title: I can't understand AJAX calls for the life of me
body: <p>Ok, pardon the dramatic title, but making AJAX calls has to be the most confusing thing to do for me in my coding journey so far.</p>
  
  <p>I’m completing a project where a user enters a keyword into a search bar and results are returned using the Wikipedia API. I’ve watched several tutorials on making AJAX calls and gone over the documentation, but it’s just not clicking.</p>
  
  <p>The main questions that go on in my head when trying to figure this out:</p>
  
  <p>What the heck is supposed to go into an AJAX call and how do I find out? I've gone over the documentation and know that there are a number of settings that can be specified in an AJAX call, but how do I figure out what settings I need to use? What do these settings mean?!</p>
  
  <p>I know this might be a stupid question to most, but I'm just starting out and want to learn!</p>
  
  <p>This is honestly all I have and currently understand: </p>
  
  <pre><code>$(function() {
  
    // make ajax request
    $.ajax({
      url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php", // this is the API endpoint
      dataType: json;
    });
  
  });
  </code></pre>