Surely you can read that account and, with your newly acquired knowledge of how a sea captain feels, write your own original account of his thoughts and feelings....I mean, that's what being a writer is all about, putting yourself in unfamiliar situations and seeing how things work. Beyond that, as Cog said, anything you derive directly from that (hypothetical) quote is plagiarism.
A fair point, arron89. In a real-life situation, I would certainly expand on the ideas expressed in the first-hand account more so than I've done here. I'm just wondering if the original author would be justified in accusing me of plagiarism in this situation.
You can't copyright an emotion. Your captain can feel exactly the same way as the real captain does in the quote, as long as it is expressed in a way that is not directly derived from the quote. You don't copyright ideas, you copyright words. He would only be justified of accusing you of plagiarism if you took his words, not if you took his emotions.
Quite apart from copyright issues, your character will be fairly thin if you only use a single source to model your character's feelings after. I would not give up trying to find more examples. More than one commander has lost his or her vessel and lived to tell the tale. Include fictional accounts as well, although clearly more weight should be given to true accounts.
Plagiarism has nothing to do with researching your topic. It has to do with lifting the prose, intact or intentionally, from someone else's writing. In your example, you have not done that. Ideas and real-life experiences are not copyright-able (writing about them can be). I also don't see that you have used someone else's "emotional response" for your character (in your example). There are only so many emotional responses, after all; and the key is how those responses are actually (or fictionally) experienced and how the author presents them to the reader. Your example (from research): “The radio responded only with silence. Surrounded by many crewmen and passengers, I had never felt so alone or isolated in my life. I felt like I had failed them all.” You wrote: “Captain Bradford, though he was in the company of all his men, felt unbearably isolated. Marooned. His inadequacies were as obvious as medals on his chest and he knew it all too well. His failure to serve his crew was incredibly hard to swallow, and brought with it a feeling that he could only identify as sea sickness.” It seems to me, you have (and/or should have) infused a researched example of someone else's recollected experience with your own take on how you believe your particular fictional captain would respond in such a circumstance. I don't see anything in the researched quote to suggest that the "real" person considered his own inadequancies, for example, in the same way your fictional Captain Bradford did, nor that the real person equated that feeling to nausea, as did your fictional character. Even if your story takes off from or parallels the entire story of the real person whose experience you researched, as long as the writing is yours and the characters and storyline develop and originate from your imagination, then it's your story, not someone else's. Authors do this all the time--maybe run across an article in an old newspaper that sparks an imaginative notion of what might've led up to or arisen from a particular, newsworthy incident. If, on the other hand, you're forcing a fiction out of someone else's life story, which parallels that story in an identifiable way, you might run into other issues (mayabe libel or defamation)--but not necessarily plagiarism. A concern about plagiarism might arise out of a concern that your words were used in the same way someone else might've used them. A global concern that someone else might've somewhere at some time used the same construction and configuration is not worth stewing over (because almost certainly, phrases and sentences are replicated all the time). What is worth stewing over is if you've just read something that inspires you to write some of the same sentences you found especially stunning, just rearranging or replacing a word here and there. One--you're likely to fail miserably at recreating the same effect; and two--if you think you're plagiarizing by doing something along those lines, then you probably are, and you surely ought to re-imagine your prose and storyline structure in a more original way. Great fiction is, if nothing else, both original and imaginative. Neither of those qualities can possibly come from anyone else but the author--however much research that writer does to familiarize himself with crucial storyline, setting, and/or character details. This is, as they say, just my opinion.
Cog, You're correct in stating that multiple sources would be required to portray this scene in a three-dimensional manner. I appreciate your dedication and insight. Wonderful response, Molly. Thanks for your input. You answered the question I was asking (but unable to adequately vocalize, I suppose) perfectly.
no, you're not!... you have only used his experience as 'research' and not quoted him in any way at all... using the same single word 'isolated' does not constitute plagiarism... you have simply read about one person's emotions in a certain situation and made your character feel somewhat the same... that is NOT plagiarism... it would be, only if you used the writer's actual words in context, not singly... writers do this all the time... that's why we do research, to find out things we don't know from our own personal experience, so we can apply them to our characters and plots... and describing that real person's emotions in an essay is still not plagiarism, unless you use his own words without citing the source...
Please reread it Eyez. Maia and I are in agreement. Research and plagiarism are two different things.
But didn't you say Apples was plagiarizing? Because that's how it sounded like since you posted right after me.
You were asserting that changing a couple words from a lifted quote made it no longer plagiarism. That is not true.
Please forgive me if this isn't in the right area. I'm trying to find some quotes to put at the beginning of the chapters for my demon novel and I'm having a really hard time finding a quote to fit a specific chapter's theme. I need help finding a quote about labels and their consequences. The chapter's theme is "Labels", but the two quotation dictionaries I have and serveral quote websites I tried don't have anything for "labels". I suppose quotes on discrimination would work in place, but the chapter itself focuses on labels... If anyone can help me find either a place that actually has a few quotes about labels or just a few possible label-centric quotes I might be able to use, I'd be really grateful! Please and thank you!
I found a few things which may or may not help, but here goes. “Stereotypes are devices for saving a biased person the trouble of learning” (Couldn't find the arthur for this one...) “Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.” David Hume “Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.” Margaret Mead “By starving emotions we become humorless, rigid and stereotyped; by repressing them we become literal, reformatory and holier-than-thou; encouraged, they perfume life; discouraged, they poison it” Joseph Collins “Man is the only critter who feels the need to label things as flowers or weeds.” (No arthur for this one either...) “Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let them label you as they may.” Mark Twain "Lazy people Label people " Joseph Cubby "Those wearing Tolerance for a label Call other views intolerable." Phyllis Mcginley Well, I hope these will help out.
Its a total cliche but you could rock out some shakespeare. That which you call a rose, all that jazz. But really, I wouldn't. Sorry I can't think of something better.
Another idea, probably better than Urban Dictionary, is designing a quote of your own. If you can't find one you like, create one that fits what you want and you can link it to your story if you want.
As presented, no. He did not actually use any of the wording from the online article., not even a close paraphrase. One ordinary word in common would not make it plagiarism. My point was that IF a sentence were plagiarized, changing a word or two would not alter the fact. What you were suggesting was that such a small change COULD change a plagiarized passage to one which is not. That is the element of plagiarism that seems to be most misunderstood, and it is why I place so much emphasis on it. If you extract a passage from another writer's writing, and incorporate it into your writing, it remains plagiarism even if you then make changes to it.
Be careful about using quotes. You may have to deal with copyright issues, including securing written permission, if you use anything less than about a century old.
This is a really good point. Of course plagiarism in the "legal" sense differs a bit from what plagiarism actually is, in my mind. I think Asimov wrote a little essay about that from personal experience, which might be of interest (I can look it up later, I think, if someone wants to know where to find it). The more important aspect of plagiarism, for me, has to do with the intention to use something someone else wrote in order to write something that isn't original. Usually that's done because the writer doesn't think he can write as well as the writer he's lifting. Importantly, that's something a writer KNOWS he's doing. And, so, the thought might occur to him that he better protect himself in some way, by changing the actual words where he can. But he's still plagiarizing, no matter how much he tries to disguise it (and, importantly, no matter if anyone knows it). If I'm writing a story (or essay or whatever) and want it to sound like some better writer (because I don't think I've got what it takes to do the job on my own), that writing is anything but original, no matter how much of it comes from my own thesaurus or dictionary--or even if I surround it with my own, comparatively dreary efforts. Knowing you're trying to replicate another author's writing and claiming that as your own, is plagiarism, whether it’s defensible in court or if it never arrives there at all. And it probably won't unless you're a very good writer (like Asimov, e.g.), in which case you're not likely to have any reason at all to be making that choice in the first place (which he didn't).
Eh, I thought quotes were free to use, you know....since you're just quoting them. @Emie: Those two sound really close to what I'm looking for, especially the second one. Are there any others you might be able to find? @Agreen: I thought about doing that, but then it seemed weird. What am I supposed to say as who wrote it? "by author"? It seemed a little....I dunno.....full? Other books I've read who've used quotes at the beginning of their chapters don't have any quotes by the author (at least I don't remember running into any).
Is there a character in the story it could be attributed to? I've frequently seen quotes at the beginning of chapters, especially in in fantasy and science fiction, attributed to one of the characters.
Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom. ~Merry Browne Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances. ~Wayne W. Dyer Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart. ~Countess of Blessington If your lens is prejudice, you're wearing the wrong prescription. ~Carrie Latet Our prejudices are like physical infirmities - we cannot do what they prevent us from doing. ~John Lancaster Spalding That was just a quick google. Prejudice quotes seem to fit what you're after I am not sure of any legal or copyright issues so I'd advise getting advice before usign them.
I was suggesting no such thing. I was saying he should reword a couple words--under the impression that it was not plagiarism, to make it have zero possibility of writers accusing him of plagiarism. I know what plagiarism is. Those examples didn't look like plagiarism, but because of your post I got confused--you saying "It is plagiarism" and all. So I was right! Yay! I knew it! On another note, Apple, I really don't think you should even use someone's else fiction books as research. You're only limiting yourself and run the high risk of plagiarizing. Instead, expierence what you want to research first-hand through visuals and real people, whether it's from TV shows or going out into the real world. Please don't look to text as good research, because the examples you provided would actually discourage me or anyone to read your book. Those examples were pretty bland and boring, plagiarism aside. Show don't tell.
it's not that simple... if the work the quote came from is still under copyright, you'll need the author's permission to use it... you'd better study up on the copyright laws, before you quote yourself into legal trouble... www.copyright.gov
