When writing a blog, you might want to use information from an article you read online or information from a publication you read. Reposting information from online sources, magazines, and books are all copyrighted. Without permission from the author to use content from these publications, you may infringe on their copyrights and have possible legal issues.
The easiest way to avoid copyright problems is to use information from an article or book and rewrite it in your own words. Changing at least one word in any sentence taken from an article makes that sentence yours. You can also use quotation marks to specify exact information you are taking from an article, word-for-word, and give the author’s name at the beginning of the repost in your blog. You can also use “said that” and rewrite the information in your own words.
Ex: Jane Smith said that many bulbs must be pre-chilled at least five-six weeks before planting.
Ex: Jane Smith said, “Some bulbs must be pre-chilled at least six weeks before planting.”
What is a Copyright?
A copyright is an exclusive legal right to print, film or record information that someone creates. Copyright laws grant the author of the work exclusive rights to reproduce or distribute their original work.
Guidelines for Properly Reposting Information from an Original Source
1. If reposting large amounts of information from an article or literary work, the person holding the copyright to that material must give written permission for you to use the word-for-word information. You must contact the person, identify the article you wish to repost from and get written permission to repost that information.
2. Once written permission has been granted to repost information from the article in your blog, show that the information you are using is a direct repost from another article by adding an asterisk at the end of the repost. At the bottom of the blog, add an asterisk and provide the author’s name, the article’s title, the publication it was printed in, and the year of publication. If using more than one large repost, add an asterisk for each repost and number them beginning with #1.
Ex: *1. Jane Smith, “How to Plant Bulbs”, Gardening for Today, June 2025.
Getting written permission for use of large amounts of exact information from an article is difficult to do. Instead, the easy way is to rewrite the information in your own words. It’s not difficult to do and avoids any copyright infringements. Our blogs are short, so rewriting information is not a tedious job.
When it comes to photos, it is best to use your own photos or a site with royalty free photos. Sites such as wikipedia, wikimedia, and pixabay.com have royalty free photos and do not charge for their use. The blog manager can also provide photos, if you request her to. A minimum of one photo is needed for a blog and a maximum of five photos. Captions can be written for each photo, or you can send just photos with no captions.
November and December are months not assigned to a specific district. Any and all blogs are welcome on any topic or club event. We love posting your blogs! Thanks to Southern District for their blogs sent in Sept-Oct. Let’s Keep Blogging!
AFGC Blog Schedule for Districts (it will repeat each year)
Jan-Feb Central
March-Apr Northern
May-June Eastern
July-Aug Western
Sept-Oct Southern
Nov-Dec Open to All Districts
By Karen Bowen
