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Education Copyright Law The Nuts and Bolts of Education Copyright Law It is a wonderful thing that Education Copyright Law is available for educators. It isn’t only teachers that can take advantage of education copyright law. Students are also covered under education copyright law -- to a degree. Teachers are able to use copyrighted materials in their classroom and make copies of them. Students are also able to use copyrighted materials in school projects. The key to education copyright law is how often a teacher or student uses copyrighted material, in what way they are using it and how many copies they have of it. It is important that teachers and students do not cross the line of education copyright law or they could be in for some stiff penalties. It helps many students and teachers to learn what exactly is not copyrighted. Any work that is in the public domain is not copyrighted and can be used in school and for school projects. Work that is not in the public domain is copyrighted and if you use it you should make sure you fall within the fair use or education copyright law regulations. Many people do not know what exactly fair use copyright regulations are. When you are trying to see if you can use another’s words, you should keep a few things in mind. The answer to the following questions will help you gage whether you would be violating a copyright. First, are you transforming someone else’s work or are you copying it directly? If you are using another person’s work directly, for what purpose and how much of the original author’s work are you using? Many publishing companies have set rules on how much material they will allow to be quoted in other sources. Some of these ranges start at 100 words or less. However, there are truly no standards to go by, so be careful. You can not assume that keeping your copying fewer than 50 words will allow you to pass under the radar – especially if the original piece is hovering around 125 words itself! There is a greater amount of room to maneuver when it comes to technical writing. For instance, if you are writing a report on something that involves a lot of reporting from an expert, you would probably need to quote more of their work than you would a fiction novelist’s work. The fair use copyright law enables people to use portions of material that is copyrighted for the purposes of criticism or as commentary. Individuals who are involved in the distance education field should take a look at the TEACH Act that was made into law in 2002. This Act clearly outlines the requirements that a university or school must be in compliance with when it comes to transmitting copyrighted works via the Internet. The TEACH Act allows students and teachers to transmit copyrighted works, but they must be within certain guidelines. If the school or university cannot meet these guidelines, the material that is being transmitted via the Internet needs to fall within the fair use copyright act – or the individuals involved need to have permission from the copyright owner. If you are an educator and you are using copyrighted material make sure it falls within the education copyright law.

Finishing a Masterpiece and Getting it on the Shelves (how to get a book published) Writing a book is a monumental task in itself. The process is long, drawn out and grueling. Even if you thoroughly enjoy writing and writing on the same subject for an extended period of time, you will no doubt be exhausted by the writing of a book. Getting that book published, however, will take even more time and effort than producing the thing in the first place. Are you thinking about writing a book? Have you already written one and now are just wondering how to get a book published? If you are, read on. Here are a few tips on how to get from the starting line to triumphantly crossing the finish line. Writing that Book When starting out writing your book, before you are ready to consider how to get a book published, you may already feel daunted. To write a successful book you need to start out with some original thought. You probably have plenty of originality, but you may have trouble getting your ideas into a coherent flow of information that will be digestible by the general public. The first step is to create a book skeleton. You need to organize your thoughts into a progression of chapters. If your book will be non-fiction, start with a table of contents. Write chapter headings and sub-headings. You will automatically know that you’ll need an introductory chapter, but you should probably leave the content of your introduction for the last step. Organize your chapters so that they build upon one another. The more headings that you can brainstorm to begin with, the easier it will be to fill in your book with a series of short articles that flow into one another. If your writing will be fiction, you will need more of a storyboard. You will need to create cause and effect as well as character sketches. To make your story coherent your characters will need events to react to. Their reactions should become predictable as your readers get into the story. You may need to create some situations for your characters just for the purpose of introducing their traits to the reader. These are very general guidelines about how to begin constructing your book. The actual process will be much more involved as you move closer to finding out how to get a book published. Even after you are finished with the bulk of the content, your goal is still a ways off into the future. Getting to Print The next step in how to get a book published is finding a publisher. There are resources at your local library that will let you know who will be the best candidate for publishing the kind of writing that you do. After a series of queries and correspondence with the potential publishers you may get an invitation to send your manuscript. Then the work begins. A publisher is very experienced in finding books that are marketable. He knows what it will take to get your book to sell. Don’t be offended when his editors tears your writing apart. If they are doing that, you can enjoy the fact that you are on the road to a published book. Expect to enter into a close relationship of compromise and change with the editor as you rework and rework what you have already so painstakingly written. When you are finished you will have a readable and clean and correct manuscript ready for print. The road to getting a book published is a long one, but well worth the effort. Trust yourself, and trust the publisher to create a beautiful masterpiece. Don’t be discouraged if several publishers are not interested in your book. You may have to just keep the first few for yourself, and then again, they may eventually get accepted. Good luck and enjoy the process.

Being Effective in Your Persuasive Writing (persuasive writing) The goal of persuasive writing is to have the ability to influence or change a persons mind with your words. You encounter these in your normal everyday life. Whether it is a politician trying to convince you to vote for them, a commercial for a company that wants you to buy there product, or from your children trying to explain the reason why they should be allowed to go to that concert, persuasion is all around. You may even use the power of persuasion on yourself, like deciding why or why not you should eat that last piece of pizza or if you really need to buy another white shirt even though it is a really good deal. Everyday you have to decide on whether one choice is better than another and why. To succeed in your persuasive writing venture you need to follow a few simple rules. You must have focus. Decide on what position you are trying to persuade. Are you for or against the topic your writing about? Choose a side and stick with it. Arguing both sides of the fence will be detrimental to your persuasion. There are three techniques that you will need to use to have convincing persuasive writing. Now you need to provide facts and evidence to support your writing. Statistics and examples are used to provide the reason people should choose you position and believe your writings. You can also include facts and evidence that demonstrate why the opposition is wrong. This should be eased into. Remember you are trying to persuade and convince them on why you position is better not offend or alienate them. This is called the logos technique of persuasion writing. Another persuasive writing technique is ethos. This is where you have to prove yourself to be a creditable person. To be able to make your readers believe that they should have confidence in what you are telling them. The best way to prove your credibility is to provide true and undisputable facts, be articulate, and explain why you are capable of proving this information to them. Pathos is the third technique you will use in your writing. This will appeal to the emotions of the readers. This can be the most important technique but also the most critical. It must be used with caution or you can just as easily turn the readers against you as you could bring them with you. Appealing to your readers emotions can be tricky. This must be done subtly To work this effectively you must have the ability to make the reader feel your emotions, the joy, the pain, the hurt whatever the case maybe. You need to pin point your target audience and write to appeal to them. What sounds interesting and persuasive to a teenager most likely will not work with a middle age woman. Whether you are targeting men or women will make a difference in you writings. Identify with your target audience. An example of this would be “only the cool kids will be wearing product XYZ” or “we know as a respectable home owner you will want to…..” By identifying with the intended audience it pulls them into what you are writing and how or why it pertains to them. Persuasive writings can be a challenge. You have to objective and opened minded to other positions of the topic at hand even though sometimes you don’t want too. Remembering you goal is just to persuade them why yours is better. This does not necessarily mean that the opposition is bad or wrong, just that yours is a superior choice.