"You will be penalised for obvious copying from films, television etc."

lijh

On the 1999 English HL Paper, under the Personal Writing section (Essay 8) it says:

"You will be penalised for obvious copying from films, television etc."

Is this really enforced? What does "obvious copying" mean? How many marks do they penalise you with?

Would the examiner actually look into your essay to try and find any resemblance to the plot of a movie/television programmes? Could you quote from a novel, or even include a famous phrase without having to denote where you got it from?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

PurpleFistMixer

Probably just that if you rip off the story line from a film or something, they'll take marks off you.

Frank3142

anything i write is always heavily influenced by tv shoes, films and other books.

Piste

I'm sure if you copied an obscure short story the examiner mightn't know it- but remember these examiners are English teachers- and probably have been for some time- so they'd be quite well read and familiar with a lot of literature and films.

Frank3142

Frank3142 wrote: »

anything i write is always heavily influenced by tv shoes, films and other books.

i meant to say shows by the way ........ TV shoes now theres an idea.:cool:

Jam-Fly

What it means is, don't write a short story about a guy getting himself incarcerated, getting a map tattoed onto his body outlining an escape from the prison and then braking his brother out of the prison for a crime he didn't commit

or a short story about a young boy who finds himself to be a wizard and then goes to a magical school just for wizards and witches and then battles against the most powerful of the evil wizards

etc.

lijh

Ok...... thanks for the replies, I know what "obvious copying from films, television etc." means.

What I really want to know is if this is enforced for every short story?, or for just ones where it denotes it, like on the the 1998 paper?

LoonyLovegood

I did the exact same question in school today. It's only if it's shown here. My example: In my mock, I basically ripped off The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I wasn't deducted, even though my teacher and I had had a conversation about that very book in class a week before. If I had an idea, but it sounded like a popular book or something, unless I'm really stuck (like I was in the mock), I wouldn't do it.

But that question was actually very broad, because you could literally write ANYTHING for it, which is probably why they mentioned that.

soccymonster

Just read some book that no-one has read and try, if possible to rip a scene from that and put it into your own short story! Theres bound to be a heading that has something to do with the book you read.. Thats what i did in my mock by copying like the whole starting scene from the book 'i am david'.. And i gotta B!.. And i doubt anyone would have guessed that i would have read THAT book..

jumpguy

Don't quote me on this but I think if you are found to be very blatantly copying, you'll be marked out of 50%. I'd imagine unless it was extraordinarily well-copied, it'd be a tough one for an examiner to call so it'd be an unlikely case. Like you said, how can one tell how much similiarity is copying?

partyatmygaff

It really doesn't make a difference tbh as long as you don't copy the story completely, obviously dont just change the characters or something but make something new.



I got away with 67/70 in my personal writing section in my mock without copying anything, the key to getting a good result is to make it yourself!

soccymonster

partyatmygaff wrote: »

i got away with 67/70 in my personal writing section in my mock without copying anything, the key to getting a good result is to make it yourself!

well lets just say someone (like me!) doesnt have the imagination of your standards, sure copying is the easiest answer?? *poor attempt at evil laugh*..

partyatmygaff

soccymonster wrote: »

well lets just say someone (like me!) doesnt have the imagination of your standards, sure copying is the easiest answer?? *poor attempt at evil laugh*..

Well you could always put in lots of gory or sick descriptions of things such as the aftermath of a carbomb.
This story isn't stomach-churning just mightn't be suitable for those with a REALLY WEAK stomach, for most people it will be alright but you can never be to sure.

BTW: I am not mentally disturbed :rolleyes:

"It was bedlam, I was in agony, there were screams everywhere, blood everywhere, the signs of death and pain everywhere, a quick glance to my right confirmed to me that that warm liquid running down the side of my face was indeed blood. In front of me was hell, flames, screams and a pool of blood and splintered white littered the ground. A charred torso of a young girl along with the remnants of what appeared to be an arm were lying just inches away from me, burning, disintegrating. I was in shock, thoughts racing through my head, I could not move nor hardly breathe........"

Its all about getting whoever's reading your story to feel sickened or emotional, then they gloss over all your mistakes and marks start rolling in

soccymonster

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Well you could always put in lots of gory or sick descriptions of things such as the aftermath of a carbomb.
This story isn't stomach-churning just mightn't be suitable for those with a REALLY WEAK stomach, for most people it will be alright but you can never be to sure.

BTW: I am not mentally disturbed :rolleyes:

"It was bedlam, I was in agony, there were screams everywhere, blood everywhere, the signs of death and pain everywhere, a quick glance to my right confirmed to me that that warm liquid running down the side of my face was indeed blood. In front of me was hell, flames, screams and a pool of blood and splintered white littered the ground. A charred torso of a young girl along with the remnants of what appeared to be an arm were lying just inches away from me, burning, disintegrating. I was in shock, thoughts racing through my head, I could not move nor hardly breathe........"

Its all about getting whoever's reading your story to feel sickened or emotional, then they gloss over all your mistakes and marks start rolling in

very good.. although i must say alot of those words are not in my vocabulary such as "charred torso".. what is that??
hmm.. your idea might just work.. i better write some disgusting descriptive paragraphs that might just pop up in my essay on the day, thanks for the advice;):D

partyatmygaff

soccymonster wrote: »

very good.. although i must say alot of those words are not in my vocabulary such as "charred torso".. what is that??
hmm.. your idea might just work.. i better write some disgusting descriptive paragraphs that might just pop up in my essay on the day, thanks for the advice;):D

Charred means Blackened and Burned, Flaky dusty type of afterburn.

Torso is your midbody minus arms,legs and head.

You do the maths. Or english should I say :pac:


Sure well, If the examiner has to end up using a dictionary to get the meaning of your words Im pretty sure you'll be guaranteed atleast a B

Just confuse 'em and make them sick and hope you pass.

soccymonster

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Charred means Blackened and Burned, Flaky dusty type of afterburn.

Torso is your midbody minus arms,legs and head.

You do the maths. Or english should I say :pac:


Sure well, If the examiner has to end up using a dictionary to get the meaning of your words Im pretty sure you'll be guaranteed atleast a B

Just confuse 'em and make them sick and hope you pass.

i thought a torso was like clothes or something..
damn, the faster that english test is over, the better!!!!!!!:o

partyatmygaff

soccymonster wrote: »

i thought a torso was like clothes or something..
damn, the faster that english test is over, the better!!!!!!!:o

Your thinking about a corset......

soccymonster

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Your thinking about a corset......

was i??? :pac:
oh ok! im guessing you are an A english student! since you have such a wide range of vocab! or maybe your just copying all this information off a website making yourself out to be extremely inteligent (i would have used the word "smart" instead of "intelligent" but i wanted to show off my wide range of vocab too!:pac::pac:).. hmmm..

PurpleFistMixer

Since we're talking about English here, it's "you're".

You're = you are, "you're thinking", "you're a grammar nazi"
Your = belonging to you, "your hat", "your grade"

partyatmygaff

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

Since we're talking about English here, it's "you're".

You're = you are, "you're thinking", "you're a grammar nazi"
Your = belonging to you, "your hat", "your grade"

I commend thee, thou Grammar Nazi.





BTW for the record our teacher is an extremely hard marker, I average a C+ but for the last year its been a B, Im hoping I might get an A in the real JC though, very unlikely though.

soccymonster

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

Since we're talking about English here, it's "you're".

You're = you are, "you're thinking", "you're a grammar nazi"
Your = belonging to you, "your hat", "your grade"

C'mon give me a break here... I'm under servere stress, the last thing I want to think about is some boardsie correcting my grammer, I've had enough of that from my english teacher for the last year with my spelling mistakes in my essays (lets just say i couldn't spell the word "hero") i can now though..:D:D:D
english in 5 days aaaahhhh!!!!:eek:

partyatmygaff

soccymonster wrote: »

C'mon give me a break here... I'm under servere(severe) stress, the last thing I want to think about is some boardsie correcting my grammer(grammar), I've had enough of that from my english teacher for the last year with my spelling mistakes in my essays (lets just say i couldn't spell the word "hero") i can now though..:D:D:D
english in 5 days aaaahhhh!!!!:eek:

Tut tut, spelling too?


:pac:

PurpleFistMixer

soccymonster wrote: »

C'mon give me a break here... I'm under servere stress, the last thing I want to think about is some boardsie correcting my grammer, I've had enough of that from my english teacher for the last year with my spelling mistakes in my essays (lets just say i couldn't spell the word "hero") i can now though..:D:D:D
english in 5 days aaaahhhh!!!!:eek:

So don't think about it. : ) It's just a ridiculously common mistake and it drives me insane.

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

LoonyLovegood

One thing I do, is try relate them to songs. If you can get the storyline to go along with the song, write it! It works so well, and gets good marks too.

soccymonster

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Tut tut, spelling too?


:pac:

you pointed out all my spelling mistakes:p:p
thanks for that, now i just have to go off and learn how to spell every single word in the dictionary!!:(

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

So don't think about it. : ) It's just a ridiculously common mistake and it drives me insane.

i never notice, but maybe thats just me..:p:pac:

Hiccuper

I base my stories loosely on video games, for example, in my mock paper I wrote about a journalist in a country in Africa during a civil war, I took that from Far Cry 2, but in the game, you're a mercenary, and skilled with weapons. In my story the journalist was obviously untrained and fumbled when he was given a pistol. In my story the journalist was also working with the BBC.

If you need ideas from movies/books/TV shows/games, base it very, very loosely, think of the source you're basing the story on, then twist one part of the story, then another, until you have something different from the source.