The best way to learn emacs is to take the tutorial. Here is how to do this. First, select the Emacs item from a workstation pop-up menu, or give the command:
% emacs
Once in emacs type C-h t. This means "hold down the control key; while it is down, press "h"; release the control key and press "t". C-h is for help in emacs, "t" is for tutorial. To quit the tutorial (and emacs), type C-h C-c.
The complete Emacs User's manual is available online as ASCII text inside the Emacs info system: type C-h i, then Memacs. It is also available as a typeset document in portable document format.