To those who say it's okay if you don't get caught or if you reword -

Tell me you're kidding. So, if I were to say take your website design verbatim and just change the links to suit my needs, that would be okay, too? Come on, guys. You can't believe it's okay, can you?

One need look only to the incident where the Harvard grad was publicly embarrassed, had to pay back her advance on her book and was basically drummed out of publishing all for having a few passages in her book similar or identical to another's book. Think the other author didn't think it was a waste of time to sue?

Let's put it this way - if it were my writing that was being "modified" or copied verbatim, you bet I'd sue. It costs all of 30 bucks to file in small claims court.

To answer the original poster, if you can easily recognize it as another article and you haven't attributed to that author, it's illegal. Fair use laws do allow you to quote a portion of another work, but it limits the amount you're able to quote.

A possible solution might be to contact the author and find out if it's okay to present that article on your site as an "as written by" attribution. You may have to pay a reprint charge, but it's the safest, least expensive way for you. Also, the copyright may belong to another - such as a magazine or website - and those entities may have no problem suing should their copyrights be infringed upon.