Whatever writing you do has in some way been influenced by what you have already read and experienced and is part of a much larger conversation that includes other writers and thinkers. As a writer today, you need to understand current definitions of plagiarism, which change over time and vary from culture to culture, as well as the concept of intellectual property—those works protected by copyright or by alternatives such as a Creative Commons license—so you can give credit where credit is due. It seems likely that an age of instant copying and linking will someday lead to revised understandings about who can “own” a text and for how long. But in college today, it is still important to cite the sources you use (whether written, oral, or visual) carefully and systematically and hence to avoid plagiarism, the use of someone else’s words and ideas as if they were your own.