The author of "A Plagiarism Pentimento" is Rebecca Moore Howard. In this essay, Rebecca expresses that the rules of plagiarism should be reconsidered- especially for patchwriting. Rebecca pushes the belief that patchwriting is not plagiarism. She gives an example of a class she taught at Colgate University by telling a story about when her students wrote an essay and many of them were accused of plagiarism. However, they were accused of plagiarism because they were patchwriting. At the time, Rebecca gave them all F's and also allowed them an opportunity to re-write it. Now, however, Rebecca understands that patchwriting is not a crime, but something that should be taught how to do better. Rebecca started to teach her students how and when they should use patchwriting. She eplains that students who patchwrite are students who can challenge, modify, and even replace it's constructs.
Patchwriting is something that I do semi-frequently, however not as much as I used to. I did not know that what I was doing actually had a name and it is reassuring to know that I wasn't plagiarizing. However, what actually surprised me about the subject of patchwriting is that it was actually considered plagiarizing. I did not understand how that could be, because I was always taught that if you "make it into your own words" then it is not plagiarized anyway. I suppose a lot of people do not do a very good job of making something into their own words and, ultimately, that is when they are accused of plagiarizing.
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