Being as Newbie, first you need to understand
SEO Slung terms, because when you are going through any book, article or tutorials you won't get any thing, may be u will confuse in such terms and will not get proper knowledge.
My suggestion is prepare the list of
SEO Slung terms than go....
Go through each and every forums.
With different different user names,
Ask them same questions for you have doubt.
Get the collections of replies. and see which reply you got maximum, and than you can do research on the same,
And implement to your work also...
Best of luck,