the Story-Argument Archive

TERMS OF SERVICE

Hello, Scholar!

Thank you for your interest in accessing the Story-Argument Archive, a body of work I created that is held inside the container of ScholarShape, LLC, my scholar support business. Below are the Story-Argument Archive Terms of Service, which must be read and accepted before accessing the Archive. (If you’d prefer, you can download the ToS in PDF format.) Throughout this document, all references to a/the “Archive” are to be understood as references to the Story-Argument Archive, specifically.

Settle in for a long, cozy read, as the Terms of Service are quite detailed in hopes of laying a solid foundation for our relationship for years to come!

IMPORTANT: At the bottom of this page is a form where you can confirm your acceptance of each individual Term and indicate your payment method. On that form, the email address you provide is where we’ll contact you about payment and send your Archive access email. If you have any questions about the Terms of Service, payment process, or anything else, do email or contact me here. Thank you!

1. ELIGIBILITY FOR MEMBERSHIP

Genius is everywhere! Story-Argument Archive membership is open to people of all educational backgrounds, career fields, and research interests. The materials have been developed around the needs of, and tested on, Ph.D.-holding scholars creating research publications in a range of disciplines. So, this population may be most likely to resonate with the resources. However, no matter your educational background, career goals, or research interests, you are welcome to try out the Archive.

Also, it should go without saying, yet is worth spelling out, that the Story-Argument Archive is open to people of all genders, racial backgrounds, ability, socioeconomic status, etc.—anyone and everyone who resonates with the description of the Archive as provided on the ScholarShape website.

Great care is taken to make the Story-Argument resources as user-friendly and accessible as possible, and I welcome any and all feedback that can help me keep improving on how I, as the principal of ScholarShape and creator of the Archive, live out these values.

2. PAYMENTS AND REFUNDS

With one flat fee (U.S. $600 when paid standalone, or complimentary as part of a service package purchase), you become a Member and receive lifetime digital access to the Story-Argument Archive.

If you purchase membership standalone, and not as part of a service, you have 14 days to request a refund, no questions asked. The 14-day period begins when payment is received and your access link is sent to you. Refunds are given via the same payment method used to make the purchase. Once the refund period has passed, refunds are not available.

3. ACCESSING THE ARCHIVE

You can access the Archive via your preferred web browser through any internet-connected device. All content layouts and navigation were designed and tested with the laptop, tablet, and smart phone user in mind. The test devices were a MacBook Pro, an iPad 6 Mini, and an iPhone 14 Pro.

For an app-like experience on your phone or tablet, you can save a bookmark/ shortcut to the Archive home page on your device’s Home Screen.

For all audio and video content, transcripts are provided so materials can be used in quiet settings.

When you purchase an Archive Membership, you are prompted to create your own unique sign-in (username and password), which you then use to access the Archive through any computer, tablet, or mobile device.

Be sure to log out if you use a device other than your own to access the Archive, as sharing your log-in is a violation of the Terms of Service and may result in cancellation of your membership (see “Intellectual Property” below).

Your log-in is valid for as long as the Story-Argument Archive exists at this domain, which there is every hope and intention will be for many years to come.

While I make every effort to ensure uninterrupted access to the Story-Argument Archive 24/7/365 (and 366 on leap years!), brief service interruptions may periodically occur in the event of server issues, system upgrades, etc. Rest assured, I will do everything in my power to ensure the Archive is here for you whenever you need it, and to provide backup access to contents where appropriate.

If you run into any complications accessing materials in the Archive, or have feedback on improving accessibility or navigability, please let me know via email or the Help Desk.

4. HELP DESK

Should any questions arise as you use the Archive materials, you can contact the Help Desk, which is accessible inside the Archive via the home page. The Help Desk is here to help you navigate, understand, interpret, and apply the resources, and to receive your feedback on how to continue improving Member experience!

Please note that support via the Help Desk is not a substitute for one-on-one coaching or editing services, and it is unable to provide feedback on drafts of your writing or intricate scenarios specific to you. Please allow 3-5 business days’ response time.

5. BOUNDARIES AROUND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The Story-Argument Archive contains a body of work that has been laboriously developed over many years, yet will undergo still more development before culminating in a collection of published books in various genres. When you join the Story-Argument Archive, you are being invited into an evolving record and repository of a body of work still in the process of emergence, whose book forms will (hopefully) appear in the coming years. And you’re being invited to see how the shape of this work can inform the emergence of your own.

In differentiating my (ScholarShape‘s) intellectual property from your own, it’s important to remember that, just like a book you might read or a presentation you might attend, each of the materials in the Archive is in fixed form and as such is protected from copyright infringement by copyright law, and protected from plagiarism by the norms of academic integrity. Each resource in the Archive can be quoted and cited in its current form, even as its author (me) plans to revise and build on the Archive contents in years to come.

Because at this stage, the ScholarShape materials exist as a sort of curriculum behind a paywall, rather than as books in a library, additional clarification is helpful regarding what uses of the Story-Argument Archive materials are permitted and what uses are prohibited. The proceeding paragraphs provide this clarification.

IMPORTANT: Please read carefully the sections on Permitted and Prohibited Uses of Story-Argument Archive materials, particularly the underlined portions. If you have any questions, please contact me, and I will be happy to clarify!

5a. Permitted Uses

As a Story-Argument Archive Member, you are explicitly permitted and encouraged to access, engage with, discuss, and cite ScholarShape’s intellectual property within the contours described here in Section 5(a).

Access: One Story-Argument Archive Membership (U.S. $600, or complimentary with a service package) covers one person’s lifetime access to the Archive. As a Member, you may enter the Archive at any time to watch the videos, listen to the audio, read the text, and view the images. You have this right for as long as the Archive exists at this domain, which will hopefully be for many years to come.

Engagement: As an Archive Member, you are encouraged to use the resources to structure your own thinking and writing. Complete the exercises, design your manuscripts according to the patterns elucidated, and absorb the vocabulary into your own ways of talking about and practicing scholarly work.

Collaboration. As an Archive Member, you are permitted and encouraged to use the Archive materials in collaboration with other Members where no party is paying another for services. To give two examples, the materials may be used to structure conversations and feedback exchanges among (i) unpaid peer support groups where all participants are Archive Members, and (ii) within writing partnerships where both partners are Archive Members.

Citation: As you would with any other source, you may find yourself discussing, quoting, paraphrasing, or otherwise building your own work by drawing on the Archive contents. Should you do so, be sure to credit your source as Margy Thomas, creator of ScholarShape. The practice of citation — whether citing a book, article, presentation, private correspondence, ScholarShape resource, or any other fixed expression — enables you to credit sources of ideas, vocabulary, organizational structures, syntheses, and where applicable, exact phrasings and styles of expression.

Indirect citation is appropriate when you are summarizing or paraphrasing someone else’s idea, drawing on their synthesis, or using their organizational structure. Direct quotation is appropriate when you are borrowing exact phrasings, forms of expressions, or vocabulary / terminology / neologisms. When directly quoting others’ work, remember to include quotation marks and precise source location information.

If you haven’t recently, you may wish to familiarize yourself with the important differences between fair use (which is encouraged!) and plagiarism and copyright infringement, which, of course, we all want to avoid not only due to professional consequences, but for the sake of our consciences and self-respect.

As you engage in conscientious citation, it is good practice to clarify for your reader as precisely as you can where the line is between your source material, and your own claim/ contribution relative to that source material.

If you wish to cite Story-Argument Archive resources in work that you intend to publish, please contact me (Margy Thomas) to receive written permission and citation information.

5b. Prohibited Uses

Your use of Story-Argument Archive materials is permitted within specific boundaries. Constraints around your use are delineated below.

No sharing of access to the Archive. Your Membership covers only your access to the Story-Argument Archive materials and not the access of any other individuals. The Membership is non-transferable and does not include the right to share the access or login information with anyone else.

No sharing or appropriation of materials. Membership does not include permission to broadcast, record, duplicate, download, reproduce, publicly display, or create derivative works from any of the Story-Argument Archive contents.

No use of materials in third-party services for non-Members. You may not use the Story-Argument Archive materials as a structure for providing client services (e.g., as a writing coach, editor, consultant, etc) to non-Members, or as a course or workshop material in teaching students or other individuals who are non-Members. In other words, your Membership is for your own personal and professional development and for support in creating your own work. The Archive materials are not to be used as a structure for providing paid work (client services, teaching, workshops, etc.) to third parties. Certain exceptions may be made if the clients/students with whom you are working are also Archive Members; if you would like to discuss such a potential arrangement, please contact me (Margy Thomas).

As noted in (5a), you are welcome to use the materials in collaborative settings such as free peer support groups in which all parties are Story-Argument Archive Members, as long as no party is paying another for services.

5c. Summary, Remedies, and Rationale

In summary, all materials in the Story-Argument Archive are the original work of Margy Thomas, Ph.D., principal of ScholarShape, and are protected by both copyright law and academic norms prohibiting plagiarism. Unauthorized use of the intellectual property belonging to Margy Thomas (ScholarShape) is a violation of these Terms of Service and, as such, may result in cancellation of your Membership without a refund and/or a lifetime ban from the Archive. Please note, as well, that in the event of copyright infringement and/or unauthorized use, legal remedies may be pursued in order to protect the integrity and sustainability of the ScholarShape project.

Hopefully it is clear from this document as a whole why these boundaries around Member use of the Story-Argument Archive are important. With your support, and favorable winds, ScholarShape and the Archive can still be here to serve the scholarly community many years from now!

(Note: None of the statements anywhere in these Terms of Service are to be construed as legal advice. You are encouraged to do your own research and/ or consult with relevant experts on any area where you may find it beneficial.)

6. GROUNDS FOR LOSS OF ARCHIVES ACCESS

At ScholarShape’s sole discretion, any Member who violates the Terms of Service, particularly the boundaries around intellectual property delineated in Section 5, may have their access to the Archive revoked without a refund.

Moreover, engaging in abusive, hostile, or threatening communication and/or behavior toward ScholarShape or its representatives may be considered a violation of the Terms of Service, resulting in loss of access to the Archive.

Here’s hoping that this clause proves wholly unnecessary and that we all proceed together into a glorious future full of generous, respectful, goodwill-infused relationships with one another!

7. TAKING THE LONG VIEW & OPENING TO UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES

ScholarShape is based on a wholehearted belief in the power of Story-Argument as an approach to life and scholarship. I (Margy Thomas) have experienced first-hand, and witnessed in those I’ve worked with, how learning the Story-Argument model can transform for the better the ways that we think, write, ask questions, make meaning, and survive painful experiences with hope still intact.

That said, inviting in Story-Argument is not about implementing a proven system or engineering a specific result that is knowable in advance. Especially at first, the process of Story-Argument can feel messy and inscrutable, on the way to yielding its rich, lasting rewards.

Story-Argument may pry our long-cherished delusions out of our hands. It may call us into open conflict where previously we had tried to repress our truth for the sake of false peace. Story-Argument operates on its own time scale, which may be faster or slower than we find comfortable (albeit as it often turns out, Story-Argument’s timing tends to be better than what we could have planned).

Given all the complexity, variability, and unpredictability in how Story-Argument unfolds in a life, please understand you are not being promised specific results such as “you will write faster by next week” or “you will publish more by next year” or “fewer people will criticize your work.” Story-Argument operates at a deeper level, helping you establish a firm foundation beneath your self and work, and persist in the long, hard, beautiful labor of real-izing who you are and what you are here to create. It’s a process of hundreds or thousands of large and small steps years in the making.

And the future You who will emerge through Story-Argument is someone you’ll be the first to imagine and witness: no one else can tell you in advance who that will be. The lifetime duration of your Story-Argument Archive Membership is meant to accommodate the spacious, recursive, epochal nature of living with, in, and through Story-Argument.

8. UPDATES AND CLARIFICATIONS TO TERMS OF SERVICE

Updates and clarifications may periodically be made to these Terms of Service, in which case Members will be prompted to accept the updated Terms of Service for continued access to the Archive. As ScholarShape has been methodically and painstakingly developed over many years (since 2013), major changes to core features are not anticipated. Yet, it’s helpful to be able to make tweaks as needed for the long-term flourishing of ScholarShape, the Story-Argument Archive, and, by extension, for the scholars they are here to serve!

Thank you for your kind attention.

Yours in Story-Argument,

Margy Thomas, Ph.D.

Version: December 2024

Terms of Service Acceptance Form

Please use the form below to confirm that you have read the Terms of Service and that you accept each of them. All “Yes” boxes must be checked in order to enroll in Story-Argument Archive membership.

If you submit a form with any of the boxes checked “No,” you will need to re-submit the form with all “Yes”es in order to enroll.

Once you have submitted this form with all boxes checked “Yes,” we’ll contact you about payment. Upon receipt of your payment, your Archive access email is promptly sent to the email address provided on the form below.