W. Webb

Journalism, Yearbook
Web Mastering and Multimedia

Your Work, Copyright Law and Plagiarism

The term "copyright" isn't very complicated. It means the "right to copy" materials. If you take a photograph, paint a picture, write a paragraph or do any other piece of work, the work you do belongs to you, and no one else has the right to copy or otherwise use your work without your specific permission. And you may not use anyone else's work without that person's permission.
Having said the above, we need to understand that there are exceptions. For example, you as a student may quote someone else's work in a work of your own. You may include a picture or other "graphic" (a "graphic" is almost anything which isn't "text") in your work. A teacher may copy a portion of another work for use as a teaching material. In each case, though, the person using the other person's work must do two things:
  1) The user must give credit to the copyright holder. Within this class, giving credit is as simple as providing the URL (the Internet address) of the source. In general, you must provide this credit in footnotes or in the body of your work immediately below the copied material. Providing a list of sites from which you've used materials at the end of your "paper" is not acceptable.

It is not acceptable to list a search engine, ie., Google.com,  as a source. You may not simply list "Wikipedia.com" or any other encyclopedia or dictionary as a general source. If the source is an online document, you must use the actual URL from which you got the material. If you quote from a paper-based document, you must include dates and page numbers. There are many online sources which discuss methods by which you may cite all kinds of sources. One good place at which to begin is http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/start/cite/index.html
 
  2) The user must make it obvious that the copied material is separate from his or her own work. You may not simply copy phrases, sentences, paragraphs or any other pieces of someone else's work into your work.

Please understand that changing a number of words in a paragraph  you've copied does not make it your own work. You must identify the source or sources.

You may separate that which you have written from someone else's work by using quotation marks, separating their  paragraphs from yours by skipping lines, or by using italics.
Failure to give credit for other people's work within your own work is plagiarism. The penalty for plagiarism is severe. You will receive a grade of zero for your work. You may be allowed (or even required) to redo your work for partial credit. The teacher will notify the responsible adult at home.
Another related concern is how much of a "paper" should be your own work. Because there is such a vast (and increasing) amount of material on the web about just about everything, there is an increasing tendency to simply copy more and more of other people's materials and include fewer and fewer of your own words. It seems reasonable for this teacher to demand that no more than 40% of any document be copied from another source.
Please be very sure that you understand the rules.