Talk:Finding Forrester

question
i am curious on really what kind of violation did Jamal violate? i understand the significance of originality and plegurism(plagiarism)... but is it actually copying the first paragraph and the title THAT severe?

also on the account of 'his inspriation' does the professor meant he copied? or does he really mean the inspiration? thank you :D 70.70.209.80

Question: What is the plagiarism?
witch is a good thing

Plagiarism is a very serious offense, especially when it involves someone of 'William Forrester's' stature. In a prestigious private high school with considerably high standards and repuation, plagiarism constitutes an offense punishable by expulsion, which is what is implied when jamal returns to the school, claire says 'i'm surprised your here' and jamal replies 'it's still my school.' that was why everyone was looking at him, including 'robert crawford'. (this is an explanation for those who don't know what plagiarism constitutes.

Plagiarism does however, include any form of using someone elses original material without consent, including the title. Although it is clear to us tha 'Jamal Wallace' had forrester's consent, nobody knew or would even think it possible for jamal to have such verbal concent because it would require that Jamal actually know where to reach Forrester and furthermore had a personal relationship (this expectation is because Forrester fell of the public map and nobody had heard from him following the aftermath of his 1st book's release.) So if Jamal took so much as the originality of even half of Forrester's ideas without physically copying the words, it would still constitute as plagiarism because it implies that Jamal is taking those ideas as his own, (which is what he does in a symbolic sense as he learns from forrester's 'A season of faith's perfection.') 'on the count of jamal's inspiration,' the professor meant that Jamal was stealing ideas from other writings. Of course this is somewhat absurd because it would be hard for Jamal to actually take a piece of writing at his own caliber which was published by someone else and be able to pass it off as his own without Crawford clearly knowing who that author was. As seen by Crawford's statement regarding jamal's 'plagiarism' "[his writing resembles] smacks of something. But I don't know [what]," Crawford wants to beleive that Jamal copied his writing or stole from someone else but the fact of the matter is that Crawford should be able to recognize the writer Jamal 'plagiarzed' from, but because Jamal has evolved as a writer and has matured as  true writer himself, Crawford is not able recognize the writing as someone elses. So in fact, Crawford does mean that Jamal 'copied' his inspiration but by the time that inspiration got onto the paper it no longer belonged to Forrester. We could assume that Jamal hadn't really taken any full impressions from Forrester's version of 'A season of faith's perfection' but instead really did write his own paper while the title was borrowed. Of course since we never see this explicitly we can only assume that he either used the first paragraph or title or didn't, which ultimately does not affect the portrayal that Jamal had plagiarized from 'A Season of Faith's Perfection.'

So yes, Jamal's use of the title regardless of content was, (according to crawford) an egregious act of plagiarism and yes Crawford) did mean that Jamal copied both the inspiration and the title.

==Titles are not protected by copyright law unless they are demonstrably unique from anything preceding, and/or registered as trademarks (in general). Other factors may apply as well, such as the age of the [original] work, whether the original author is alive or dead (and for how long), how popular or recognizable the original title is (i.e. Try and use Moby Dick and see what happens), For example, you cannot write and publish anything titled Star Wars, but you MIGHT get away with On the Road (although probably not), but you would most likely get away with The River since it is a non specific ambiguous title. The best way for an author to be sure is to ask "Is anyone likely to mind if I use this?" and if the answer is yes, go find said people and ask them. SentientParadox (talk) 17:52, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Understood Shuemake (talk) 20:02, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Plagiarism and more
I sort of missed the part where Crawford mentioned about the 'similiarity' of the two pieces. I guess my question (above) also includes what if the fact that Jamal DIDN'T know William Forrester or had read his works and just happened to HAVE the same title. Would that still be considered as plagiarism? I mean, there are just so many same-named media out there, what's to say what is copied or not. I do know that sometimes in English writing, when one thinks of an (or they thought to be) original, but then to found out it's done, they have to cite the source. What's the boundry on that?

thx again


 * it is indeed so, that in the film he copied the 1st paragraph(s), *not* just the title - Forrester gives him the first page(s) of his story and told him to copy them on the typewriter, until his own inspiration sets in. From this is not clear, how much he really copied, but it should have been at least a couple of sentences (when accusing Jamal later, they speak of "a paragraph". As a "rule of thumb" (e.g. for programs that automatically search for plagiarism on the internet) one assumes something plagiarism when more than seven words are identical - the mentioned copied paragraph would have been significantly more than that...


 * As for the title alone... hard to say if you'd already call that plagiarism - I wouldn't think so. The title was rather unusual, which might increase the chance of being called a copy. (Also, you will notice that there exist many books with the same title
 * and no - plagiarism definitely means "stealing" the text - if he chooses the same words by chance, that is just it (and that's where the seven-word-rule comes from, with seven words, it is already reasonably unlikely that the same combination was used by chance - unlikely enough, to then look for further similarities. I doubt anyone would make a big fuss of exactly seven identical words, if no other similarities to a text were found) Iridos (talk) 10:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Location
I am uncertain as to whether the movie was filmed in Brooklyn, but parts of it were filmed in the Bronx around 156 Street and Park Avenue. The montage scenes were fimed in various locations, most of which are in that vicinity. On a side note, the outside basketball court is actually a parking lot. There was once a mural of Bruce Lee, which is blocked from view in the film. The mural has since been removed.

Removed PTKFGS
The website is rather unstable, and is a spinoff of YTMND.


 * Well, the YTMND wiki says the PTKFGS site is looking for a new host, or at least wait until the current hosting gets better. - NES Boy 20:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

YTMND Blurb?
Should this article contain a reference that the trailer helped to inspire YTMND?

I think so, but it should receive more attention before a final decision is made. --71.197.86.209 (talk) 05:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The article should at least explain what the cryptic line meant in context of the film. Will leave the same note at the YTMND article. DavidOaks (talk) 18:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It's 2014 and there's still no mention of YTMND? I'd add it myself but I prefer to restrict my poorly-formatted contributions to the talk pages. Come on, someone step up! xx:xx, 17 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.107.130.6 (talk)

Fair use rationale for Image:Finding forrester.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Question About Summary
I recently watched this film, and from what I remember the boys did not know the name of the man who lived in the apartment. According to the summary provided on the article, "The friends all know of a recluse William Forrester, who lives on the top floor of the building across from the schoolyard" the boys do know the name of the man. Is this wrong or am I incorrect in assuming they did not know the name of the man in the apartment until Jamal got to know him? 169.204.225.172 (talk) 18:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Unusual Instrument in Band
The trumpet-violin seen in close up at the beginning of scene 17 "Party at the Spences" is a Stroh violin and should be referenced somewhere here, but I do not know exactly where to put it? ThomasHarrisGrantsPass (talk) 07:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Pullitzer
"In the film, Forrester is said to have won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. There was no Pulitzer awarded for that category in 1954.[11]" I just saw the movie. I am pretty sure this statement is wrong. Jamal asked William if he had won any prizes, and the latter replied that, yes, he had: the Pullitzer. I don't see any--thing here that necessitaqtes that the prize was for fiction. In fact, the New Yorker piece that is central to the plagiarism issue seems to have been an essay. This indicates taht the writer wrote fiction and essays. Thus, the nature of his Pullitzer seems unspecified unless there is some other time in the movie in which the discussion of the novel indicates that it earned the prize -- but I don't recall having heard any-thing like that. Kdammers (talk) 07:43, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

YTMND meme
A few months after this film was released, "You're the man now dog" would become a website for YTMND. So does that count as a meme or no? Because I had my edit reverted despite looking at List of Internet phenomena.--70.173.17.198 (talk) 16:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Finding Forrester Plot
I found your plot description to be about as complete as it could be with one exception. I feel your description does not go far enough into Forrester's descriptions of Crawford's resentment toward Forrester, when mentoring young Jamal. I found this to be a crucial point of the movie because while Crawford teaches his class in a bully mentality, he quietly still admires Forresters book and his knock on Forrester to his students is due to the fact that he only did write the one book. From Forresters perspective he killed the prospect of Crawfords book being written by all the hungry printers out there who agreed to not publish Crawfords book, in exchange for the promise of getting Forresters next book, which never comes ( by Forresters choice). Forresters actions in effect killed Crawfords book writing capability and Crawford then filled out the role of " Those Who Can Do, Those Who Can't Teach" due to his being blackballed by Forrester. Still we love Forrester and hate Crawford, because F Murray Abraham is so convincing in his role that he made us hate him and figure he deserved the fate Forrester quietly bestowed upon him. Thank you for all your work and if you could find a way to weave this into your plot great- It is one of my all time favorite movies and while I am an average Joe, I have seen the movie no fewer than 20 times. 2601:8B:C280:AE0:3876:8CE3:5A29:FFC9 (talk) 12:49, 1 November 2020 (UTC) Ron Bogdan  - Trenton NJ     AND YES I WAS PROMPTED BY THE DEATH OF SEAN CONNERY YESTERDAY_ WE LOST A GREAT ACTOR!2601:8B:C280:AE0:3876:8CE3:5A29:FFC9 (talk) 12:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)