When Writing and Ethics Collide

I almost titled this post "Blogging Has Made Me a Shitty Writer."

For the past half-decade, the majority of my writing has been of the online variety. Don't get me wrong, I love having a platform, no matter how small, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I -- the kid who blew off every grade school writing assignment -- would be throwing my words out there for the world to see. But my writing has become invariable crappy since I started blogging.

A lot of my posts here are riffs off other posts. I make sure I cite and link everyone, but I'm starting to wonder if this "style" is a little unethical in addition to being intellectually lazy. Granted, most bloggers take inspiration from other bloggers, but some -- nay, most -- of my best work is, essential, extended riffs.

Part of the reason I do this is I often have more to say on a subject than a comment field will allow, and it's easier (and freeing) to say what I want on my own site than on someone else's, but there's also that sense of "Ooh, I wish I'd written that." Oh wait, I can write that. Or at least add to that.

There have been several well-publicized incidents of appropriation in the feminist blogosphere, that laying claim to anything is dishonorable, at best. This , however is seriously unethical. . (The discussion  going on over at Aunt B.'s blog provides more insight than I can.) I'm not in academia, so I can't vouch for the legality of it, but given the problems the feminist blogosphere has had over the years routinely silencing voices that weren't part of the young, white, cis, middle-class mainstream, I'm surprised anyone who claims to be part of it would do this.