Cube Notation
In order to represent movements of faces on the cube, a notation was developed. The following will help you learn it.
These are the different faces on the cube, and any color can be any face, depending on what way you are holding the cube.
When someone says to do "R", they mean turn the R face clockwise. If they say to do "U", they mean to turn the U face clockwise.
Whenever an algorithm shows different face movements, they always mean to turn that face clockwise.
This only applies to faces without anything trailing it, such as an apostrophe "'", or the number 2.
If the listed face has an apostrophe directly behind it, that means you need to do a counter-clockwise turn of it.
If it has a number two directly behind it, that means you need to turn that face twice. It doesn't matter if you turn it clockwise or counter-clockwise.
Here are examples to help: