Hi Me and a group of friends are doing a project on Einstein and the discriptions we are using are directly from PBS, it seems that everything the way they word it is perfect, however we cannot not read it directly because that would also be plagiarism. Is it illegal if we qoute...3 pages of a document directly because not would be plagiarisng also. ...confused... Joe
You can only quote a short section of a copyrighted work, in speech or in writing. If you're a book reviewer that means up to a couple of paragraphs. For anything else it means a couple of sentences. Either way you don't get away with three pages. You have two options: 1. Since you're not doing this for profit, and it's for educational purposes, and it's PBS, there might be a loophole. Ask your teacher. 2. But the better way, which will get you a much higher grade, is to use the abstracting skills you've learned from years of writing book reports, and re-write the stuff in your own words. No of course it won't sound as good as the PBS original, they're professional writers with university degrees and lots of experience and you're students. But nobody expects your work to be as good as theirs, that's not the standard by which you will be judged. It's perfectly okay for a school project to look like it was created by students. That's what schools are all about. Don't worry about it! You will learn a lot by studying the original, understanding it, and restating it in your own words. And you will get a better grade. There is no down side! By the way, the way to become a good writer is to always practice. It's "a group of friends and I," not "me and a group of friends." Develop good habits now while you're young.
I don't see anything wrong with quoting 3, 4, 5 .. pages as long as you put the reference. If you summarize or rephrase someone else's (PBS's) work "in-your-own-words" your are plagiarising. I've seen excellent reports which put a series of (referenced) quotations from many different sources to make one or several points. The more references, the better. It shows that you've done research and assembled, facts and opinions from different sources and from all angles. Although you beleive that "everything the way they <PBS> word it is perfect", it is not. Information from a single source is incomplete. You need to find other sources, other opinions and then bring it all together with your personal touch.
I think my advice to the young man is ....do whatever you think is best. Perhaps one of the "lessons" that ye're learning is about how to act (when you know goddamned well what's "right" and what's "wrong"). And if, by this time, your family hasn't taught you the difference, then copying the entire set of Brittanica ain't gonna' make a fuckin' bit of difference. Baron Max
Just make the quotation marks super small and the reference to PBS very small in hopes of it not being seen thinking that all that wonderful work was your own. Use invisible ink or lemon juice to do the quotations for best effect. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! - N
Not true. Only with a reference AND the publisher's express written consent can you quote an entire book.
This would be the best way to go. Einstein is such a broad subject, the man did so much, PBS isn't the only source you can draw from. Than, when you go to write your paper, quote and cite all your references while commenting and summarizing them in your own words in order to tie them into your main point (read:main idea). And even if it's just a straight research paper, you should always have a main idea or angle, for example you research paper's main idea or angle could be that Einstein is the single greatest scientist ever.
Just include a bibliography at the end and you can quote anything as you are giving the original author the credit. There are a number of sites online that can help you. Bests ones are from academic institutions. This one outlines the usage of Bibliographies in Psychology papers. http://www.unh.edu/linguistics/cour...handouts/bibliography_formatting_guidelin.htm During my old course at college I had to write bibliographies up the wazoo. It's almost impossible to write a good paper or report without using external references. This website helped me a great deal with various Psychology, Law and ICT reports.
