17.3116, Diss: Applied Ling: Petric: 'Citation Practices in Student Academic...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-3116. Mon Oct 23 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.3116, Diss: Applied Ling: Petric: 'Citation Practices in Student Academic...'

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1)
Date: 21-Oct-2006
From: Bojana Petric < bojana_petric at yahoo.com >
Subject: Citation Practices in Student Academic Writing 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:40:44
From: Bojana Petric < bojana_petric at yahoo.com >
Subject: Citation Practices in Student Academic Writing 
 


Institution: Eötvös Loránd University 
Program: Language Pedadogy Programme 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2006 

Author: Bojana Petric

Dissertation Title: Citation Practices in Student Academic Writing 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Andrea Remenyi

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation examines citation practices of master's students writing
in English as a foreign language. The study consists of two parts: the
first explores students' and their supervisors' practices and perspectives
on citation, while the second provides a comparative analysis of citation
use in high and low rated theses. Interviews with thirty students and six
thesis supervisors are combined with comparative citation analysis in eight
high and eight low rated master's theses in the field of gender studies. 

The main findings in the first part of the study indicate that there are
four distinct areas of source use important to both students and
supervisors: 1. finding sources, 2. working with source texts, 3. cognitive
aspects of source use, and 4. technical aspects of source use. It is
concluded that source use, from the perspectives of students and
supervisors, encompasses a broader area than is traditionally covered by
academic writing pedagogy. This implies that the pedagogical focus on
source use skills needs to be broadened as well. 

In the second part of the study, it is found that there are differences in
citation use between high and low rated theses in terms of the following: 
1. numbers, types and distribution of the sources used, 2. numbers, density
and distribution of citations, 3. proportions and linguistic realisations
of integral citations, 4. types of reporting verbs used with citations, 5.
ways in which source content is integrated into the text, and 6. rhetorical
functions of the citations used. It is concluded that there is a clear
relationship between citation use and thesis grade and that effective
citation practices indirectly contribute to the higher quality of the final
work. Based on the findings, a tentative description of effective textual
citation practices is offered, which considers citing expertise as
consisting of three types of knowledge: disciplinary knowledge, rhetorical
knowledge, and language proficiency in the area of academic discourse.

Pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed and recommendations
given for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific
Purposes (ESP), especially in the area of teaching academic writing. 




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