“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new at all.” -Abraham Lincoln
Books Serve
Books are a great way to improve your linguistic ability, as well as widen your horizons by using your imagination. No idea in a book is really ‘new’, even Shakespeare only had 3 original concepts for plays, while the others were borrowed from previously written works or histories. This does Not mean that borrowing an idea and altering it to fit your story, theme, action, … is wrong, it just means you needed a starting point. Another example is when contests are themed, or have a word or expression that needs to be used in your work. Does that mean you’re stealing from others or using ‘it’ as a starting point? The result of these contests is that over 20 different perspectives are given by the variety of writers. Are they all plagiarizing when their content is so vastly different? ‘Turn it in’ is another way that teachers and professors assess that your work is at least 80 to 85% your actual writing and not borrowed or copied.
So, tell me what you think about using an idea as a starting point.
Poetry for Change 