I think there is a fine line between plagarism and just putting something into your own words. In fact, it's just stealing one's thoughts and rewording it. Is that any better? Probably not. Many times our thoughts will coincide with someone elses thoughts, though. So how to avoid just rewording what someone else said? Maybe add just a little more insight to what has already been said. I am not sure. I've never been a great writer. Just a few thoughts on the matter.
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The practice of "Putting someting in your own words" has the intent of thinking through the topic that includes integrating different viewpoints. To just change the word order to "beat" TurnItIn.com or similar word matching applications would probably fit your "word theft".

Proper attribution of ideas from others is the best practice. I included in the source an interesting exchange between editor (Paul Rich) and a submitter.
Source(s):
http://www.articlechecker.com/
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=paulr...

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