Talk:Stacey Castor/Archive 1

Article needs to be rewritten in language and structure independent of sources

The language and structure of this article is extremely close to the sources and could be considered plagiarism. I would suggest reading this dispatch for advice on how to avoid this kind of close paraphrase. Awadewit (talk) 22:01, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. In what ways is it too close? I have put a lot of this in my own words, especially the parts from the complete 20/20 episode on Castor. The only things that can be considered plagiarism are exact quotes.

Even so, I will reword parts of the article right now and remove the tag you placed on it. Flyer22 (talk) 00:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Let me be explain in more detail.

• (examples redacted; see above)

As the dispatch I linked you to above explains, "Revising to avoid plagiarism means completely restructuring a source in word choice and arrangement while giving due credit for the ideas and information taken from it." There is virtually no restructuring that has taken place here - the Wikipedia article is almost a copy of the ABC source. Again, the dispatch explains how to avoid this problem in the "Good adaptation" section and "Tips for avoiding plagiarism" section. Awadewit (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I see you have made some changes to the text. These are superficial, however, and do not fix the underlying problem I outlined above. I am going to add the tag back. I would suggest the you find some additional sources and try to recast this entire section, using the information gleaned from all of them, rather than following one source so closely. Awadewit (talk) 01:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I reworded parts of the Early life section and part of Murders section. The first half of the Murder section which does seem too close to the source is due to the fact that it is mostly quotes. But the second half of the Murder section, as well as the rest of the article, such as the Attempted murder, Arrest and trial, and Aftermath sections are written in my own words (with the exception of some quotes). I had to recall a lot of this from the 20/20 special I watched. Those words are mine, not the narrator's words.

I take plagiarism very seriously, and I'm sure that part of my not further tweaking the Early life and Murder sections away from the original wording of the sources is due to my hurrying to put this article together so that I could nominate it for DYK. I assure, you, though, that most of this article is in my own words and would appreciate it if you would reconsider this article for DYK. I am open to any suggestions you have about further bettering this wording.

I will tweak the article further, but I do not see an underlying problem or how my tweaks are superficial. This is the order of events Castor went in before killing. There is only one source that tells the whole story, and that is the 20/20 source. Other sources only talk partly about what happened before the murder, but say the same thing.

Using mainly one source for one part is not a problem, as long as that source is valid and is worded in my own words. Flyer22 (talk) 01:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I would like to reiterate that it is not just the wording that is at issue here. As I tried to explain above, the entire structure of the "Early life" section replicates that of the source. Also, just changing a word or two is not a sufficient paraphrase. Please read the dispatch I linked you to, as it explains all of this in great detail. You might also find the external links there about paraphrasing helpful. Note also that excessive quotation can lead to copyright infringement as well, so you need to be careful how much you quote from a particular article (usually no more than 10% of the text is allowed). Awadewit (talk) 01:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

As I tried to explain to you, the entire Early life section replicates the source (though not exactly) because that is the order of events her life went in before the murders. Just like is done with the Jeffrey Dahmer article. All that can be altered is the wording. If rewording the article in my own words, which makes it no longer plagiarism, will not satisfy you regarding this article, then nothing will. I cannot restructure the article to have things happening out place, which would not be accurate to how they occurred.

I will reword parts of the article again, as I told you. Tell me what you think after that, of course. Flyer22 (talk) 01:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I've asked Moonriddengirl to try and explain this another way. Awadewit (talk) 01:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Either way, I will be rewording it yet again, and removing the tag once I feel that my changes are even more sufficient enough. I am not misunderstanding what you stated above, except your continuing to act like the article will still be plagiarism once I have significantly reworded the "problem parts." Following the sequence of events all this happened is not plagiarism. This is not so much ABC's story...but rather Castor's story (as well as others) in how things played out.

It seems you are asking for more sources to be placed in the Early life section. All that should really be focused on there in regards to "the problems" is the wording. As I stated, there is no other source for some (if not most) of that information.

And, again, most of this article is in my own words. Flyer22 (talk) 02:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

What about the article now? I reworded the Early life section further, as well as a little in structure. The same goes for part of the Murders section. The only part of the Murders section that does not differ that much from the ABC report is this part:

• (examples redacted; see above)

But most of that is quotes and that is the exact sequence that murder occurred in.

The rest of the article is basically all my own words, with a few quotes and reports mixed in from other sources. Flyer22 (talk) 02:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I also asked Rjanag to weigh in on this.

I really feel that the tag should be removed now. The Early life section is not an exact copy of the information, is worded differently enough now, and the entire rest of the article (minus a few source quotes) is my original wording. Flyer22 (talk) 03:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I was asked to comment here. I have only looked at the Early Life section so far, but from there I have to agree with Awadewit's concerns. First of all, on the micro level, there still seem to be specific passages which were taken straight from the source and given a minor "token" tweaking later—for instance, "Rumors of infidelity by both surfaced" in the article, "Rumors of infidelity by both husband and wife swirled" in the source. Furthermore, as for the structure of the section...it's not just the order of life events and the order you present them; the problem is that the very way you divide up sentences and choose to present things happens to be the same as in the source, suggesting that you constructed the section by basically taking the source as a mold and then nicking pieces off here and there. In general, the best way to go about writing an article is the opposite: read a source, then step back from it for an hour or so to let your head clear, then write something on your own from the ground up, trying your best to keep the source in the back of your mind but not actually looking at it, so all you're using is your abstract understanding of the source's main points.

To be honest, I think much of the Early Life section is not necessary, it doesn't describe notable events and for a lot of the stuff in there there is no assertion that that stuff influenced the murders. For example, the fact that the birth of her first daughter was a life-changing moment...no offense to her or to anyone editing this article, but who cares, any mother could say that, it's certainly not something special that needs to be mentioned. Anyway, this probably sounds more like a GA review comment than a DYK concern, but I'm bringing it up because if you try writing the section on your own, only including things that stick out in your mind as important to the article in a general way, that will go a long way to help clean up the paraphrasing concerns as well. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 09:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, Rjanag. Yes, I perhaps did need to take a step back from the original source for a few days before writing this article. It really is only the Early life section and part of Murders section that I did not change too much from the original source. It was not intentional, though. I honestly have not done this to others other articles I have written (except in more minors parts that I saw immediately as needing changing), and the rest of the article is significantly in my own words. I apologize for rushing this article for DYK in such a way that I was lazy in writing part of the article.

As for the Early life section not being important, I feel that it is because Castor's defense team uses Castor and others' comments about Ashley not being Wallace's favorite daughter as evidence against Ashley, as motive for her having murdered Wallace. The rest of the Early life section may not be that important to the murders, but I feel that it is no different than celebrities having an Early life section. I always feel that it is important to know the background of person, especially a murderer. Flyer22 (talk) 18:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing

Extended content

I'm late to this conversation. User:Rjanag has covered many of the same points that I would have done—particularly, I'd like to note that revising close paraphrasing sentence by sentence is extremely hard. It's far easier to rewrite a section or a passage. Also, avoiding close paraphrasing can be very difficult if you attempt to include too much detail. If I were revising this to address problems, I'd go section by section. For example, I might present the entire "Early Life" section so: Castor met Michael Wallace when she was 17, in 1985, and they bonded immediately. In 1987, the couple welcomed their first daughter, Ashley. In 1990, they married and welcomed a second daughter, Bree. Castor was employed by an ambulance dispatch company, while Wallace worked nights as a mechanic, but the family had little money. They focused heavily on their children. According to Castor, Wallace was very close to Bree, showing a favoritism that she made up by becoming "best friends" with elder daughter Ashley. In spite of their closeness with their children, the couple grew apart, and it was rumored that each was having affairs. (I've removed formatting and referencing, but obviously I wouldn't do so in the article.) This doesn't, unfortunately, lead to the manifold expansion required for DYK. But it helps avoid overuse of the source and also creates a more encyclopedic overview, with less extraneous detail. (DYK's are shiny and nice, but good articles are best. :D) If some of those details should later prove important (I haven't read the whole article), they can be included where they matter. Does Castor allege that Wallace's purported abuse of drugs and alcohol factored into the crime she's accused of committing? I'd mention it there. For the early life section, it's not really relevant, any more than (say) if Wallace enjoyed badminton or playing with Barbie dolls (as interesting as that would be). It has nothing to do with their notability. Looking further down the page, I see a problem with close paraphrasing in the first passage of the very next section. (examples redacted; see above) Comparing the two side by side, it may be easier to see how closely the one paraphrases the other. There are two basic problems here: (1) Insufficiently altered or duplicated text. (Examples: You've put the words "a lot" and "swollen and puffy" in quotation marks, but you've duplicated more than that: if you were going to use quotes to show verbatim duplication, you would need to say he "was coughing 'a lot' and was 'swollen and puffy'". You've done a simple word substitution in another place, altering "tired of feeling this way" to "frustrated of feeling this way".) You must indicate precisely when you duplicate text from another source. To alter text, you have to completely revise the passage, not simply substitute synonyms for a key word. (2) Unaltered or insufficiently altered structuring (Examples: "In late 1999, Wallace began to feel sick" is structurally identical to the sentence on which it is based, except that you've removed a phrase; you've just picked up "during a family dinner on Christmas Eve" and moved it from the end of the sentence to the beginning.) In a way, it's like taking a pair of scissors to a picture and cutting off pieces of it, sticking them elsewhere on the same image. What you wind up with is a derivative work. It's still the same picture, it's just been minimally rearranged. I think of paraphrasing as describing the picture. So how do you fix this? If I were trying to paraphrase one sentence alone (which I wouldn't do, but just for exercise purposes): Original: During a family dinner on Christmas Eve, Michael Wallace's sister, Rosemary Corbett, recalled: "Mike was coughing a lot" and was "swollen and puffy." Your article: His sister had said that he was coughing "a lot" and was "swollen and puffy" during a family dinner on Christmas Eve. Suggested alternative: His sister had a chance to observe him on Christmas Eve when the family gathered for dinner. She remembered him as "swollen and puffy" and noticed his frequent coughing. A paraphrase, unlike a summary, can be longer than the original. But unless that particular sentence is so pivotal to the point that none of the detail can be lost, it would be better to summarize the essence of the source than to try to include everything. I would probably instead boil the whole section down: Example: In late 1999, Wallace began feeling intermittently ill. Family members variously remember him as acting unsteady, coughing and seeming swollen. As his inexplicable sickness persisted over the holiday season, his family encouraged him to seek medical care, but he died before he could do so. I have not reviewed further on, but if there are other passages that paraphrase as closely as this, I think that revising the material is probably imperative. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC) Thank you for the advice, Moonriddengirl. Are you suggesting that I use your versions for the article? If you don't mind, I prefer your versions. But what do you mean that your versions may not be enough for expansion? I mean, the article was significantly expanded by me on April 26, 2009 and I feel that the expansion requirements are still met even after your revisions. Were you simply speaking of only if the references are not used. This article was created one day before the 26th, and that's the day I nominated it for. As for the rest of the article, as I've stated more than once, it is significantly in my own words. 18:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC) You're free to use anything I've suggested. I have little involvement with DYK and was asked to comment here because of my work with copyright and plagiarism, I imagine. I've only looked at the first few sections of the article, though. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:36, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary section header

Picking up with the next chunk of text, I see:

• (examples redacted; see above)

In each of these examples, just from the next chunk of text, we see structural and language similarities. Any one of these, on its own, would be a small matter of concern. Combined, they add up to a serious one. Do you see why such passages are a concern? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I get what you mean, and had already removed a little of that before this response. I will take care of the other concerns now. Flyer22 (talk) 18:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I've replaced the tag for now, as it needs review once it's finished. If you make a note here, somebody will pull it off if all concerns seem to be eradicated. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyright concerns

←Your edit summary, "most of this article is in my own words, especially the Attempted murder and Arrest and trial sections. The A&t section is even my original order" does worry me a bit, as it makes me wonder if you're perhaps misremembering the language of the original sources. For instance, from the "arrest and trial" section, I see from our article:

• (examples redacted; see above)

I believe this rises above the level of plagiarism into substantial similarity, which is a copyright concern. Accordingly, I'm going to blank the article so that we can either invite other review or rewrite it in temporary space to avoid infringing on the copyright of your sources. I'm sorry, but we can't reproduce too much of a copyrighted source without infringing on them. If you'd like me to invite other administrator opinion as to whether this rises to a level that the material must be blanked for revision, please let me know. I'd be happy to get more opinions. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl, I maintain that most of those sections are significantly written in my own words. I only took a few parts from The Age source to further back up my wording. Obviously, I incorporated a little of what The Age said, but not exactly, and that can be easily fixed. Blanking the entire article, I feel is a little overboard.

I feel like a broken record, but everything else (from the coroner part on down) is written from my memory of that 20/20 interview (with a few exceptions). I have only seen that entire interview once and wrote everything else solely on my memory of it.

Will you allow me to reword the The Age parts and restore the article? I was already working on that part. Flyer22 (talk) 19:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you work on it in the temporary space provided while I invite additional feedback on the level of concern this represents? The passage above, which I selected simply because it contained the first information sourced to a single source (#7) within a section you indicated you thought was clear. But this passage clearly isn't. It includes quite a bit of language copied verbatim from that source. We cannot use external sources for phrases or sentences unless these are handled in accord with WP:NFC--that is, brief bits marked clearly with quotation marks. Otherwise, we have to rewrite it completely. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I've requested a second opinion from another administrator, here. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll rewrite it at User:Flyer22/Stacey Castor. Tell me what you think once I come here and say that I am done with the alterations there. Flyer22 (talk) 19:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, what do you think of the changes? Flyer22 (talk) 20:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The only other part that could be counted as very, very close to the source would be the part about Castor's call to the police regarding David's death, as I pointed out above. But that is the actual sequence of events both Castor and the cop tell them in. To change that would be putting it out of sequence. I also would not want to leave out important detail.

As I stated on my talk page, I have to admit that I am embarrassed by my copyright blunder with this article. I have never been in this kind of trouble with an article before, and am a little discouraged from continuing to work here on Wikipedia due to this. I am not saying that I usually give up when things get tough, but I am saying that it is a big blow to the ego and to my credibility as an editor here. This is really all my fault, though, for rushing with this article for the sake of listing it at WP:DYK. Flyer22 (talk) 21:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you're feeling discouraged. :( The fact that you cited your sources makes it very clear that you had no intentions of misusing anything. I hope that you won't let this discourage you but will just slow down a little if you think that created problems. I'll try to review it sometime this evening (in my time of the world), because I'm sure you're anxious to have the matter resolved. I've got a lot of "real life" work pushing on me at the moment, but I promise to make reviewing this a top priority. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for trying to make me feel better. I do not feel any better about this, but thank you anyway and for for making this a top priority of yours. Flyer22 (talk) 22:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi all, Moonriddengirl asked me to review this discussion. I'm afraid she's right that in this case both the wording and structure - at least of some sections - are much too similar to the source. This is probably an entirely subconscious process, as you obviously can't copy-and-paste an interview you saw once on TV. Nevertheless, accidental copyright infringement is still infringement, and it's standard procedure to remove these parts while they're being rewritten. However, the parts that resemble the source only in overall structure and not in word choice are probably not as significant an infringement concern and can be rewritten in place. It's also a troublesome sign when a single source is used to source large sections repeatedly - a lack of diversity of sources can lead not only to copyright infringement but also a biased point of view and other concerns, and adding sources would be the fastest way to help steer clear of these concerns. Dcoetzee 23:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Dcoetzee, what I had to recall from memory of that television show of this is not worded in the way it was worded on television.

As for that 20/20 interview, it is used so much due it being the only source that tells the whole story, such as significant parts no other source has. Sure, there are enough other valid sources on this topic. But only one source showed as many sides to this case as it did -- and that was the 20/20 special. It is not biased, consirdering that those are the exact words/versions from all the "key players" in this case. The www.9wsyr.com source could be used to source some more parts from the trial, however. Flyer22 (talk) 03:06, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Dcoetzee, for taking time. :) I'm working to get as much as I can through the article, but you've done so much work that it's a bit difficult. I really have very limited time this evening (family responsibilities); it can take me upward an hour to evaluate something like this. Given my limited time, I did run a few parts of it through a plagiarism detector that compares it to the web. The sentence, "Castor's two daughters said after the conviction they only wished to have heard their mother say, "I'm sorry." [We have] yet to hear that, they said" got a hit to this: "Castor's two daughters said after the conviction they only wished to have heard their mother say, “I'm sorry.” We've yet to hear that." As you can see, much more than the material within the quotation marks is copied.

Of more concern, it hit with this:

Your userspace version:

• (examples redacted; see above)

I hope that the proximity points out the problem. It seems more extensive revision may be necessary. This is why the template recommends rewriting from scratch. Unless you do a line by line comparison with your source, you may not even know that whole sentences like "Castor testified that she does not remember being on the computer any time on that Wednesday" are duplicated nearly verbatim from a copyrighted source. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:28, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl, the part where I left "Castor's two daughters said after the conviction they only wished to have heard their mother say, 'I'm sorry.' [We have] yet to hear that, they said" in is because I did/do not feel that relaying one line in the same or close to the same way is a copyright problem. You even stated earlier that a few similar lines is not something to scream "copyright" about. I mean, if a source says "Two men were captured," I have to reword that as well? That was my reasoning behind leaving little lines like that in. Statements about Castor being convicted on whatever day, for example, are going to be similar. The part where it states "Castor testified she doesn't remember being on the computer any time on that Wednesday"...how would you suggest I reword that? It is only mentioning a line similar to the source and then quoting what Fitzpatrick said. Are you suggesting that I should not quote what Fitzpatrick stated either? As far as I know, using quotes, even when those same quotes are also present within the source, is perfectly fine. I saw no other way of significantly altering that line. But I did alter it to "Castor testified that she does not remember being on the computer any time on that Wednesday" and then quoted Fitzpatrick.

Other than the recent problems you pointed out with the article, I see no other problems with it but have fixed those recent concerns (including the part "Castor testified that she does not remember being on the computer any time on that Wednesday"). I do not feel that the article needs an entire rewrite. Believe it or not, deciding where to put the parts I wrote completely from memory was stressing enough. I have a pretty good memory and know that I am right about what I wrote in those instances, but it was thinking of how to order everything I remembered and what not to include that was stressing. That, and trying to hurry this article up for DYK.

Now that I corrected the last few concerns, are you okay with this article enough to remove the copyright tag?

I will eventually try to find more sources for the parts that I use the 20/20 source too often for. Flyer22 (talk) 03:06, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Another break

Having one or two phrases that are not properly paraphrased out of an article that otherwise is doesn't scream copyright concern. Combining fragmented literal similarity (bits and pieces of pasted text) with comprehensive non-literal similarity (appropriation of the concept and feel of the work), you're pretty likely to rise to the level of infringement. (See Copyright#Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else?) Moreover, duplicating material from copyrighted sources without fully indicating that they are duplicates violates non-free content. Relaying one line in the same way is a problem on Wikipedia because it is inconsistent with our guidelines & policies. You should never duplicate sentences from a copyrighted source without following those guidelines unless they have no creativity whatsoever. ("John Smith was born on August 1, 1992.") This is true even if the original author seems to have found the best way to phrase something and all other constructions you can imagine are awkward and inferior. In that case, if you must use the sentence, you have to quote. I emphasize this because it's important. To do otherwise puts you afoul of Wikipedia's copyright policy, which is something that I'm sure nobody wants.

As I've said above, I seldom revise sentence by sentence. With respect to your question about the computer, I would have probably rephrased that whole bit something like:

Key evidence at the trial concerned the composition of the suicide note. While Castor claimed no memory of using the computer on September 12, 2007, the day the note was composed, Ashley Castor testified that her mother had, and had hidden the screen from her view. Prosecutors also presented wiretapped recordings made at the time that seemed to capture the sound of typing in the background while Castor talked with a friend. Evidence was brought to trial that while Ashley Castor's fingerprints were not on the note, Castor's were. There was also idiosyncratic use of language. An investigator told the court that he had heard Castor use the word "anti-free" in place of "antifreeze", an error that was duplicated in the note four times. Castor admitted saying saying "anti-free" in an interview with the investigator, but according to her she had intentionally interrupted the word because she had realized it wasn't the word she'd intended to use.

The point here is to read the section, comprehend it, pull out the essentials and put it in your own words.

I'll take a look at the article soon. It's fairly early in the morning my time and I need to see if there are any other Wiki emergencies. This was the first place I looked. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I've run part of it through the plagiarism detector again. This only detects major issues, since it selectively searches for large chunks of text, so verification will still be needed after it comes up clean. It cannot check for close paraphrasing. However, it didn't come up clean. It tagged the following:

• (examples redacted; see above)

It also tagged this:

• (examples redacted; see above)

While phrases like "John Smith was born" are non creative, text like "After a mounting investigation spanning two years" are. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You're saying that even if a source says "John Smith was born on August 1, 1992," we cannot state that exactly from the source unless it is in quotes? If so, I do not get that. I mean, there is no other way to say that he was born on that day, unless we switch the date to British style. I have seen good editors here at Wikipedia use the exact wording of a line from a source or partial wording of it. The two recent examples you cited above of my having done such...I do not see as something very serious. Perhaps I am not as experienced on Wikipedia as I have thought, but the way I relayed the information in that first new concern, for example, is not exact and it is simply relaying what the coroner concluded, that the police started to suspect Castor, and the condition of items for why they suspected her. It did not click to me on changing that wording significantly, but I did change it a little. From now on, I will go about changing even the tiniest bit of wording as much as I can from the original source (if it can be done).

From the coroner part on down in the Murders section, I forgot that I had used partial phrasing from the ABC online source. I had mixed that in with my own phrasing for other parts. The stuff about force-feeding and the wiretapping/cameras set on Castor's house and the cameras set at the gravesites is from my own recollection of that 20/20 special. As you can see, that wire-tapping and camera information is not in the online ABC source of that 20/20 special.

Anyway, I have tweaked the new concerns you brought up.

Are you fine with the article now? (LOL, I feel like a kid asking, "Are we there yet?") Flyer22 (talk) 20:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I said it's non-creative. I used it above as an example of what's all right: "You should never duplicate sentences from a copyrighted source without following those guidelines unless they have no creativity whatsoever. ("John Smith was born on August 1, 1992.") We simply can't go much beyond that. "John Smith was born on August 1, 1992" is non-creative. "After a mounting investigation spanning two years..." is creative. Again, if you would like additional feedback, I am happy to call others in. But if you're seeing editors using the exact wording of lines from a copyrighted source, you're seeing editors who are violating our policies and guidelines. (I think I may invite others who work copyright problems on Wikipedia to provide feedback on this conversation, because I want to be sure that our position on duplication of copyright sources is clear.)

I will try to review the article at some point today. This will take some time, since I will have to compare source by source. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:36, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

No, you are clear. It is just that I often see minor sentences here at Wikipedia the same as the source but attributed to the source and I never thought of that as copyright (I have seen that with both experienced and newbie Wikipedia editors). If I see whole paragraphs the same as a source, that is when I would scream "copyright." But you are clear. In the meantime, I will see how I can better tweak this article. Flyer22 (talk) 20:52, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I've grabbed another section at random and found problems:

• (examples redacted; see above)

Some of this material is barely revised. Take this one sentence, for example: "She said she called him at home and on his cell phone several times but failed to reach him." → "Castor said she called David at home and on his cell phone several times, but failed to reach him." That is the same except for two words. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that section is the part I asked you about above. See above for what I stated about that. Any suggestions? Flyer22 (talk) 20:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Considering how much conversation has taken place on this talk page, I should have just pointed you to what I stated about that section. Flyer22 (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Going back to the topic of exact lines being used without quotes, how do feel about that when we are relaying what someone said? For example, the line "Knoll said that body language is not a science that one can rely on with scientific certainty and that there is 'much going on' during a trial that can affect a defendant's behavior and body language" is not completely in quotes or quoted as a sentence fragment. Flyer22 (talk) 21:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The page is quite long, yes. Sorry if I've missed something. I'm inclined to think we should archive some of it for ease of use. When you are directly crediting, you can follow the language a little more closely, although you still have to include copied material in quotation marks. The source says, "However, body language is not a science that one can rely on with scientific certainty. Further, one must remember that there is much going on during a trial that can affect a defendant's behavior and body language." The line follows too close for comfort, with "there is much going on during a trial that can affect a defendant's behavior and body language" carried verbatim. You might handle something like by saying, "Knoll reminded that body language and behavior can be affected by events during a trial and that interpreting it is not hard science." Again, though, I usually don't revise sentence by sentence, because it's much, much harder.

With respect to the passage above, I would probably boil it down something like this (off the top of my head):

In 2003, Castor remarried to David Castor, whose last name she bears. In 2005, at 2:00 p.m. one afternoon, Castor called her local sheriff's office to tell them that her husband had locked himself in their bedroom for a day following an argument and was not responding to his cell phone. When he did not appear at their shared workplace, she had become worried. She claimed he was depressed. Unable to get a response, Sergeant Robert Willoughby of the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department kicked in the door of the bedroom and found David Castor lying dead. Among the items near his body were a container of antifreeze and a half-full glass of bright green liquid.

(In boiling it down, I've incorporated some of the material around it.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I added in your new revisions. The first one...but with the information in parentheses still there and a tweak at that the end. And the second one...but with a tiny change at the beginning and a quote left in it at the end. I also made a few tiny tweaks to other things.

I must say that I feel that you have now written this article with me, and I appreciate that. I know that it is work to analyze all this and go over ways to reword some of it. I don't always revise sentence by sentence, but I sometimes do. With this article, I clearly did that with some parts but not enough with them. Thank you for helping me with this. I really do believe that I was too close to it and was rushing with it so much that I did not see the problems. The same thing (being too close to the project) happens to me at times during screenwriting. Being too close to the work is not always good, and I have to sometimes take a break from the project for a few days or weeks to see the problems or how I can make the script better. Flyer22 (talk) 22:31, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to work with you on this. If you feel on a deadline to make DYK in the future, but you could use a break of several days to get distance, you might want to work on it in a sandbox or a word processor program and add it when it's ready. I like DYKs. I've only gone for them a few times, but many of my articles are on esoteric subjects and I love seeing the spike that they get in readership on the day they run. This says it all. :) I'll take a look at the version you have at some point today. Meanwhile, as the box above notes, I've redacted the examples used here so that we don't overuse non-free text in the article's talk page, either. Once the template is removed and the article restored, I think this page should be archived. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:49, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Flyer22 (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Hello! I was asked to come over and provide some additional feedback on the situation. I work mostly with articles which have been tagged as copies of websites, where their creators generally alter the phrasing in an attempt to solve the problem. Obviously, this doesn't solve the problem, but does make it harder to spot and less likely to get sorted out. Now clearly, the problem here is nowhere near that level, but there are parallels. There's one rule I go by when addressing these articles; if I find myself trying to reword a source, I know I'm approaching the issue completely wrong. It's already been said above, but sources are for gathering facts and ideas, not a framework for an article - this is someone else's creative work, so we can't use it without permission. I saw it suggested above that you take some time after reading a source before writing the article, and I agree with that completely; when I'm reading sources I generally make notes of the facts and ideas in as few words as possible, and then write the article summarising those notes - I find that this helps to minimise replicating the actual language and structure of the original sources, and thus minimise the risk of plagiarism etc. It also helps to use more than one source, but obviously this isn't always possible. The point you make about seeing small infringements around Wikipedia highlights the problem which faces the project - plagiarism and copyright is an area which people rarely need to become versed in unless they are heavily involved in academia, and the skills are ones which can't really be transferred from elsewhere in the real world, unlike a lot of what we do here. Anyway, this is mostly disorganised ramblings, but I hope it helps - I'll just say that if the article is not significantly shorter than the coverage in your source, then there's probably a problem. Best, – Toon^(talk) 22:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your comments, Toon. However, are you saying that this article should be shorter/have less coverage than the ABC sources on this? I mean, the ABC sources are not the only sources I am using in this article (though I use them the most). And they are all different in some way; the online ones (with the exception of the Dr. Knoll interview) are simply snippets from the on air 20/20 special. I mean, if this article were not to have just about as much coverage as that 20/20 special, it would be leaving out significant details. You're speaking in general, right, and in regard to if this 20/20 source was the only source I was using for this article? Flyer22 (talk) 00:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to be able to finish going through this tonight; I'm sorry. I've already put something in the neighborhood of 1 1/2 hours into it. I have directly removed some close paraphrasing and overuse of quotations. I think what Toon is trying to say is that if you draw too much from any one source, you run the risk of infringing on it. Drawing a little bit from a great many sources is preferable to drawing a great lot from a few. While you've incorporated many sources, you've drawn heavily from some of them, which makes it harder not to take too much. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I see. I got the drift that that's what Toon was saying. And it is okay, of course, that you will not be able to finish reviewing this article today. I understand being busy with other stuff. You have been helpful enough as it is, which I am thankful for. Flyer22 (talk) 00:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)