> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.puddin.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# How Puddin Records Writing Evidence and Verifies Authorship
> Learn how Puddin records writing process evidence, assembles authorship records, and lets teachers replay the full document creation history.
Puddin verifies authorship by capturing what happens during the writing process, not by analysing what the finished document looks like. Every time a student writes in a Puddin environment, the platform creates a detailed, time-stamped record of how the document was built — from the first keystroke to the final submission. That record is what teachers review when assessing authorship.
## The writing environments
Puddin captures writing activity through two supported environments. Both record the same data and produce the same type of authorship record.
The browser-based writing environment requires no installation. Students access it directly through an assignment link in their LMS or via a Puddin-generated URL. The editor runs in any modern web browser and captures activity through a secure, instrumented writing surface.
This is the recommended environment for most use cases because it requires no software setup on the student's device and works on any operating system.
The Microsoft Word add-in allows students to write in Word while Puddin captures their activity in the background. Students install the add-in once, and it activates automatically when they open a Puddin-linked assignment in Word.
This environment suits institutions where students are accustomed to working in Word, or where assignment formatting requirements make Word preferable to a browser editor.
## What Puddin records
From the moment a student opens a Puddin writing environment, the platform begins recording. The following data points are captured throughout the session:
Every character typed — and every character deleted — is recorded with a timestamp. This builds a complete, character-level history of the document from its earliest state to its final form. Keystroke data underpins the process replay and writing speed analysis.
Every time content is pasted into the document, Puddin records the event, the pasted content, its length, and the point in the document where it was inserted. Paste events are flagged prominently in the authorship record so reviewers can examine them in context.
Large deletions, content restructuring, and significant edits to existing text are captured as revision events. Reviewers can see not only what the final document says but what earlier versions contained and how the text evolved.
Puddin tracks typing speed across the session and surfaces variations — for example, sustained fast typing that may indicate copy-editing rather than composing, or periods of unusually consistent speed. This data is presented as context, not as a conclusion.
Extended pauses — where the student stops typing for a notable period — are recorded with their duration and position in the document timeline. Pauses can indicate thinking time, research breaks, or session interruptions, and are visible in the process replay.
If a student writes across multiple sessions (opens and closes the document more than once before submitting), each session is recorded as a separate boundary event. Reviewers can see when each session started and ended, and how much of the document was written in each one.
Puddin records writing process evidence. It does not scan the finished document for stylistic patterns, run plagiarism checks, or assign an AI-likelihood score. The evidence it captures describes *how* the document was created, and a human reviewer interprets what that evidence means.
## How the authorship record is assembled
When a student submits an assignment, Puddin finalises and locks the authorship record. The record is assembled from the captured event stream and presented to the teacher as three interconnected views:
A timeline-based playback of the document being written. Teachers can play, pause, scrub, and skip to flagged events to watch the document develop in real time.
A structured log of every recorded event — paste events, revision blocks, speed changes, pauses, and session boundaries — each with a timestamp and document position.
An automatically generated overview of the session activity, describing the key patterns observed across the writing session in plain language.
## How teachers review authorship evidence
To review a submission, the teacher opens the student's submission from the assignment view and works through the authorship record:
1. **Start with the Process Summary** to get an overview of the session before diving into details.
2. **Open the Process Replay** and watch the document being written. Use the timeline scrubber to move to any point in the session.
3. **Use Event Summary filters** to jump directly to paste events, revision blocks, or other moments of interest rather than watching the full replay.
4. **Examine individual events** — clicking any event in the Event Summary jumps the replay to that moment and shows the document state before and after.
5. **Generate a Verification Record** if a formal record of the authorship evidence is needed for an academic integrity proceeding.
Authorship records are retained in line with your institution's data retention policy, which is configured by your Administrator. See [Security & Privacy](/core/admin/security-privacy) for details on data storage and retention.
## What process evidence can and cannot tell you
Process evidence provides a factual record of how a document was created. It can show you:
* Whether a document was typed progressively or assembled primarily from pasted content
* How many sessions were used and when they occurred
* Where large revisions and deletions happened and what was removed
* Whether writing speed was consistent with composing or varied significantly across sections
* Whether content appeared suddenly at a particular point in the timeline
Process evidence cannot tell you *why* any of these things happened. A large paste event might be a student pasting their own notes, a block quote, or content from another source. A fast typing speed might reflect a confident writer or someone reproducing memorised text. Interpreting the evidence — and deciding whether it meets your institution's threshold for concern — is always the responsibility of the reviewing teacher and your institution's academic integrity process.
Use Puddin's authorship record as one input into a broader academic integrity assessment, not as a standalone verdict. Combine it with the assignment brief, the student's submission history, and any other contextual information you have.