I tried to explain once and had the same problem. It becomes a link as soon as you type the example, but it's got nowhere to go.
Let's try this ....ignore inverted commas and all the spaces, except the space between a & href.
< a href = "copy and paste http etc. here" >"type your description of the link here"
I used to add < /a > (no spaces) at the end, but it seems to work fine without that bit.
