i'm fairly sure i have soldered my makershield correctly but just in-case...
none of the holes are connected so everything you solder has to be connected at the back of the shield where applicable right?as in its not the same as a normal stripboard?
Do you have a link to what you are referring to?
http://www.instructables.com/file/FCWN23BGZFDPZH7 i am building this guitar pedal with the Arduino Uno
The solder should completely fill the hole and wick up the leads of the components some.
There are many good tutorials on soldering, perhaps start here
www.ladyada.net/learn/soldering/
its not the soldering as such iv been doing that for quite some time its just determining which way to approach a makershield board and how to connect the components 
Ah, I see - yes, you need to add point to point wires to connect everything together, or use the leads of the devices as the wires.
ah ok thank you my circuit is shorting somewhere and i cant seem to figure it out even though iv checked all the joints, so was beginning to think i had done the whole thing wrong
I make my prototypes with wirewrap, so much easier to make changes/fix mistakes.
See Reply #12 here
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,76380.0.html
I've posted better pictures, can't readily find one tho ...
