MrDonn.org - Frequently Asked Questions, Copyrights, Fair Use

Frequently Asked Questions

Is your material copyrighted or may I use it?

Answer: Yes, our material is copyrighted. Nearly all the original material on the web is copyrighted thanks to the new laws that immediately copyright original work loaded to the web. If you copy other people's work - and post it on another site - their work is still copyrighted, and you could be in a lot of trouble even if you're a kid. Copyright & Fair Use Laws

But, of course you may use our lesson plans, units, and learning modules in your classrooms, with some restrictions. RESTRICTIONS: Students (and everyone else, including teachers), you may not make a copy of our material, put your name on it, and turn it in as your work. You may not copy our material and post it on your web page or anyone else's web page. You may not mirror our site. You may not frame our site and/or sell copies of our work without our written permission. To do so is copyright infringement, which is a crime.

Please take a few minutes and review these simple rules: Copyright & Fair Use Rules

How do I credit a web page source?

Answer: If you need our permission to link to our site, you have it. Links to our site are welcomed and appreciated.

If you're wondering how to credit a web page source in a bibliography, this site is very helpful: Citing Electronic Sources (Library of Congress recommended guide)

Here's a suggestion (but check with your teacher first, to make sure this format is acceptable): Include the following information for each source: Author (if known,) Page Title, web address (URL) and the month and year you accessed that web page (not when the page was written.)

HERE IS AN EXAMPLE: Once upon a time, in the year 2007, during February, while cruising the web, you stumbled across our daily life sites. "How lucky," you said at the time. "My report on ancient Greece is due tomorrow!" If you had listed our site in your bibliography, that listing might have read something like this:

Daily Life in Ancient Greece
http://greece.mrdonn.org/index.html
February 2007

Actually, we wrote a great deal of that site in 1997 and 1998, and updated it in 2002, and again in 2005, and again in 2008. It doesn't matter when we wrote it. It only matters when you used it.

My teacher says that is not enough.
I need to know your background.
Please tell me more about yourself and where you got your information.

Answer: More? Okay. We've read thousands of articles and books about history just for the fun of it! We've learned a lot over the years. Does that mean our material is "right"? Who knows! We try to be accurate. If one of our web pages was checked for accuracy or enriched with information by an expert, that expert will be listed in the credits section, along with any books we used. But we are not experts in anything.

Do you answer your e-mail messages?

Answer: We receive a great many e-mail messages every day. We don't have time to read all the mail we receive, let alone respond to it, so our answer is regrettably no.

Since we don't have time to answer the bulk of our mail, we hope this FAQ section answers all your questions.

Thanks for visiting!
Have a great year!

Lin & Don Donn