User talk:Jayjay317

October 2012

Your editing of Alfred Binet has been reverted, as it appeared to add content in violation of copyright. Much of your content was taken verbatim from Psychological Testing: Principles, Applications, and Issues, by Robert M. Kaplan & Dennis P. Saccuzzo. Other content was also previously published elsewhere, though I have not been able to determine its ultimate source (see, for example, http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/binet.htm). Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, and editors who persist in infringing copyright may even be blocked from editing, so please take care. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Similar remarks apply to your editing of Differential Ability Scales. Content was copied from Specific Learning Disabilities and Difficulties in Children and Adolescents, by Alan S. Kaufman & Nadeen L. Kaufman, and probably other sources. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:04, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ive never been the muskimgum.edu. i am using kaplan and saccuzzo as my main source. this is a class assignment and that is the class text book. i checked out 6 additional books from the university of utah library for additional information. i have not used the web for any of my sources thus far. im still working on the apa reference structure, but have been very careful to cite all of my content....given, im new to this and am still trying to figure out the format to add and edit.

i guess i just dont fully understand how i have violated any source of information. ive read a lot of other users content on wiki, and have found numerous copyright violations and citation errors. ive read word for word verbatim copied from kaplan and saccuzzo with no citation at all... if you would let me know what ive done wrong so i can fix it in the future that would be great. if i need to cite my previous work differently, im more than happy to do so. im very frustrated that my work was deleted without giving me the chance to fix it.

User talk:JamesBWatson

Jayjay317 (talk) 23:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)jayjay317[reply]

I guessed it was probably a class assignment, because I found a couple of other editors who had appeared at almost the same time as you, and who were posting similar content, citing the same textbook. There are goodness knows how many pages of information on Wikipedia about copyright issues, and if you go into all the details it becomes horrendously complicated, but the basic principals are perfectly simple, and I will try to explain the main issues. The fundamental principal is that you can't copy other people's work without their permission. It is very unlikely that the authors of a text book will have given permission for chunks of their work to be copied and published in an internet site like Wikipedia, which licenses its content for re-use under very general terms. It looked pretty clear to me that you were copying from Kaplan and Saccuzzo, and also that you had copied at least some content from somewhere else, but I wasn't sure where. What I meant when I wrote "I have not been able to determine its ultimate source" was that there were copies of the text on various internet pages, so I had no way of knowing where it started, nor where you had got it from. It may be that both you and other people had copied from the same text book, or it may be that you had copied it from a web page that had itself copied from another web page that had copied it from a text book, or who knows what. The one thing I did know was that you had copied it from somewhere, and it was very likely to be a copyright infringement.

Unfortunately, you may well be right in saying that you have discovered many other copyright infringements on Wikipedia. Many people make the mistake of thinking that it's OK to copy stuff from other places, and sometimes copyright infringing content stays there for a very long time before anyone discovers it. However, the fact that other people have done it does not mean that it's all right. It is natural, of course, for someone new to editing Wikipedia to look at what others have written to see what is acceptable, but unfortunately it is not a completely reliable guide. There have been other web sites that have been forced to close down, and in some cases their owners have even been prosecuted, because they did not take all reasonable steps to prevent users from infringing copyright. We don't want that to happen to Wikipedia.

From what you say, you may not be clear about the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism. If you write a paper for your course, and you include ideas from someone else, but don't say they you got them from someone else, you are giving the impression that it is your own work, and that is plagiarism. If, however, you say where you got the ideas from, then you are not giving the impression that it is your own work, so as far as plagiarism is concerned you are OK. This applies whether you give direct quotes from their work or whether you rewrite it in you own words, but the ideas are theirs. Copyright is a different matter. If you copy a large chunk of content from Kaplan & Saccuzzo's book without their permission, you are likely to be infringing their copyright, whether you say where you got the material from or not. The two are completely different issues: plagiarism is a matter of whether you make it clear where you get your material, copyright is a matter of whether you have permission to copy content. You have clearly cited the text book from which you got the content, so I see no problem as far as plagiarism is concerned, but your copying large quantities of text is a copyright issue.

OK, so the basic principal is simple: "don't copy content from other people's work". However, the details are a little bit more complicated. For one thing, it is permissible to give short quotes. How short? Under what circumstances? My opinion is that it is best to avoid any direct quotes at all, except under very limited circumstances, not only to avoid doubts about how far you can go without infringing copyright, but also because of issues about what is sufficiently significant and relevant to include in a Wikipedia article. I suggest using direct quotes only when (a) the quote is very short, and (b) the significant fact that is being reported is the fact that the quote was made at all. For example, if I were writing an article about Barack Obama, I might quote "Yes we can" because the fact that he said it is itself notable, having been given considerable media attention. While Kaplan and Saccuzzo's text book is a valuable source of information about Alfred Binet, the article is about Binet, not about Kaplan and Saccuzzo's text book. The fact that Binet used trial and error methods is significant information about him, but the fact that a particular text book mentions that fact is not significant information about him, and doesn't need mentioning in the article about Binet. So, by all means say that Binet used trial and error methods, and use <ref> to give a footnote as a reference to Kaplan and Saccuzzo, but saying "Kaplan and Saccuzzo said so and so" is giving too much prominence to their book. (This is in addition to the fact that once your quote from them gets to be more than a very brief one, copyright may become an issue.) Note that what is considered relevant in a Wikipedia article is often quite different from what is considered relevant in a scholarly treatise, where explicit mention of your source is often appropriate.

There is another point that I think I should warn you about. Quite often, an editor in your situation, having been told not to quote directly from sources, then takes the source and puts in quite a lot of work going through it and carefully changing the wording, only to be told that is still unacceptable. If a textbook says "The lesser spotted swamp dragon lays its eggs in a nest made of blueberry leaves and protects them by breathing fire on any potential predators", and you write "The lesser spotted swamp dragon lays its eggs in a nest made of blueberry leaves and protects them by breathing fire on any potential predators" then that is obviously a copy. Less obviously, if you write "When the lesser spotted swamp dragon has laid its eggs in a nest which it makes out of blueberry leaves, it then protects the eggs by breathing fiery breath on any potential predators" then it is obvious to anyone comparing the two sentences that the one is a slightly reworded copy of the other, and it is still likely to be considered a copyright infringement. This issue is covered at greater length in Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing.

Copyright is a complex issue, but the easiest way to avoid problems is not to do anything which comes anywhere near copying other people's writing. Use other people's ideas by all means, as long as you cite your sources, but don't use other people's wording. There are numerous Wikipedia pages dealing with various aspects of copyright. Probably the most directly relevant to you at the moment is the section of Wikipedia:Copyrights headed Wikipedia:Copyrights#Using copyrighted work from others. The page "Close paraphrasing" that I linked to above may also be worth a look. Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright may also contain information you will find useful, though at a quick glance I didn't notice anything particularly relevant.

Finally, I'm sorry that you have been plunged into such complexities right at the beginning of your experience of editing Wikipedia. Once you get used to the way Wikipedia works, it is, on the whole, not very difficult, but some people have the misfortune to come across problems at an early stage, before they know their way around, and you seem to have been one of them. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A belated welcome!

Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Jayjay317. I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page, consult Wikipedia:Questions, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there.

Again, welcome! Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 16:26, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Wikipedia: check out the Teahouse!

Hello! Jayjay317, you are invited to the Teahouse, a forum on Wikipedia for new editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia, and get support from peers and experienced editors. Please join us! Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 16:26, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]