Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences

A comparison of published statements about the source-use skills of sophomores in the 1990s and those revealed by the more recent Citation Project study of researched writing suggests that many of the assumptions driving pedagogy, policy, and curricula need to be revised and that faculty working across the disciplines should work with students on reading and source-use skills when they assign researched writing. The Citation Project studied research papers by 174 first-year students at 16 US colleges and universities, producing a data-based portrait of student reading and source-use skills. Those students work from one or two sentences in 94% of their citations, cite the first or second page of their sources 70% of the time, and cite only 24% of their sources more than twice. While 78% of the papers include at least one incidence of paraphrase, 52% include at least one incidence of patchwriting, with students moving back and forth between the two within the same paragraph. Like earl...

Using textual analysis and interviews with student writers, this study aims to provide an insight into second language students' use of direct quotations in their MA theses by comparing direct quotations in high-rated and low-rated Master's theses, and by exploring student writers' own motivations to quote directly from sources. The corpus consists of eight high-rated and eight lowrated Master's theses written in English in the field of gender studies by students from Central and Eastern Europe studying at an English-medium university in Central Europe. The findings show that high-rated theses display almost three times as many direct quotations per 1000 words as low-rated theses, which was found to be statistically significant. Differences are also evident in the type of quotations preferred: while high-rated theses primarily use quotation fragments (i.e., quotations shorter than a T-unit), lowrated theses rely on clause-based quotations, which do not require modification when quoted in a text. Interviews with student writers reveal the following motivations to quote directly from sources: (a) source-related motivations (e.g., vivid expression of an idea), (b) writers' own goals (e.g., stylistic variety), (c) external factors (e.g., lack of time), and (d) students' beliefs and fears (e.g., fear of plagiarism). The findings are discussed with reference to the development of student academic writing in the area of source use and citation. Pedagogical recommendations aimed at making students' use of direct quotations more effective are also offered. # Although writing from sources has received considerable attention in recent literature on L2 writing, studies have tended to focus on problematic aspects of source use, most notably plagiarism (e.g., L2 student writers' use of sources that is considered acceptable by academic standards, although not necessarily effective, has received less attention. Yet, studying such practices of writing from sources can provide insights into the process of development of this important aspect of academic literacy. This study focuses on an aspect of source use in L2 students' writing that has not been studied extensively: direct quotation, (i.e., verbatim repetition of textual material taken from a source), which is fully and appropriately acknowledged. Direct quotation is considered relatively undemanding in comparison to paraphrasing, summarizing, or generalising from multiple sources, since it does not require any textual modification of the appropriated material. In this study I refer to direct quotation as legitimate textual borrowing, echoing Lave and Wenger's (1991) notion of legitimate peripheral participation, which is used to describe how novices become members of communities of practice through initial participation in simple (i.e., peripheral) activities, which provide support for the core activities, and prepare novices for the mastery of more complex tasks. Seen from this perspective, direct quotation is an acceptable but simple type of textual borrowing in academic writing, whose peripheral nature is evident in its lower frequency in published writing in comparison to other types of source use, such as summarizing. (For frequencies of quotation, summary, and integration from multiple sources in research articles in different disciplines, see However, although direct quotation is considered straightforward and simple, research and anecdotal evidence reveal problems in students' use of direct quotation, most notably its overuse, but also ineffective incorporation of quotations into a text, where linguistic and contextual links between the quotation and the surrounding text are unclear or lacking, and other related problems . This suggests that effective direct quotation requires a greater level of academic literacy than is commonly thought. In analyzing the processes involved in writing from sources in general, Jakobs (2003) distinguishes between co-textual and contextual integration of source material into a text, defining the former as ''the adaptation of text passages to the linguistic cotext'' and the latter as ''the adaptation of others' formulations to the present communication context'' (p. 898). Direct quotation, which introduces another writer's voice into one's text, also requires intervention at these two levels. At the co-textual (i.e., linguistic) level, it brings a different vocabulary, syntax, and style into one's text. To quote effectively, then, writers may need to perform a range of linguistic operations once they have selected a suitable passage from a source in order to successfully incorporate it into their texts, including adding appropriate transitions between their own and the quoted text, omitting parts of quotations so that the quoted part fits into the writer's sentence, making any necessary morphological, syntactic, or orthographic changes (such as changing word forms, word order, or upper/lower case) and signalling them appropriately. At the contextual level, quotations may reflect a different purpose and intention, level of writer authority, and context of writing than the surrounding text. In order for the quotation to be effective at this level, writers need to provide a frame for interpreting the quotation in line with their own intentions by, for instance, adding appropriate introductions to and comments on the quoted material, adding words to qualify the quotations so that they refer to their own topic more directly, and signalling their stance towards the ideas expressed in the quotation. In addition to the co-textual and contextual operations regarding each individual instance of quoting, writers must also consider a range of issues relating to quotations in their writing as a whole, such as how frequently it is acceptable to quote, in what sections of the text it is more suitable to include quotations, and what is worth quoting instead of paraphrasing.

OALib

This study explores whether or not a Writing about Writing (WAW) course design has a positive bearing on students' use of summary in their researched arguments. It hypothesizes that students will draw more on summary in their researched arguments, since students in WAW actively interpret a shared group of texts through the lens of the discourse community and thus have a higher level of comprehension of the source materials than if they sought out the source materials on their own. Borrowing the source-coding methods of the Citation Project (CP), the study provides data in response to the following questions: How do students use sources when asked to compose a written formal research project in the context of a course in which the sources they draw on are assigned as part of the course material? How does student source use, particularly with respect to summary writing, compare with available CP data in which students may or may not have drawn on assigned texts? Ultimately, it finds that students in the WAW course draw on summary at a significantly higher rate than in the CP.

2012

Introduction. Past research on source-based writing assignments has hesitated to scrutinize how students actually use information afforded by sources. This paper introduces a method for the analysis of text transformations from sources to texts composed. The method is aimed to serve scholars in building a more detailed understanding of how students work with sources, for example, in paraphrasing, summarising and synthesising information. Method. The proposed method is introduced by presenting its domain, ...

Journal of Academic Writing, 2016

Inexperienced academic writers often have difficulty understanding and implementing academic intertextual practices, i.e. interpreting, extrapolating and integrating primary and secondary sources into their own texts. To address this need, we developed a workshop with learning stations. We identified five key difficulties students face and created seven exercises that address them. In the workshop, participants move from station to station, working on the exercises at their own pace by using pre-prepared materials at the stations. In this paper, we describe how we devised the workshop based on analysis of both the problem and the contexts in which the workshop has been carried out. Detailed descriptions for each exercise as well as a dramaturgy of the workshop are included; sample texts and handouts for each station can be found in the Appendix. Based on anecdotal participant feedback, we discuss advantages and disadvantages of the different exercises and of the workshop set-up. With the information provided, readers should be able to replicate this workshop and adapt the exercises to their own educational settings.

Across the Disciplines, 2013

A comparison of published statements about the source-use skills of sophomores in the 1990s and those revealed by the more recent Citation Project study of researched writing suggests that many of the assumptions driving pedagogy, policy, and curricula need to be revised and that faculty working across the disciplines should work with students on reading and source-use skills when they assign researched writing. The Citation Project studied research papers by 174 first-year students at 16 US colleges and universities, producing a data-based portrait of student reading and source-use skills. Those students work from one or two sentences in 94% of their citations, cite the first or second page of their sources 70% of the time, and cite only 24% of their sources more than twice. While 78% of the papers include at least one incidence of paraphrase, 52% include at least one incidence of patchwriting, with students moving back and forth between the two within the same paragraph. Like earl...

2019

Source-based writing is replete with decisions about what to include from others' work and how to include it. The processes of source selection and source integration are integral yet occluded aspects of writing from sources (Pecorari, 2006). Issues pertaining to appropriate versus inappropriate source use have been among the controversial topics of discussion among university students and instructors (e.g., as noted in Harwood & Petrić, 2011, and Shi, 2016), yet current scholarship is still in need of an explicit understanding of the process of source-based writing-in particular, among graduate-level students as emerging scholars in their fields. In light of such exigency and to better understand the source-based writing practices of student writers at graduate levels, my doctoral research project aimed at exploring the processes of source selection and source integration in the research-paper writing of eight domestic and international Master's and PhD students in the field of education at a major Canadian university. Data included drafts of research papers students prepared as part of their course requirements, related source texts, three rounds of text-based interviews with students, and individual text-based interviews with their course instructors. Employing a socio-pedagogical approach by interweaving the conceptual frameworks of Community of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), Forms of Capital (Bourdieu, 1991), and Dialogism (Bakhtin, 1986), this study provided the ground to cross-examine not only each participant's writing progress over multiple drafts, but also to compare the practices of the Master's and doctoral participants as they strived to join the expert dialogues in their communities through collecting acceptable forms of textual capital. iv Macro analyses of data depicted perspectives of participating graduate students toward source-based writing, their dilemmas and solutions in the process of source use, contributing factors to their problematic and/or successful source-use practices, and available support to them. Micro analyses of these Master's and doctoral students' written texts and oral accounts identified a wide range of motivations for source selection and purposes for the use of various types of source integration in their research-paper writing. This study offers insights for institutional and educational action plans to support students' interactions with source texts. v Lay Summary Graduate students in general need to write research papers that incorporate information previously written by other experts. Some research has been done in this area, but not much research has explored how graduate students from different educational backgrounds and at different academic levels incorporate expert information into their course paper drafts, and how their instructors evaluate them in this process. This doctoral research project contributes to the gap by (a) interviewing local and international Master's and PhD students and their instructors about how these graduate students paraphrased, summarized, and directly quoted source texts, and (b) analyzing multiple drafts of their course papers. Findings show (a) that students chose and used expert materials differently in their papers and the differences were mainly related to their academic levels, and (b) that instructors played a significant role in students' process of research writing by supporting and providing feedback on their source-use practices.

The International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2017

A cross-disciplinary team of composition, communication, and library faculty used lesson study to investigate interdisciplinary instructional strategies to improve students’ use of quoting in their writing. The team developed a three-class lesson plan to introduce the concept of quoting, practice the concept, and allow students to reflect on their use of quotations in their writing. We collected a pre and post quiz to measure students’ understanding before and after the lesson, students’ practice paragraphs, students’ reflections, and students’ final course research assignments. These samples were analyzed by the research team. Our evidence suggests that students can articulate how a quote from a source should be integrated into their writing by describing how they would use a signal phrase and quotation marks, but they have difficulty in applying this complex skill in their own writing even after focused instruction on how to use quotes.

International Journal for Educational Integrity, 2012

Although much of the research into source use by international students has tended to focus on issues of plagiarism, there has recently been recognition that their difficulties in this respect may be more pedagogical than moral. However, much remains to be known about the nature of such students" source use. In order to throw light on the ways in which novice L2 writers use source material in their writing and to understand what difficulties they experience, this paper reports on a small case study involving a group of Japanese postgraduate students. Analysis of five Pre-Master"s dissertations written by these students, as well as interviews conducted with the writers, revealed that they varied in their ability to handle source material effectively. In many cases, their use of source material appeared to be symptomatic of weak authorial stance and apparent lack of a clear argument. Based on these findings, the study concludes with the recommendation that instruction on the use of source material focus to a greater extent on its rhetorical function in constructing knowledge.