Blog Post 3

            Johnson-Eilola and Selber’s concept of assemblage is an idea that everything that we produce is taken from concepts previously stated or used by people before us. All the books we read are composed by authors who have researched the topic in depth, consulting texts from those prior who might have insight on the subject at hand. Assemblage relates to the concept of remix. Remixing is assembling samples together but changing the pieces taken from someone else enough to call it their own. There can be a fine line between assembling chunks of someone else’s work to say what it is you want to and taking a former idea and putting your own twist on it.

            It is considered a serious offense, especially in school, when you copy work from another person without giving them the credibility that they deserve; you are committing plagiarism. It is encouraged to seek information from outside sources as long as you explain the issue in your own words. Some people try to paraphrase what the find on the internet which is still considered copying someone else’s work. Rarely is there something created that is original. Somebody before has either thought about, wrote about, or invented something along the lines of what you were thinking. So what if you cannot be completely original? Explain concepts that have been discussed previously but look at it with a new perspective. It does get extremely confusing, but if you aren’t sure whether or not you changed the original information enough to not be guilty, cite where you found it from.