MS Explorations | MS Academics | Middle School | The American School in Japan

Requests for Permission

If you want to use an image, icon, quote, or sound from another site or you want to use something from a book, you need to determine what the licensing requirements are. If the site or book doesn't tell you what the requirements are, you need to contact the owner of the image and request permission. You are much more likely to get permission if you keep a few things in mind that you are conducting business, not chatting socially. Because you will be corresponding with adults who are professionals in most cases, you need to compose your email or letter accordingly:

1. Punctuation, spelling, capitalization and grammar count.

2. Make sure that you use an email account with your real name and that the account name is appropriate.

3. Tell exactly what you want and where they can find it. Include the URL if it is in a web site or the full bibliographic citation if it is in a book.

4. Tell how you will use the image.

5. Tell who your mentor or teacher is, and copy the email to that person also.

A sample email is:

Hello,

My name is (your name here) and I am a student in the Multimedia Skills course at The American School in Japan Middle School. My advisor for this course is Derrel Fincher (dfincher@asij.ac.jp). I am creating a web site for (explain the purpose here).  For this site, may we have permission to use (explain exactly what you want to use, including the URL, if the item you want is on their site, or the bibliographic citation if it is not.)? I will use it (explain why you want to use it--is it to illustrate something on the page or is it to be a link by itself.) If you have any further questions, please contact me. 

Thank you,

Your Name

Once you get approval, put electronic copies of the emails in a separate folder attached to the site.

Last updated 08/27/03