Young Writers Society

So. I'm planning on writing another article-thing for the knowledge base. I really like doing that. I have the idea in my head to use excerpts from published books (just little quotes, really) to give examples of what to do or not to do with the subject I want to write about (i.e. how to not use a hyphen). I'm not quite sure what copyrights a book can have, and if they apply when you're just quoting a book, and on a website for improving writing for that matter. Obviously, I'm only using the material for helpful purposes, and I would make it clear that the work was not my own when necessary; any help on the subject would be great.

If I've read copyright on published books correctly, you can't use quotes (cited or uncited) from the novel if you're going to publish the place you're using the quotes. If you cite the quotes, then according to YWS rules you've not plagiarized.

I've seen a few articles in the KB that use quotes from stories as examples, including one I've written. For some cases like grammar, I've written my own just so I don't have to hunt through a novel to find such a quote. But for stuff like examples for writing techniques, finding a quote (so long as the article remains unpublished) should be fine.

Also, and just as something as more of a courtesy, give the original author some credit for what they wrote in the article, probably as just a note or something at the bottom of the article. It's the nice thing to do.

Great! Thanks both of you. : )