As you'll probably find out, asking for help with homework isn't looked on too favorably here, but you've certainly been honest about it and it also sounds like you've put some work into it. Perhaps these two questions will help you find an answer: 1) is getting user input something you want to do once or many times? 2) is the loop something that occurs a set number of times, or should it keep occurring until a given condition changes? If you can answer those questions, I think you'll answer your other questions as well.