As you engage in the academic conversation, you not only need to give credit for others' ideas, but in some cases, you will also need to request permission to reproduce quotations, pictures, charts, standardized tests, or other materials created by other authors.

ProQuest Information and Learning has developed a helpful Copyright Law and Graduate Research manual to address the legal rights and obligations of graduate learners as they prepare their dissertations. According to the manual's preface, "nearly fifteen percent of all doctoral dissertations sent to UMI for publication lack all necessary copyright clearances and permissions" (Crews, 2000). In these cases the writers must secure late permissions or rewrite portions of their work, delaying publication of their dissertations.

The manual provides an overview of the essential principles of copyright laws to enable new researchers to comply with their legal responsibility to protect the work of others as well as to protect their own dissertations. It addresses the topics listed below and also provides a sample permission letter in Appendix A.

• Copyright and Scholarship.
• What is Copyright?
• Roadmap for Copyright Compliance.
• How to Request Permission.
• Protecting Your Copyright.
• Appendix A: Sample Permission Letter.