Write your own stuff

Cut-and-Paste Writeups Will Die.

Typing an entire chapter from the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook is not okay. Crediting it does not make it okay.

By all means, cite your sources. Give credit where credit is due. But write your own stuff.

When it's out of copyright, Project Gutenberg (or something like it) will make it available to everyone. If it's really, really useful, you might consider noding it then.

In the meantime... write your own stuff.

It's a great idea to synthesize the ideas of others, then express those ideas in your own words.

Everything needs more synthesis and less reverse peristalsis.

Tell us whose ideas you're expressing. But write your own stuff.

Ah, but you see, by copying text out of a source that has already been approved by various means, it's more likely to be good/useful, and more likely to be accepted by other noders and voted up by people who give a care about those sorts of things.

By writing your own stuff, you open yourself up, make yourself vulnerable, for people to express their disapproval by downvoting, and heading down the road to feeling useless and depressed and suicidal.

People do have the best of intentions when they do such a thing. (or at least usually) That doesn't make it right, doesn't change the fact that it's not wanted. Just a change of perspective here...