"Appropriation as a real tool of the writer's trade"

Within an account of a university professor catching a student plagiarizing, one finds the following text:

I’d considered designing a course that would focus on rewriting, rephrasing, riffing, and appropriation as real tools of the writer’s trade. It wouldn’t teach anything that would get anyone in trouble, but unlike other writing courses, it would be honest about where ideas and language come from: well, who knows where they come from, but not from angelic transmissions into our minds.

Every day in the patent system, decisions are made about whether an inventive concept is novel and nonobvious. What was known in the past is laid out, and an analysis is made.