This tutorial will comprise a (very) brief introduction to modelling the gravitational-wave signal from coalescing compact binaries consisting of black holes and neutron stars. Semi-analytic models that describe the signal through inspiral, merger and ringdown play a crucial role for the detection of gravitational waves, but are even more important for the inference of the source properties and tests of general relativity. In this tutorial, I will introduce a variety of techniques commonly used to model the signals from merging compact binaries and give an overview of the current state-of-the-art of waveforms used in data analysis applications.