Operating my motor - Novice 101

So being new to boating, I had a question about shifting gears.

I have a 55' Evinrude 7.5.

On the throttle there is a notch for "Shift"...

My initial though is, it is like any "clutch" type motor, where you would start the motor.... idle... turn the throttle to ****, then select Forward or Revers from the gear shift lever....

Obviously I dont want to just slam it into Reverse and break something...

Sorry, this sounds pretty dumb, but never operating my motor under actual boating circumstances, i want to go into this with a little education.

thx all.

drop the idle to low (maybe lower than the mark... it all depends on the motor) and with authority pop it in gear. In other words do not try to slowly engage the gears. The rotating pieces need to engage as quickly as possible to avoid wear.

Once you play with it a little bit you'll totally understand.

Yup