Patchwriting Plagiarism
Earlier in this guide, you encountered the dictionary definition of plagiarism as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work” (see p. 1479, Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd Ed., Random House, 1987).
This definition also includes not just copying but also "close imitation," so this means that plagiarism includes copying from a source, such as a web article or an AI response, and then editing it and revising it to make it fit in better with the text you are writing. This unethical writing practice is called patchwriting, which typically happens when students copy and paste a passage, and then delete or replace some or even most of the words. But in the end, the student is not doing the hard work of wordsmithing, which means picking the right words and putting them in an original sequence.
Take a look at this example, where citations are used correctly, but the paragraph is based way too much on the original source:
How to Paraphrase Appropriately
Even if you include a citation, patchwriting is still plagiarism because it is a failed paraphrase. It is based too much on the original text. To correctly paraphrase a source, try following these four steps.
1. Read and re-read the source text so many times that you basically memorized the information.
2. Put the source away and start writing your own paragraph based on what you remember. Make sure to include the name of the author or source directly in that paragraph (this is your in-text citation).
3. Compare what you wrote with the original and rewrite any phrases that seem too similar to the original. For example, copied phrases that are more than about four words long should be rewritten, or just put in quotation marks.
4. Make sure the facts agree and that you did not misrepresent the original information or argument.
In addition, don’t patch write off of what you get from ChatGPT or Grammarly either. If you change some of the words and submit it to your professor, it is still plagiarism and you won’t learn what you were supposed to. Besides, your future employers want your writing and critical thinking to go way above and beyond what AI can do, so do your own wordsmithing.
