This is what kind of bothers me about writing in general…there are hundreds and thousands of books, magazine and newspaper articles, encyclopedias, etc., written all over the world. It is definitely impossible to have read all of them. So how do you know that someone hasn’t already thought of an idea that you think is your own, and already written it down, if you do not know anything about the existence of that writing? The author states on pages 172-173 of the text that President Obama gave a speech almost identical to a speech given by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. Can we be sure, (because it has not been proven in the textbook) that Obama even heard the governor’s speech? The words and ideas they both stated were similar, but not exactly identical. However, they aren’t even coming up with their own complex ideas; they are quoting what others have said throughout history, “I have a Dream.” “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” If you reword something that is an obvious scientific fact, is it plagiarism? Do you have to cite the book, even if you rewrote what you wrote into your own words? There is nothing scarier than getting an F on a paper, being accused of plagiarism, especially if you did not intentionally do it. I can read the same fact in twenty different encyclopedias, but no one really owns the idea, since each encyclopedia says the same thing, just with different wording.

Troy Swanson.” Mash It Up…Gracefully”. “Why White Rice? -Thinking Through Writing”. Kendall Hunt Pub. 2010. p.163-174