#patchwriting

Melania Trump and the Problem of Patchwriting

By now, you’ve probably already heard the news that Melania Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention may have plagiarized portions of a speech given by Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

A few competing narratives are floating around. One, that Melania Trump did write the speech herself, as she told Matt Lauer in an interview taped before she gave it, and is…

Beware of patchwriting. What is it? Patchwriting is a dishearteningly common form of dishonest writing in which the writer doesn't copy a source text word for word, but does use much of the source text's syntax or vocabulary. A word might be swapped out for a synonym or the order of clauses might be inverted, but the majority of the source text remains as it was; the result is not original writing. 

For example, take this sentence from a wonderful Global Voices post, "No Girls Allowed at New Cosmology Public School in Japan":

"Some users drew connections between the school and a comic book series called Twin Spica, a science fiction story about a group of Japanese high school students training to become astronauts. [...] However, there is one significant difference between the school in the sci-fi comic book and the new public school: The latter will be only open to boys."

Imagine you want to use this information in a post. You properly cite the author, and you write the following: 

"Several users pointed out similarities between the school and science fiction comic book series Twin Spica about Japanese high school students working to become astronauts. [...] But when it comes to the new school and the comic book, there is one big difference: the real-world school will only enroll boys, not girls."

This would be considered patchwriting. The writing copies much of the same syntax and sticks in a handful of synonyms. It does not explain the information in a grammatically original way. 

Though patchwriting doesn't quite meet the definition of plagiarism, that doesn't make it acceptable or encouraged. At Global Voices, we value honesty, creativity and originality, so please avoid patchwriting. 

Rebecca Moore Howard, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. (Fall 2010). Writing and Pedagogy. 2:2, 177-192.

As I was writing this, I couldn't help but feel some slight anger in the way that universities and academics in general over complicate things.  It's as if they couldn't find a way to keep the increasing intelligence of the masses down, so they decided to make education intentionally tedious.

After completing the plagiarism tutorial provided by (blank), I was able to extract several bits of information that I had not known before. In my previous experience with various forms of academic writing I had been asked to reference any sources used for inspiration. However I did not know, or rather, was not required to include citations within the body of my writing, with the exception of direct quotations. I was also unaware of the numerous amounts of varying citation styles. For example, APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian. The tutorial provided a reminder on the importance of recording citation information in the process of taking notes, as well as differentiating quotes and paraphrased ideas from my own.

There were a couple of things that I found surprising in this tutorial as well. As previously mentioned, I was in the dark about the many different ways one could cite researched information.  This took me by surprise because I would have thought it would be more efficient, and convenient, if all academic writing followed a single style of citing information. At the very least, each faculty should have an agreed upon citation style. To have it vary from class to class, professor to professor, seems absurd. It's contradictory to request students learn a specific citation style for one class and a completely different one for another class when, the goal is to ensure proper credit is given to avoid plagiarism. When reading the examples of paraphrasing, it was surprising to see that taking an idea and expanding it in your own words with specs of your own thoughts would fall into the category of paraphrasing. I've read many articles that have the same idea that they're trying to get across, but had it worded differently. The majority, if not all of them, did not have a citation in sight. It's difficult to have a truly original idea and it leads me to question whether or not referencing and plagiarism are reserved for published intellectual property.

The section of the tutorial about patchwriting was very clear. The goal is to change the original text to the point where it does not resemble its former self at a glance. Once you have done that, you slap a citation on it and you're safe from plagiarism. Patchwriting occurs when you haven't put the original text into enough of your own words. In truth, I don't really see a significant difference between patchwriting and paraphrasing when you've properly cited the information. Paraphrasing just means that you put in slightly more effort into your reference so it does not count as a direct quote. Patchwriting leaves you with less work, however it means that you have taken too much from the original writer and therefore leads to your paper becoming not truly your paper. Ultimately that is where the difference lies.