This article describes analyses of three contexts (civic, business, and military) in which understandings of intellectual property differ from those taught in the schools. In each of these contexts, it is possible to document specific examples of unattributed material that would be considered to violate most academic plagiarism policies. Yet in these contexts, entirely acceptable purposes for non-attribution relate to the specific goals of the communication; whether original authors stand to gain, in Latour and Woolgar's sense, either credit or credibility from their creations; and how the broader community's goals are defined relative to individuals working within it (see Adler-Kassner, Anson, and Howard). After a brief synthesis of this research, the essay returns to the problem of discursive representation and the honesty with which we teach students about worlds of written discourse.