The answers here helped me arrive at a solution, but I discovered more info in the process which may be of advantage to others who find this question. I figure most people simply want to use the API to quickly get content off the page. Here is how I'm doing that:
Using Revisions:
//working url:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=revisions&titles=Threadless&rvprop=content&format=json&rvsection=0&rvparse=1
//Explanation
//Base Url:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query
//tell it to get revisions:
&prop=revisions
//define page titles separated by pipes. In the example i used t-shirt company threadless
&titles=whatever|the|title|is
//specify that we want the page content
&rvprop=content
//I want my data in JSON, default is XML
&format=json
//lets you choose which section you want. 0 is the first one.
&rvsection=0
//tell wikipedia to parse it into html for you
&rvparse=1
Using Extracts (better/easier for what i'm doing)
//working url:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=extracts&titles=Threadless&format=json&exintro=1
//only explaining new parameters
//instead of revisions, we'll set prop=extracts
&prop=extracts
//if we just want the intro, we can use exintro. Otherwise it shows all sections
&exintro=1
All the info requires reading through the API documentation as was mentioned, but I hope these examples will help the majority of the people who come here for a quick fix.
