saintseiya
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Colorado
I am stuck for making a simple definition section for my free educational website. Being a Statistics Minor, I have definitions drilled into my head. I'm scared to use my own definitions as I am sure they are derivative work from one of the books in previous definitions I have learned.
I currently have 3 Statistics text books in front of me.
Example:
Degree of freedom: Number of values that are free to vary after certain restrictions have been imposed on all values.
Source: Elementary Statistics Using the TI83/TI84 calculator second edition, Author: Triola, Page 829.
Degree of freedom: the number of values that are free to vary after a sample statistic has been computed, used, when a distribution (such as the t distribution) consists of a family of curves.
Source: Elemntary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach (Seventh Edition), Author: Bluman, Page 806.
The third books is nearly the same thing.
Now online dictionaries:
degree of freedom : any of the statistically independent values of a sample that are used to determine a property of the sample, as the mean or variance.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
World English Dictionary
degree of freedom: one of the independent unrestricted random variables constituting a statistic
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
The problem is I could come up with either of the first two definitions on the fly. All of these definitions say the same thing to me. At what point are words common knowledge and the definitions are no longer copyrightable? I am just trying to protect myself. I just want some advise on how I should tackle this. Is there even a database on common knowledge terms?
Thanks you for your time,
Saintseiya
I am stuck for making a simple definition section for my free educational website. Being a Statistics Minor, I have definitions drilled into my head. I'm scared to use my own definitions as I am sure they are derivative work from one of the books in previous definitions I have learned.
I currently have 3 Statistics text books in front of me.
Example:
Degree of freedom: Number of values that are free to vary after certain restrictions have been imposed on all values.
Source: Elementary Statistics Using the TI83/TI84 calculator second edition, Author: Triola, Page 829.
Degree of freedom: the number of values that are free to vary after a sample statistic has been computed, used, when a distribution (such as the t distribution) consists of a family of curves.
Source: Elemntary Statistics: A Step by Step Approach (Seventh Edition), Author: Bluman, Page 806.
The third books is nearly the same thing.
Now online dictionaries:
degree of freedom : any of the statistically independent values of a sample that are used to determine a property of the sample, as the mean or variance.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
World English Dictionary
degree of freedom: one of the independent unrestricted random variables constituting a statistic
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
The problem is I could come up with either of the first two definitions on the fly. All of these definitions say the same thing to me. At what point are words common knowledge and the definitions are no longer copyrightable? I am just trying to protect myself. I just want some advise on how I should tackle this. Is there even a database on common knowledge terms?
Thanks you for your time,
Saintseiya
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