It seems as though I am doing this incorrectly, copying and pasting. I do not get the cool little box surronding the point of which I am speaking of. I tried to reply with quote, but it seems as though I am rather slow as I could not figure it out... HELP ME...please. Thanks.
In order to get the effect of quoting something already posted, you can either hit the actual quote button to be found at the lower right hand corner of the original post or you can copy paste (as you have mentioned) and the surround the text with quote tags. Like this: [noparse] [/noparse] When you are writing your post, you will see that at the top of the text box there are a number of options for italics, bold, center, change the font color, and whatnot. One of the options looks like a dialogue bubble from a comic strip. If you highlight the text you would like to quote and then hit that little option, the system will wrap your highlighted text in quote tags.
One thing to consider, though - When you quote a person's work in your review, you are effectively removing control of that posted work from the author. They can delete their original message, but they can't delete the message of reviewers. I do not think it is a good practice to quote the original text in a review for that reason, especially not if you're contemplating quoting the whole thing and making notations. Just a thought.
Truth be told, the OP should not be deleting their original posts. This is a no-no. If the OP wants to revise their work they should post a new post in the thread. https://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=29823
So once a person posts a portion of their work here, they effectively lose control over it? That doesn't seem right to me. It is still the original author's work. What is the purpose of having a rule like that?
Are you saying do not qoute that which you are reviewing? How do I expound on what I may do differently? I am confused, as I mentioned I may be in the first of this post.
You can refer to the work you are critiquing and make the points you want to make without actually quoting the original work verbatim.
since the forum guidelines/rules specifically state that you should not make revisions on your original post in the review room, I would think it is perfectly fine to quote people. I like that approach. As far as I can gather, the review forums are a sort of workshop where the poster can get feedback on her work; the person posting a critique gets to be exposed to a variety of different works, and learn to review their own work more effectively; and the person reading through can learn by following the evolution of an idea. If the first post is edited, you lose continuity and anyone reading through after the fact no longer has the benefit of seeing what others have said in context, or why they said it.
That works well, unless the OP has a goal of using the posted work in something he or she wants to sell somewhere. It may be that at the start of the exercise, the OP wasn't even contemplating it, but it evolves into something salable. Even if you can't see first rights any more there are markets that are available so long as the piece isn't currently online somewhere. You may also end up with a nice scene that you later decide fits into a story, when you initially had no intention of using the posted work for anything other than practice. Once again the policy hurts you. I rarely quote a work I am reviewing for those reasons. It is easy to review/critique without doing so, and therefore without removing control of the work from the author.
Once you post anything to the internet anywhere you lose control over it. There is no way around it. Everything you do on the internet is public . If you want to keep things private, don't put them online. If you choose to do so, you're forfeiting control. You can retain ownership, but that's not the same thing. Even having mods remove posts doesn't mean they're inaccessible, haven't been cached, haven't been copied, etc. Basically, it's unreasonable to expect to retain exclusive control of any content you put on the internet. That's just how it works.
Steerpike: Please refer to the site rules, specifically: The decision to post your work is voluntary, but once made, you are bound to that decision. Consider it well before you do it in the first place. As Wreybies pointed out, you are supposed to leave the original draft intact, and append revision to the end of the thread. Deliberately removing or defacing the contents of a post, particularly a thread starter post, is unacceptable. In truth, once you post something on the Internet, you cannot truly take back that choice. Even if you can and do delete it shortly afterward, you cannot be sure it has not been copied and archived somewhere. That is not a truth of this site alone, it is a fact of life on the Internet. As for quoting excerpts of the original writing for the purpose of critiquing, it is not only permitted, it is encouraged. Critique is supposed to be specific, and puoting the specific passagve is the best way to do that. Violet: The site FAQ contains a wealth of information and tips on how to post, and how to accomplish various effects within posts,
