Kicking out damaged drywall is the only way to remove it in my opinion JUST KIDDING In order to correctly patch a damaged area you first need to clear and remove all the damaged pieces I do this by marking the area I am going to remove with a pencil or marker then use a razor blade knife to cut it out Pro Tip If the new dry wall piece that you are going to put in is large make sure to put a piece of support wood behind the wall so you have something to secure your new patch too I used scrap from a previous project and secured it with drywall screws