文章作者反思了自身写作中可能存在的抄袭现象，并以“细胞能量”和“约会”两个例子阐述了不同程度的抄袭行为。作者认为，即使是看似原创的表达，也可能潜意识地借鉴了其他人的观点，而这种潜意识的抄袭行为，可能比刻意模仿更加难以察觉。

🤔 作者以“细胞能量”的例子，将抄袭行为分为四个等级：完全照搬、部分改动、改变句式、改变表达但保留核心概念。作者认为，即使是最后一种看似原创的表达，也可能源于潜意识中的借鉴。

💖 作者以“约会”的例子，用Miss Manners的观点解释了“约会”中娱乐、食物和感情的比例关系。作者认为，随着感情的增加，娱乐可以相应减少，最终感情成为唯一的娱乐，此时就不再被称为“约会”。

🧠 作者反思了自己文章中的一句话，发现它可能源于Miss Manners的观点。作者认为，即使自己没有刻意模仿，但潜意识中可能已经借鉴了其他人的观点。

💡 作者通过这两个例子，提醒读者注意潜意识的抄袭行为，并鼓励读者反思自己的写作是否也存在类似的现象。

I was going back over yesterday’s post, and something sounded familiar about this paragraph:

A very careless plagiarist takes someone else’s work and copies it verbatim: “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell”. A more careful plagiarist takes the work and changes a few words around: “The mitochondria is the energy dynamo of the cell”. A plagiarist who is more careful still changes the entire sentence structure: “In cells, mitochondria are the energy dynamos”. The most careful plagiarists change everything except the underlying concept, which they grasp at so deep a level that they can put it in whatever words they want – at which point it is no longer called plagiarism.

After rereading it a few times, it hit me. A few days ago, I’d come across this quote from Miss Manners:

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.

I laughed at it, I thought it was great, and I stored it in my head as the sort of thing I should quote at some point in order to sound witty.

And although I wasn’t consciously thinking about it at the time, I’m sure the last sentence of my paragraph comes from the last sentence of Miss Manners’. It would be easy to dismiss it as a coincidence, it probably seems like a coincidence to you, I can’t explain how I know that the one comes from the other, but when I replay in my mind the process that made me write that, it’s obvious that it did.