User talk:Joycepm

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The Wikipedia tutorial is a good place to start learning about Wikipedia. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. By the way, you can sign your name on Talk and discussion pages using four tildes, like this: &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126; (the software will replace them with your signature and the date). Again, welcome! Dougweller (talk) 11:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

History of writing
Hello Joycepm, and welcome to Wikipedia. I'm sorry to say I've deleted your edit, basically for two reasons. One is that you used a source which was basically a lesson plan for middle grade students, and an article such as this one should be based on academic sources.

Secondly, you copied and pasted from a source. While we appreciate your contributing to Wikipedia, there are certain things you must keep in mind about using information from your sources to avoid copyright or plagiarism issues here.


 * You can only copy/translate a small amount of a source, and you must mark what you take as a direct quotation with double quotation marks (") and a cited source. You can read about this at Non-free content in the sections on "text". See also Referencing for beginners, for how to cite sources here.
 * Aside from limited quotation, you must put all information in your own words and structure, in proper paraphrase. Following the source's words too closely can create copyright problems, so it is not permitted here; see Close paraphrasing. (There is a college level introduction to paraphrase, with examples, hosted by the Online Writing Lab of Purdue.) Even when using your own words, you are still, however, asked to cite your sources to verify information and to demonstrate that the content is not original research.
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It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. Dougweller (talk) 11:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long
Given what you said in your email, there could be other material copied verbatim or closely paraphrased in the material you added, and I understand that you cannot recall what bits might be copied. Some is from. I don't see how meets our criteria as a WP:RS, especially for an article that should have only academic sources. Amalia E. Gnanadesikan looks like a good source. I don't think we can say " Because one of the oldest pieces of literature was written in cuneiform script, we can identify cuneiform as the earliest known form of written expression." We can attribute such a statement to a well known scholar if you can find one, but Wikipedia shouldn't say this in its own voice. Dougweller (talk) 16:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)