TOP 10 RULES (continued)
Here are the last 3
NETIQUETTE DO’S:
4. RESPECT COPYRIGHTS: Unscrupulous ninnies are stealing information off of every imaginable cyber-source without permission or credit. Even several of these ninnies stole one of my blogs and parts of others. Plagiarism is out of control. As academicians, you’re trained APA style-wise or, heaven forbid, in Chicago or AMA style to cite and acknowledge sources in ALL of your writing. Do the same online.
Make sure to get permissions and/or acknowledge sources when appropriate, even Wikipedia. DO NOT swipe any material—print or nonprint media. As a contributor to the Internet, you also need to protect your intellectual property. For the consequences of violations and guidelines on how to protect your work, check out my October 2009 blogs on “Copyright Infringement” and “Intellectual Property.”
5. USE APPROPRIATE SIGNATURE LINES: Do you have a signature line? If not, get one soon. They’re on sale at COSTCO®. Haha. You need to identify who you are. If you are commenting on professional issues on listservs or in group discussions, your credentials are important to colleagues so they can evaluate the weight of your contributions. Your position and expertise provide a context for your messages. For example, if you are Director of the Alligator Rehabilitation Institute at Everglades University, your suggestions on how to capture an alligator with asthma in your hot-tub are noteworthy.
Also, a signature line with title, institution, address, e-mail, phone, and fax makes it possible for colleagues to contact you easily. If you have a business Website, blog, publishing company, and/or other professional sites, you should include links to them. If the list appears too unwieldy, create different signature lines for different target readerships. (SIGNATURE ALERT: Of course, if you’re a spy, recently involved in the Espionage Exchange Program, or work for Homeland Security with a code fuchsia clearance or above, none of these contact rules apply. Stay undercover; see if we care.)
6. RESPOND TO SPECIFIC REQUESTS IN A TIMELY FASHION: If colleagues, known or unknown, or students request information from you, try to respond in a timely fashion, within 24 hours. If you don’t have time to fill the request, respond that you will get back to them by a certain date. That’s just professional courtesy. Be empathetic.
You may receive inquiries from all over the world. It may be a copyright permission, article, research evidence, teaching request, or resource request. Respond appropriately and quickly. Everyone appreciates a rapid response. Again, it’s your professional reputation on the line. "Just do it!"
My next blog will continue with 3 don’ts related to caps, flaming, and crossposting. Hope this info is helpful.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
How do you know whether someone has stolen your material? Do you have to hire Monk in his final season? Better hurry. If an infringement is detected, what do you do to get it removed or hurt the infringer, figuratively speaking?
Prevention-wise, experts on this topic, like lawyer Jay Hollander, Esq., recommend copyrighting your books, conference presentations, Websites, blogs, etc. as literary works within 3 months of publication ($45 copyright registration fee) and before any infringement occurs. This maximizes your legal claims and compensation should a lawsuit be necessary. (Note: For blogs which change daily, the copyright would have to be filed every 3 months.)
Post WARNINGS on your works. On your professional Websites, blog sites, etc., post the copyscape warning you see at the top of each of my blogs and a copyright line of your corporation at the end.
Now, how do you proceed?
Here are MY TOP 10 SUGGESTED STEPS TO RESOLUTION:
1. Search the Internet for stolen material. Use www.copyscape.com or another company who can track down whether any of your work is stolen. They also report the link for the site containing your work. For $5. a year, they will run 100 scans of cyberspace for you. Can’t beat that! They scanned all of my blogs to date and the culprit was immediately identified. They can scan your manuscripts, Websites, and everything else you write lickety split. For an extra nominal fee, they can scan your sites and send you a report weekly.
2. Track down the perp (that’s Law & Order lingo for "perpetrator") with the link provided by Copyscape.
3. Assess the extent of the damage---2 lines, paragraghs, or the whole article, blog, or Web page.
4. Contact the perp online or by phone. Online is more practical, though less intimidating, for perps in UK, India, and elsewhere outside of the U.S.
5. Mirandize the perp. Request in writing that the stolen material be immediately removed from his or her document or site.
6. Wait a couple of days for a response. If there is no response, send another e-mail.
7. Submit a “takedown notice.” If the perp doesn’t respond or challenges the legitimacy of your claim, send 1 more communication indicating you will be submitting a “takedown notice” to the search engine or other source carrying the infringed material which will request removal. If the material still isn’t removed, go to step 8 and collect more than $200.
8. Get a lawyer. There are specific legal requirements for the “takedown notice.” A competent lawyer can advise you.
9. Search engine should remove material. This should resolve the problem unless there is a challenge to the rights of the copyrighted material.
10. File a lawsuit as a last resort. Hopefully, the perp will have seen the error of his or her plagiarized ways before legal action is required. You can also file suit if you have been damaged in some way by his or hers actions with your work.
I hope these suggestions might help a little. The legal issues are a lot more complicated and beyond my meager knowledge of this process. Step 6 was sufficient to resolve my recent blog theft. Fortunately, legal action wasn’t required.
Let me know of any experiences you have had or reactions to the above suggestions.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Once you’ve decided how you are going to transform your published article into a book chapter, DO IT. When you have a draft of the chapter, consider whether it looks like a clone of the article in structure and style OR an “extreme makeover,” almost unrecognizable from the real McCoy. Since you would typically update citations and references, reformat heads, and revise the text after your copyeditor butchers it, the final chapter will almost always appear different from the article. Every copyeditor’s changes are different. If you are blessed with a copyediting of your article, your book editor will find other changes to make. (Note: Your copyeditor can be your best friend and mentor in improving your writing ability. I’ve learned sooo much from every editor. That learning never ends. There is always room for improving one’s writing skills. End of Note.)
Copyright-wise, check with the specific journal for its policy on using material from your article in total or in part, including graphic, pictorial, and other nontext content. At minimum, cite the article in text or in a footnote, such as: “This chapter is based on the article by Berkorino and Magillacutty (2009) published in the Journal of Previously Rejected Manuscripts” or “This chapter is a revision of a previously published article by Snoothauser and Barfbag (2008).”
In your draft table of contents, fill in chapter gaps around your collection of articles to insure a comprehensive treatment of the topic. You may have to add 1–2 or several chapters to distinguish your work from the competition. “But, hey bro or sis, your book is like almost complete. That is sooo cool.” Where did that come from? Ending a sentence with a preposition? “Did you really work with copyeditors?” Kinda…
Write drafts of these additional chapters and you’re on your way to bookdom. Isn’t this “article” approach faster, easier, and more streamlined than writing the whole book from scratch? Plus, it punctuates the significance your research program by providing a capstone product that synthesizes a given body of work over several years. The book will also have more staying power than a single article.
It’s possible to adapt this approach to a collection of conference presentations, workshop materials, blogs, listserv commentaries, professional journal (diary) entries, and other writing products. They lack the quality-control ingredient of the journal review process, but the final manuscript can still be sent out to multiple reviewers for feedback. What matters most is that you continue writing, every day, if possible. It is one technique to continue learning and producing, even into your retirement. Wow, what a great idea!
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
