Blog post 3

According to Johnson-Eilola and Selber’s assemblage is, “texts built primarily and explicitly from existing texts in order to solve a writing or communication problem in a new context.” This definition provided is very similar to the definition that a person would give to the concept of remix. Remix is taking samples, ideas, text, etc. and spinning it to make it personal and “original.” However, where as assemblages seem to be strictly textual information brought together from different works, remixes use a variety of media sources to make their work, they are not limited to just text.

Between plagiarism and originality, there seems to be some controversy to where this line should be drawn. The article states that teachers often have to deal with the issue of their student’s plagiarizing and over using quotes and citations, which causes their work to be of less value. However at the same time, sometimes it is hard to be original when you are using other people’s work are research and inspiration for the work you are doing.  Another major issue that comes along with plagiarism is that it is defined differently depending on the situation. What this article emphasizes is that there should just be one clear definition.


Overall, I felt like this was a very interesting article considering the topic of it was mail plagiarism and assemblage, which are not every exciting topic. In the beginning some concepts did confuse me due to the amount of information given I did get a bit lost, however after reading a couple section and getting more in depth into the article everything began to click and make more sense.