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Khizran Kaleem wondered: <<I think it is about time I should be
concentrating more on the "legal" aspect of the documents. What is
plagiarism and what is not?>>
These and other questions will be answered in a variety of published
resources. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is a great source of
information on all aspects of publishing, so pick up a copy and start
your research there. It's not necessarily a good style guide for
technical communication, because it doesn't include all our word
issues, but it provides tons of sensible advice on the use of English
in general that can be "translated" for use in our field.
What plagiarism is not, is easy to define in a way that helps you in
your daily work. The simplest definition: plagiarism means that
you're using someone else's words without permission and pretending
that they're your own writing. A bit more complicated: you can't
simply copy someone's words, add their name to the end as if you're
quoting them, and assume you're safe. Some reuse is allowed under the
"fair use" guidelines, particularly for scholarly work, but you have
to provide more intellectual input than simply collecting quotes if
you want to obtain this protection.
Note that copyright does not protect ideas--just the words in which
those ideas are expressed. So if you use someone else's information
to research the answer to a question, then write that answer in your
own words, that's legal. In fact, it's standard practice.
<<What is a trademark acknowledgement?>>
Those who own a trademark must take measures to protect it. To show
that you're helping them to protect it, you specifically acknowledge
that the trademark belongs to that someone else. The usual way is to
include a list of trademarks and their owners at the start of the
manual (e.g., "Product(R) is a registered trademark of Microsoft"),
then ignore the issue thereafter. As long as you're not using the
trademark as a generic or trying to make it look like you own the
product, no problem. Most current documentation will provide a
suitable example of how to say this.
<<What terms to use or not to use in user manuals or help files?>>
Any good style guide will provide general guidance. I like Sun's
_Read me first_ and distrust Microsoft's guide, but Microsoft does at
least propose a wide range of suggestions for you to follow or
ignore. If you want more specific advice, techwr-l is a great
resource. Send us a bunch of questions, and if it looks like you've
been doing any thinking about the problem rather than asking us to do
the work for you <hint, hint>, you'll get good answers.
<<What does the year in the copyright statement specify?>>
It specifies the year in which the contents were fixed in tangible
form--thus, usually the year the publication was printed or made
available electronically. Revised versions may get an additional
copyright year added so that the year of each version is included in
the range of dates. For details, see CMS.
Note that you don't actually need to add a copyright statement to
obtain protection under copyright law. All this statement does is
serve notice to the reader that you're aware of copyright law, and
provides a date to help readers identify how old the information is.
Neither do you need to formally register copyright, although doing so
gets you certain legal rights you won't otherwise have. (For example,
you have to prove damages to collect a financial reward if copyright
is not registered; if it is registered, the standards of proof are
much easier to meet.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
Geoff Hart ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)
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