In this age of distrust, misinformation, and skepticism, you may wonder how to demonstrate your sources within a Google Document. Did you type it yourself, copy and paste it from a browser-based source, copy and paste it from an unknown source, or did it come from generative AI?
You may not think this is an important clarification, but if writing is a critical part of your livelihood or life, you will definitely want to demonstrate your sources.
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That's where the new Grammarly feature comes in.
Authorship proactively tracks the writing process
The new feature is called Authorship, and according to Grammarly, "Grammarly Authorship is a set of features that helps users demonstrate their sources of text in a Google doc. When you activate Authorship within Google Docs, it proactively tracks the writing process as you write."
I tested Grammarly Authorship and was impressed with its accuracy. For example, I used it with this document, which includes some pasted text directly from the Grammarly site. Authorship detected all originally typed text but tagged a sentence I copied from the Grammarly site as added from the PR release from Grammarly about Authorship. Needless to say, I was impressed. Even in beta, the feature was accurate.
The feature is currently in beta and works in Google Docs through Grammarly for Chrome or Microsoft Edge. In other words, you'll need to be using a Chromium-based browser for this to work. Grammarly Authorship is available to all plans (Free, Premium, Pro, and Education) and is very simple to enable.
How to enable and use Authorship in Grammarly
You need to enable the feature in Google Docs by clicking the small fingerprint icon at the bottom right of a new Google Doc (you must have the Grammarly plugin installed first) and then clicking "Track writing activity." You will then need to allow Grammarly access to your clipboard so the add-on can record sources used in your document.
Click "Track writing activity" to begin.
Once you click the button, Authorship will start tracking your document. At any time, you can click the same fingerprint icon and then click "See report" to view the statistics for your current document.
To view a report at any time, click "See report."
The report will inform you of the percentage of what you typed, what was copied from a known source, and what was copied from an unknown origin. I was able to trip up Authorship by pasting content from Opera's Aria AI, which was tagged as an unknown source. But given that this is still in beta, that shouldn't come as a surprise.
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For anyone who is keen on proving sources used in Google Documents, Grammarly Authorship should be considered a must.
Other than installing the Grammarly browser extension, there's nothing else to install to start using Authorship in Google Docs.