User talk:Tulsand

August 2012
Hi Tusland, and thanks for your eits. Please take care to ensure they are accurate, though - I had to correct a couple errors in your recent additions to the Michigan law school article. Also, please include edit summaries with your changes. They are very helpful to other editors. Thanks. JohnInDC (talk) 11:42, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Avoiding copyright problems
Hello, and welcome. 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.
 * Our primary policy on using copyrighted content is Copyrights. You may also want to review Copy-paste.
 * In very rare cases (that is, for sources that are public domain or compatibly licensed), it may be possible to include greater portions of a source text. However, please seek help at the help desk before adding such content to the article. 99.9% of sources may not be added in this way, so it is necessary to seek confirmation first. If you do confirm that a source is public domain or compatibly licensed, you will still need to provide full attribution; see Plagiarism for the steps you need to follow.
 * Also note that Wikipedia articles may not be copied without attribution. If you want to copy from another Wikipedia project or article, you can, but please follow the steps in Copying within Wikipedia.

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 visit me at my talk page. Thank you. JohnInDC (talk) 13:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've provided this information because the two articles you've created - Cathleen Kaveny and Judith A. McMorrow - both contain close paraphrases of the sole source you provided for them (namely, the schools' faculty pages). While you appear to have changed some phrasing a bit to avoid the problem of direct quotes, "close phrasing" is still an issue - you need to rewrite the material in your own words, and order.  I know it's hard with very short articles drawn on very limited source material, but if the subjects are actually notable (another question I have), you should have little trouble finding further sources from which to create your own prose.  Thanks.  JohnInDC (talk) 13:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)