What is plagiarism and where do you draw the line between attribution and theft.

Plagiarism is the borrowing or stealing of another’s work of literature without attributing that these thoughts are not your own and that they in fact came from a different place. The line between attribution and theft is a scary one. A forgetful writer may very well be sorting through their notes find a handwritten thought and think it their own rather than the source it was originally from. Technically this is theft and plagiarism but how can we hold this person responsible for simply forgetting to write down a source at the time of note taking. In theory any sort of plagiarism is theft it is the responsibility of the writer to attribute where their thoughts have come from, if they are lifted from some back space of memory it is still theft. In theory the only way to keep from literary theft is to have never read any literary works which is impossible. Theft will occur; attribute when you can; when you miss an attribution admit your mistake accept embarrassment. You have no one to blame but yourself.