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“Patchwriting” is the term writing researcher Rebecca Moore Howard (1993) uses to describe the incomplete paraphrase strategy that writers just emerging in a field often find themselves using to make it seem as if they are more knowledgeable than they are.
Photo credit: Our Bad Media
It’s not just student writers who patchwrite. Howard reports on the work of Miguel Roig (2001), who found “that 22% of psychology professors patchwrite when presented with the task of summarizing complex text from an unfamiliar field” (qtd. in Howard, Serviss & Rodrigue p. 179). The photo in this post documents the patchwriting of journalist Fareed Zakaria, who likely patchwrote under the pressure of deadlines.
While patchwriting is often seen as a form of plagiarism (as in our Little Seagull handbook and the angry articles on Zakaria from Our Bad Media, see also), Howard argues that patchwriting is, essentially “a learning strategy rather than an act of academic dishonesty (p. 179). Student writers adopt the strategy of patchwriting because, as novices in a field, they are confronted with the limits of their knowledge or comprehension at the same time they face the expectation that they write as if they were masters. Because of these twin imperatives, students tend not to write from whole sources fully understood, instead they write from partially-digested sentences that seem relevant (Howard, Serviss & Rodrigue).
When student writers are new to a field, and are working on mastering new concepts and new writing genres, instructors should expect to see patchwriting as an intermediate stage as students write themselves into mastery and are better able to manage paraphrase and summary. When students patchwrite because they’re struggling to master new ideas and new writing strategies, instructors should work with students on better understanding the material and developing fluency with the genre.
Review your group’s profile of James Paul Gee for evidence of patchwriting. Then, in a comment, answer one of the two question clusters depending on whether your profile is patchwritten or not:
- To what degree do you see patchwriting in your group’s profile. What would it take to rework your profile to reduce or eliminate the patchwriting you found?
- How did you avoid patchwriting? To what degree does your profile meet academic expectations that you cite sources you use in your writng?
Sources:
Rebecca Moore Howard. “A Plagiarism Pentimento.” Journal of Teaching Writing vol. 11, no. 3: 233-46.
Rebecca Moore Howard, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences.” Writing & Pedagogy vol. 2, no. 2: 177-192.
Miguel Roig. “Plagiarism and Paraphrasing Criteria of College and University Professors.” Ethics and Behavior vol. 11, no. 3: 307-324,
I believe patchwriting was avoided in the profile I looked at. The profile used information directly from the internet, but used quotations letting us know the information wasn’t their own. Other than that one part, everything was their own words and information.
I think we were able to avoid patchwriting by summing up what we read in our own words. When I was researching James Paul Gee I summed up what I was reading in my own words. We did not site any sources though that we were using not meeting those academic expectations.
1. I see a little bit of patchwriting but not an overwhelming amount. It would take some reworking sentences, and wording them to make them sound more like your own and maybe put some more thought into the sentences.
2. To avoid patchwriting in my opinion would be maybe reading something and then walking away from it a little then go back and make your reflection/writing that way you can word it in your own words and not like copy and paste it form the actual article. Citing sources is great, however even if you cite it it doesn’t sound like you and it doesn’t reflect good on you either. If the whole writing is patchwriting it doesn’t look like you even wrote it.
With the profile on James Paul Gee that we were asked to write its very hard to avoid patch writing. The one that I wrote was over 50% patch writing. Most of this was because of his name being stated. One way we can rework out post to get rid of it is to reword it and change it to be more in our words. Instead of making a list of random stuff, focus more on topics that you really understand.
I believe that most of the beginning of the paragraph written on my post had patch writting. For me to put a number on this I would say it had <60% as a patch for the topic at hand. What it would take is to highlight and grab the most important sections of this text and write off of that instead of coping all the text. However for the second paragraph I found very little patch writing from what the internet tells me. But there was still some, It was all cited; which is good.
The profile that we built on James Paul Gee had moments of patch working that totaled to about 20% of the writing. Much of it was not quoted but it was paraphrased. After all, the assignment was to compile information regarding him and then summarize it. It is to be expected that the information is also found elsewhere. Copying sentences and searching them on the internet did not result in a lot of matches unless sentences were combined but even then the results were fairly low. It would seem the best way to avoid patch writing would be to take information from various sources, take notes, and then write your piece. When taking notes, reword and make it your own. And then when writing rephrase it yet again.
In the bio i made for James Paul Gee i would say at least 50 % is patch written. Ways that i feel that i can fix or reduce the amount of patch writing is to use that sentence in my own words . Although, sometimes this is hard to do because when your writing a biography of someone those bits and pieces you are patch writing from the sources you found, are going to be the same anywhere you look. For example: “James Paul Gee is a researcher who has worked in psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, bilingual education, and literacy. Gee is currently the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University.” (Wikipedia 2016) This sentence explains where he works and what he does. So, no matter where you go to find this information, its going to be the same everywhere, which makes it hard not to patch write.
I would say about 50% of our groups work is patch written. Our work is patchwritten because we did not put sentences into our own words well enough. It would take a better understanding of Gee and his accomplishments to not patchwrite. Re-reading his work to develop a much more detailed understanding about his life and successes will help next time.
With the patch writing it happens in about forty percent I would say. When talking about the background information and where he is studying patch writing pops up. To rewrite this paper is cause us to completely rip the paper apart remove parts that aren’t from us and add things that we know about the person. To fixing the paper so there isn’t so much patch writing we could cite the paper and the founders of the information.