Karen S. Wiesner: SURPRISES IN THE COURSE OF LEARNING TO WRITE A SCIENCE FICTION SERIES (3 of 15)

 Surprise #1: Of Not Having to Reinvent the Wheel For Everything

This is the third of fifteen posts dealing with surprising things I learned in the course of writing a science fiction series.

In the first part of this series, I mentioned that one of the fundamentals I was told about the "right way" to write science fiction was by adhering to what seemed to be to be the cardinal rule of the genre: That all science fiction stories have to include a concept of legitimate science or technology that can somehow be applied to fictional theories or ideas that could become future realities. Without fail, every single writing manual and article I read about how to write science fiction included this regulation. This is in the same vein as "write what you know" but of course is it really necessary or even ideal for a writer to limit himself in such a way? [Read Margaret L. Carter's February 10, 2022 post about just this if you want a unique look at this theory: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/02/most-writers-are-writers.html]

I don't dispute that scientific and technologic realism are important so much as I wonder how much it can be bent. We are writing fiction, after all. In his Biographia Literaria, William Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief". In this "poetic faith" state of mind, readers voluntarily ignore obvious untruths and fantastic elements in order to enjoy the story unfolding before them. So, if an author can legitimately make readers believe something that's impossible in the real world is actually happening in the fictional story, anything goes, right?

When an author goes into writing science fiction, there are a lot of "Standard Operating Procedure" facts that have to be established and explained about this time period and their unique world or universe--in a way that readers are able to suspend belief and just go with it, regardless of how implausible in our current world and time. For example, if your characters travel through space on a regular basis, you usually have to explain how they're doing it.

Luckily, many amazing authors have already written about fascinating concepts based on scientific principles and existing and experimental technology, such as using wormholes, folds in the fabric of space, or some other creative explanation that provides the means of skipping, folding or warping space to allow jumps across great distances--all that do factor in the theory of relativity, time dilation, and interstellar travel. I call these "established knowns", and they provided one of the first surprises I received when I started writing science fiction. Namely that I could use these "established knowns" because they're basically plausible explanations that are already accepted by the majority of science fiction readers who devour extremely popular science fiction books, movies, and television series like Star Trek, Star Wars, Mass Effect, and The Expanse. Cool! I needed to hear the good news that there can be some shortcuts in this complicated undertaking. But keep in mind that most writers don't want to and shouldn't use them verbatim. That would be copying and could lead to all kinds of moral and legal issues. However, simply basing your tech and world principles on established knowns is allowed. You have to find a way to creatively adapt established knowns to make them unique to your story and series.

Since my series was set in the not-to-distant future, I really did have to have an explanation for how Humans got their technology to travel through space. I creatively used some established knowns to explain their space travel and communications, as well as coming up with realistic, futuristic orbital habitations, credible revelations about dark energy and matter, and legitimate reasons for what might force Humans to leave Earth to explore and find homes in space or on other planets. All of these were treated as Standard Operating Procedures for my series. Rather than reinventing the wheel for all of these things, I laid down my foundations as simply and believably as I could based on creatively adapted established knowns.

The surprise that I didn't have to reinvent the wheel for every single scientific and technical aspect was certainly one of the most welcome I had. It saves so much time and energy to utilize the concept of established knowns. I realized almost from the start that forcing myself to come up with brand new, exciting and extra creative ideas to explain the "SOP" of my series would have been overwhelming not only for me as the author (having to figure all this out when I'm most definitely not a scientist of any kind in the real world!), but also overwhelming for the readers who would have to hear endless and overly complex and potentially boring explanations about how everything worked from A-Z here in my particular galaxy. I've found over the years that the science fiction stories I like following the **least** are the ones that spend way too much time trying to explain to me the Standard Operating Procedures for their universe. I don't think I'm that different from other sci-fi readers: In a fiction book or series, I want to be impressed by the creativeness of the story, not scientific theories.

In Arrow of Time, the space travel and communication SOPs weren't exactly the same as for any other series, and I think that's important because, to me, just saying my characters have warp drive, like in Star Trek, felt like cheating. What I did was figure out what's been done already and what's plausible, and, from there, I played around with the concepts until they fit my series and made sense in it. Creatively utilizing established knowns, I could put my SOPs in place as briefly and intriguingly as possible and then I could roll out my story.

Another reason for not reinventing the wheel for every little aspect of your science fiction story is that these things you labor to create can easily become focal points. If that's what you intended, great. But if it's not, you went to a lot of elaborate trouble to develop and explain them yet they're not factoring greatly into the storyline somehow. That doesn't make sense and could be frustrating for readers. In my series, those SOP aspects weren't majorly important. I wanted them to be legitimate and credible, but I didn't want them to call more attention to themselves than was necessary. All I wanted was for the "poetic belief" to kick in for readers so I could move forward with the storytelling.

Over the course of the next two weeks, we'll talk about research and developmental tools in writing science fiction.

Happy writing!

Based on Writing the Overarching Series (or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space): 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection by Karen S. Wiesner (release date TBA)

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series, including the romantic science fiction series, ARROW OF TIME CHRONICLES

https://www.writers-exchange.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles.html

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Writing to the Future

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column, on writing nonfiction pieces that will still be relevant by the time they're published:

Six Weeks Is a Long Time

The time lag that may undercut the applicability of a written work, according to him, seems to be getting shorter. Circumstances can always truly change overnight or in an instant, of course. Consider the difference between September 10, 2001, and September 11 of that year. Yet it may seem odd to define an essay meant to be read a month and a half after it's written as "futuristic thinking." The near future, however, is still the future. As C. S. Lewis's senior demon says in THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, all human beings constantly travel into the future at the rate of sixty minutes per hour.

I once read a story about a time-viewing machine that allows the user to look into the future. The culture-transformative feature of this device is that it has no lower limit on how short a time span it can look ahead. And apparently (if I remember correctly) one can view events in other places, not just where one happens to be personally located. Suppose you peer ten seconds into the future? You're effectively spying on people's actions in the present, in real time. (On second thought, it may have been a past-viewing device. Same principle applies.)

Doctorow wrote this month's article in the midst of a new, highly contagious COVID variant and the imminent invasion of Ukraine, addressing us "in the distant, six-week future" from his moment in the past when "the odds of nuclear Armageddon [seemed] higher than they’ve been for decades." He greets his future audience thus: "I bear glad tidings. Only six weeks ago, you, me and most everyone else we knew couldn’t imagine getting through these next six weeks. If you’re reading these words, you did the unimaginable. Six weeks and six weeks and six weeks, we eat the elephant of the unimaginable one bite at a time."

We're familiar with the question of what message we'd like to send to our past selves. There's a country song about writing a letter to "me at seventeen." But what message might you want to send to your future self? Unlike speaking to one's past self, this we can actually do. Are there important events or thoughts you might want to write down as reminders in case you've forgotten them a month, a year, or decades from now? What would you like to record as an important reminder for the citizens of your city, your country, or the world next month, next year, a decade from now, or generations later? People often do the latter with physical "time capsules." Would the things you choose to highlight turn out to be important to those future audiences or not?

Isaac Asimov wrote at least one essay predicting future technological and social advances, and surely he wasn't the only SF author to do that. Some of his predictions have come true; many haven't. An essay like that could be considered a message to future generations.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Kick Back

The prevailing theme on the copyright-related legal blogs this last week dealt with recent DOJ guidance for website owners.  More of that, maybe, next time. Meanwhile, and more urgently, there are three free events this coming Wednesday, May 11th, and another event on May 16th.

If you are an author or an aspiring author, but not yet a member of the copyrightalliance.org (membership is free), or of AuthorsGuild.org (membership costs around $135 pa)  or of SFWA.org (membership around $100 pa) you might not have heard about the creators conference.

https://graphicartistsguild.org/creators-conference

From 11.00 to 12.30 am ET, a distinguished panel discusses the shocking (to some) details of how authors, artists, designers, songwriters, photographers, illustrators, composers and more are beguiled into working for free, or even paying in order to work for others.

Register for Panel 1 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/working-for-freepaying-to-work-tickets-320859438217

The second panel runs from 1.30 to 3.00 pm ET and discusses some of the dirtiest tricks in contracts, including how "work for hire" wording can strip one of ones copyright, and lock one into a bad deal.

Register for Panel 2

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/contracts-and-terms-the-unethical-the-unenforceable-and-the-unavoidable-tickets-320912416677?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

 

The third panel is between 4.00 and 5.30 pm Eastern, and reveals some of the ways that infringers steal works, and companies engage in "rights grabs"... and how to fight back to keep what is yours.

 

Register for Panel 3 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/copyrights-and-rights-grabs-tickets-320947792487

The CopyrightAlliance is hosting a webinar on May 16th from 2pm to 3.15 pm Eastern, in conjunction with Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts, and the American Society of Media Photographers to explain how the Copyright Claims Board works to resolve certain copyright disputes.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hOibv5MURNOS8iWBNwQ7Ew

 

Something one can do, if so inclined, is to support the SMART Act that was introduced by Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy in March of this year.

https://www.tillis.senate.gov/2022/3/tillis-and-leahy-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-combat-copyright-piracy-enhance-content-sharing-and-hold-tech-accountable

https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/BBDBFA87-17CA-4D15-AA0F-9B54BFEEA31D

One show support, for instance, by writing a note to your own senator, or to the sponsoring senators, or following some of the ideas here.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/   

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Karen S. Wiesner: SURPRISES IN THE COURSE OF LEARNING TO WRITE A SCIENCE FICTION SERIES (2 of 15)

 Of the Overarching Series and Its Connection to Speculative Fiction

This is the second of fifteen posts dealing with surprising things I learned in the course of writing a science fiction series.

 A timeless universal truth:

No simple solutions, no easy answers, and nothing is ever free…

In last week's post, we talked about why science fiction, especially those in a series, is debatably the most difficult genre to write in. Another reason this type of series is so complicated is because it's part of a rare breed of series that I'm calling the Overarching Series that requires complex and multifaceted character- and world-building as well as necessitating series arc sequel hook endings in all but the final installment. Overarching Series dominate speculative fiction more so than any other category of fiction, though it is possible for one to be in other genres as well.

In the Overarching type of series, none of the books can truly be standalones because the series arc that's introduced in the first book in the series will run through every installment in that series, expanding and intensifying as it goes, only concluding in the final volume of the series. In other words, it's unlikely that the individual titles of the series (except perhaps the first) can be fully understood without the others in that series. Nearly always, they need to be read as a set, in the proper order, to make sense. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't enjoy the stories separately. You'll just miss a lot doing so and ultimately you might end up with a fair amount of confusion.

To be clear about this, a cliffhanger ending is most always referring to when a book ends in the middle of an unbearably intense or emotional bit of danger. Instead of concluding at the place where the scene would reach a natural end, the action is truncated prematurely, leaving the reader hanging when it comes to resolution. Readers have no way of knowing what actually happened unless or until a sequel to address this dangling thread is released and addresses the previous situation satisfactorily (and sometimes the explanation for how the danger was actually averted can be less than gratifying). Frequently, readers consider employing this technique as outright cheating because they've been purposely deprived of the unspoken promise of a proper resolution.

Kind of a downgraded definition of a cliffhanger ending is any thread left dangling. In the case of series arc thread, writers generally provide story arc resolutions within the individual volumes of the series while holding off on resolving series arcs until the final volume. For the purposes of my upcoming writing manual, Writing the Overarching Series, I'm calling these not-quite-a-cliffhanger endings "series arc sequel hooks". While readers maybe shout "But what happened to--?!" upon reaching the end of any series installment, the place each particular volume ends should feel natural and not an affront or trickery employed to avoid genuine resolution. 

The story arcs that are specific to individual titles in an Overarching Series will resolve within their particular book, providing the necessary satisfaction when completing the story, while the series arc almost always produces a less upsetting form of cliffhanger ending called series arc sequel hooks in all volumes other than the final book of that kind of series, where it's finally resolved. The reason for that may be obvious but I'll state it anyway: The series arc can't be resolved until the last book of the series. While authors do need to find a natural, logical place to leave the series arc from one volume to the next so the "to be continued" aspect won't infuriate readers so much as build anticipation for what's to come, keep in mind that each volume needs to be assigned its own piece of the series arc to tell in an Overarching Series. Some well-known Overarching Series book series, TV series, and movies are The Lord of the Rings, Divergent Series, Harry Potter Series, Twilight Series, Supernatural, Grimm, and Star Wars.

Another interesting thing about Overarching Series is that an Overarching miniseries (or more than one) can exist within an existing series of stories that could otherwise be considered series standalones. In literary terms, a miniseries is most accurately referring to a finite set of stories told within an existing series. Both the Star Wars and Star Trek series have quite a few Overarching miniseries along with standalone stories. Star Wars original miniseries included three stories in a trilogy: Star Wars (sometimes also called A New Hope), The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Rogue One and Solo are individual stories within the series. Star Trek has a host of miniseries within the Overarching Series, including but not limited to The Next Generation, Voyager, and Discovery. In my Woodcutter's Grim Series (fantasy/paranormal/mild horror), I have two miniseries that qualify as Overarching Series within the overall series. One of the Overarching Series is untitled and deals with the Shaussegeny Curse (Books 4-7). Another is called Bridge of Fire, Book 10, which has three separate novel parts. Books 1-3, 8, 9 and The Final Chapter could be considered standalone titles within the series.

Perhaps the most defining factor of an Overarching Series is that the individual volumes could easily and maybe even should be ideally packaged as a single work if cost and reader acceptability weren't factors.

You might have noticed something very specific about all the Overarching Series titles I mentioned above: They could all be included under the Speculative Fiction umbrella. Speculative fiction is particularly well-suited to the Overarching Series structure. While it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that an Overarching Series could fit in other genres of fiction, they do crop up most often in speculative fiction. All the techniques and strategies I employed in the process of completing my Arrow of Time Chronicles are actually ones that could work just as well for any fiction genre as well as for any type of series.

Let's talk more about the speculative fiction before we get into why these particular genres work so well for an Overarching Series.

There are a lot of different definitions for speculative fiction (or "spec fic" as it's sometimes called). Basically, the definition I'm using here is the one that's most likely to come up if you put the words "speculative fiction" into any search engine: "A genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements." The spec fic umbrella would cover (but isn't limited to) science fiction, fantasy, superhero fiction, science fantasy, horror, utopian and dystopian fiction, supernatural and futuristic or any combination of these along with other potential offshoots too numerous to mention. The point is, spec fic almost always has enormous requirements when it comes to:

            1) World building. You might need to come up with a variety of environments either all in one location, like a planet, or sprawled across great distances--maybe an entire universe--that you have to figure out how to traverse. Most if not all of these locations have to be unique and complex enough to be believable while still retaining some semblance of realism capable of luring current readers.

            2) Character building. In these genres, not all your characters will be human. In fact, a good portion might be from an alien culture or some kind of supernatural creatures that the author has to construct from the ground up. You're not just describing and personalizing living and breathing, sentient beings. You're figuring out who and what they are, where they came from (their history, present day situation, and the future are yours to formulate!). You'll be required to explain how their family life, culture, government, religions, monetary systems, and countless other structures work in their very individual worlds.

Overarching Series are frequently utilized in genres under the speculative fiction umbrella. However, not all speculative fiction series are Overarching Series. The reason for that is because you can easily have standalone series titles in a speculative fiction series. Trust me, we'll figure this all out in the next few months and it'll make perfect sense when we're done. We'll also talk more in-depth about story and series arcs, types of series, and standalones, and cliffhangers in later posts.

Next week we'll talk about my very first big surprise in writing a science fiction series.

Happy writing!

Based on Writing the Overarching Series (or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space): 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection: by Karen S. Wiesner (release date TBA)

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series, including the romantic science fiction series, ARROW OF TIME CHRONICLES

https://www.writers-exchange.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles.html

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

RavenCon 15

This year's was the first RavenCon since 2019. They moved from Williamsburg, Virginia (where we attended for three years before the lockdown began) to a new location just north of Richmond, the same general area as their original home base. It was the first time at that hotel, though. The facility consisted of three large buildings with red brick, colonial-style exteriors in a beautifully landscaped setting. Luckily, the weather stayed nice enough for walking between buildings, aside from a slight chill the first couple of days. The hotel provided buffet meals from Friday morning through Sunday morning. That's always a big plus at a con, because we can eat at our own pace and not be late for panel sessions.

Guests of honor were author Terry Brooks and filk singer Rhiannon's Lark. Staff and people on the program had an opportunity to get books signed by Terry Brooks on Friday morning, a few hours before the official opening of the con. That gathering didn't have a big crowd, so he chatted a bit with each person who brought books for him to sign. He's a very nice guy. Later in the weekend I attended an interview in which he gave a lot of interesting information about how he sold his famed first novel, SWORD OF SHANNARA, and the twists in his later career. In addition to hearing a full-length performance by soloist Rhiannon's Lark plus two brief interludes (at the opening ceremony and the costume contest), I watched filkish duo Nefarious Ferrets. In both cases, I could understand the lyrics (not always a given!), liked the singers' voices, and enjoyed the songs' contents, both funny and serious.

Les (my husband) and I, along with one other couple, presented a panel on creative collaboration in marriage. We had a lively discussion, and I thought it went well. I appeared on two other panels, one on the appeal of vampires and one on paranormal romance. Les participated in sessions on "mid-story blahs," combat in speculative fiction, and hypothetical energy sources of the future. I watched the last few minutes of a slide presentation by a man from Richmond's Poe Museum, about Vincent Price's Poe-related movies; I wish I'd been able to see all of it.

All the costumes at the masquerade struck me as impressively elaborate. Even though I recognized the sources of almost none, most being based on video games, I enjoyed and admired them. My only complaint about the event was that sometimes the background music was too loud.

We came away with a good impression of the hotel. Despite its single major flaw, the lack of an auditorium, only one event—the masquerade/costume contest—was so crowded that standing latecomers lined up against a wall. Since the location is closer to home for us than the previous hotel, I hope RavenCon stays there for a long time. Especially because it takes the entire weekend to learn the layout of a new venue, and I don't want the effort wasted. :)

You can read all about the convention and view the program schedule here:

RavenCon

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

False and Loose

The copyright-related legal blogs from last week are particularly fascinating for authors of all kinds of fiction, including alien romance writers.... and for fans of the Italian philosopher and statesman Niccolo Machiavelli.

I like to think that the author of history's most famous book on dirty politics would have approved of the legal notion that, in America, under the First Amendment, "false speech is protected..."

Legal blogger Benjamin E. Marks of the international law firm Weil Gotshal and Manges LLP, pens a spotlight on free speech and media freedom in the USA (which is an except from a larger media and entertainment law review article.)

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=5a117d1b-446d-4c9d-b2eb-d48d616ad3c3

Benjamin E. Marks begins with a masterful explanation of The First Amendment (which limits government interference with American citizens' right to free speech.)

"The First Amendment to the US Constitution provides strong (but not absolute) protection to all forms of speech. As a general matter, 'government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content'."

He goes on to explain the few and limited exceptions that are not protected, and also mentions a few obnoxious (my word) categories that the government has attempted to unshield without success. Please follow the link for the details.

Next, Mr. Marks discusses false speech, other forms of objectionable speech, and the fact that it is mostly protected!

"False speech is protected unless it involves defamation, fraud or some other legally cognisable harm; falsity alone is not enough.⁵ Hate speech is also protected, reflecting the bedrock principle that the government 'may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable'.⁶ The First Amendment affords special protection to 'even hurtful speech' when it concerns a public issue to 'ensure that we do not stifle public debate'.^7"

The First Amendment applies only to government, and not to private businesses. The line about special protection for hurtful speech reminds me of the quote attributed to French philosopher Voltaire, and often loosely translated and reported as: "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Columnist David Hunter wrote an opinion article on how quotations become tangled.

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-hunter/2017/01/31/david-hunter-s-easy-see-how-quotations-become-tangled/97253246/

It's worth noting in passing that authors and bloggers may be forgiven for innocently mangling a word or two within an otherwise accurate quote, but cobbling together a-quote-that-never-was is risky.

Credit to writersweekly for the news link.

https://writersweekly.com/in-the-news/042922?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=writersweekly-com-112119_67

As for publishers, they usually skate on liability. The legal buck stops with the writer and his or her sources if information of disputed accuracy is acquired without the consent of the original owner. Under maritime law, if a compromising diary is found on a beach, it matters whether it is flotsam or jetsam, for instance.

The copyright of letters, diaries, yearbooks, texts etc. belong to the author, not to the recipient nor to the finder, purchaser, or incidental acquirer, for instance.

Mr. Marks writes:

"However, a publisher cannot be held liable for the unlawful procuring of information by a source if the publisher was not involved in the illegal conduct....^"

 This is really interesting for writers. Books, newspapers etc are not classed as commercial speech simply because they are sold to the public.

"... media and entertainment products are not commercial speech merely because they are distributed or sold as part of for-profit enterprises.¹³ Accordingly, even false media reports are generally not actionable under consumer protection laws.^14"

Then, there is the matter of whether or not untruths in advertising (my words) are protected false speech depending on their audience.

Legal bloggers Kyle-Beth Hilfer and Sarah Sue Landau , experts in advertising law, of the law firm Cowan Liebowitz and Latman PC  discuss "Dark Patterns" in advertising, with especial emphasis on false urgency, for instance on commercial sites in the travel industry.

“Almost sold out.” “Act now.” Such marketing messages, conveying urgency to purchase, led to a $2.6 million settlement with the Attorney General of New York over deceptive marketing practices..."

So begins their Advertising Law Alert.

Original link:

https://www.cll.com/newsroom-news-173151

 

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9144e7c6-5597-4d44-adad-682c805f8ac2

Allegedly, with the purpose of creating a sense of urgency, the travel-related platforms in question might display..

 "fictitious messages indicating the number of tickets left for a flight or a percentage of hotel rooms available at a certain price, and would prompt consumers to “book now.” For example, if a consumer was searching for a single ticket from New York to Toledo, she would see a message that there were only two tickets still available when, in fact, there were many. Consumers were thus misled to believe that time was running out to purchase the deal."

Any author looking for flights to the next author conference, or reserving a room might well wonder. We've probably all seen those "urgency" messages.  For more insights into the sexily-monikered "Dark Patterns" follow the links.

Plagiarism is also a form of false speech. Many authors have some insight into how it feels to be plagiarised, and given the conveniences of the internet, it has become increasingly easy to cut and paste someone else's work from online.

In Turkey, plagiarism is also known as pilferage.

From Istanbul-headquartered law firm Gun and partners comes a very interesting article on the concept of plagiarism. They do not credit an individual author.

Original link:

https://gun.av.tr/insights/articles/a-glance-at-the-concept-of-plagiarism

 

Lexology link:

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=13e017c3-723b-4ad4-8b9b-007fdacb8937

Quoting them:

"Although plagiarism is not clearly defined in Law No. 5846 on Intellectual and Artistic Works (LIAW), it is one of the most common acts of infringement. Plagiarism, which is defined as “pilferage” by the Turkish Language Association under the law on intellectual and artistic works, is used to “present someone else’s work as your own, taking a piece from someone else’s work without citing the source”.

Much to consider.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday