to cause issues.
 
 Commit messages should follow the format:
 
@@ -32,7 +52,9 @@ Additionally if you are closing an issue include:
 (Closes #issue_number_here)
 
 ex.  "Complete the about page + TOS (Closes #36)"
+
 #### Description -
+
 Bullet points of some highlights from the commit.
 
 They don't have to be super serious (see any of my commits) though just a tad bit of info is nice.
@@ -42,7 +64,9 @@ ex.
 - plus a short blurb on how we can ban you
 
 [Reference](https://git.gmu.edu/srct/go/commit/db89af2e4ffd06a6044d3301a3f7a45ced74799a)
+
 ### Merging to Master
+
 Open a [pull request](https://git.gmu.edu/srct/go/merge_requests/new) with a descriptive enough title and description and we'll take one last look at your code before merging.
 
 [Reference](https://git.gmu.edu/srct/go/merge_requests/25)