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English composition students: How are sources used in their

papers

Presenters: Sharon Radcliff, Elise Y Wong

Saint Mary’s College of California

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In-text citations and bibliographies

Types of sources used in bibliographies

Paraphrasing vs. quoting

How quotations are integrated

How Composition students cite and integrate sources

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Assess students' citing behaviors

Examine how sources are integrated

Evaluate students' citation performance

Students’ writing proficiency and faculty expectation

Compare key data to pilot study

Our study objectives

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Catholic, Lasallian, liberal arts college Undergraduate and graduate schools Total enrollment: 3917 Total full time students: 3407 Number of full-time faculty: 192 Student-faculty ratio: 13:1

About Saint Mary’s College

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First generation college: 36% traditional UG Female: 61%; Male: 39% Minority: 48%, White: 46%, Others: 6% 87% freshmen from California Tuition and fees: $37,150 % of full-time undergraduate receiving

financial aid: 72%

Who are SMC students?

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Learning outcomes for ENG 5 includes:

Write analytical, evaluative, and argumentative essays

Employ research skills in writing

Support and cite argument with sources

SMC Composition program

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Learning goal: Information Evaluation and Research

Practices

Learning outcome: students will integrate and cite evidence

appropriately with increasing proficiency

SMC new core curriculum Fall 2012 supported our study

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Harvey, M. (2003). The nuts & bolts of college writing. Indianapolis :Hackett.

Hubbuch, S. (2005). Writing research papers across the curriculum (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth.

Quaratiello, A., & Devine, J. (2011). The college student’s research companion (5th ed.). New York: Neal-Schuman.

Shields, M. (2010). Essay writing: A student guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

First we researched best practices

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Summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting Paraphrasing, less quoting

Use quotes to support your arguments

Introduce and analyze your sources

Best practices include:

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Nienhaus, B. (2004). Helping students improve citation performance. Business Communication Quarterly, 67 (3), 337-348.

Robillard, A. (2006). Young scholars affecting composition: A challenge to disciplinary citation practices. College English, 68 (3), 253-270.

Shi, L. (2010). Textual appropriation and citing behaviors of university undergraduates. Applied Linguistics, 31 (1), 1-24.

Shi, L. (2011). Common knowledge, learning, and citation practices in university writing. Research in the Teaching of English, 45 (3), 308-334.

Studies that examine students' citation practices/citing behaviors

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Good citation practices are essential

Classroom discussion on citing

Instructor’s assignment requirements

Highlights from the studies:

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Students’ motivation to cite/not to cite

◦ The notion of common knowledge

◦ Knowledge acquired from classroom learning

◦ Unidentifiable prior learning

Instructors' evaluation of students' citation practices

Highlights continued

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SMC Librarians have a long history of collaboration with the English Composition department.

SMC librarians provide some support for Composition 4 and traditionally do an instruction session for every section of Composition 5, (25-28 sections)

Background

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Library instruction for Composition 4 and 5 includes a tutorial with quizzes and pre & post tests on various topics, includes material on citing. (This tutorial is currently being revised.)

Composition 4 classes receive an in person session only by request; Composition 5 are strongly encouraged to have one. Almost all do so.

Background

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SMC librarians have done two major bibliographic studies and one pilot internal citation study over the past 8 years.

First study was done on 9 Composition sections in 2004; the second was done on 13 sections in 2006.

In the second study, faculty assignments were collected and evaluated and faculty were interviewed.

Background

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Reference materials 6%

Books 28%

Journals 8%

Magazines 9%

Newspapers 21%

Web sites 22%

Other 6%

Bibliographic Study Results 2006

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Instruction: librarians can use their expertise on research methods, processes and sources to teach the research component of the course.

Benefits of collaboration

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Research: provides both composition faculty and librarians with assessment student performance in various areas and thus on how well existing teaching methods are working

Collaboration

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Pilot study of 25 papers conducted in 2008.

This study focuses on Standard 3 of ACRL information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education:

The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.

Current study: 105 papers were collected from 7 Composition classes at the end of Spring 2010. (20 papers were discarded because they had no bibliography attached).

Methodology

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85 papers were analyzed for:

◦ bibliographic content

◦ internal citation practice (paraphrasing vs. quoting)

◦ percentage of bibliography cited in paper

◦ percentage of citable material in paper cited

Methodology continued

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Quotations were analyzed into three categories:

IQ: Quote is preceded by an introduction

QA: Quote is followed by analysis

IQA: Quote has both an introduction and analysis.

More methodology

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44%

30%

3%

22%

1%

citation types

websites

mag/journal

film/media

books

interviews/surveys

Bibliography citation types

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Current Study

Pilot Study 2006 study

Books 22% 24% 32% (includesreference)

Websites 44% 34% 22%

Media 3% 2.6% N/A

Magazine/journals/News

30% 28.2% 38%

Interview/survey 1% 9.8% Other:6%

Bibliographic citation types

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58%

42%

use of quotes

paraphrasing

Use of quotes vs. paraphrasing

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10%20%

30%40%

50%60%

70%80%

90%100%

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

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Y axis = number of papers X axis percent of citations that are quotations

Frequency of quoting

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10%20%

30%40%

50%60%

70%80%

90%100%

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

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X axis= percentage of citations that are paraphrases

Y axis= number of papers

Frequency of paraphrasing

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Current Study Pilot Study

Percentage of Quotes 58% 57%

Percentage of Paraphrasing

42% 43%

Quoting /paraphrasing

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Quoting contexts

20%

14%

13%

53%

intro comments / IQ

analysis /QA

quote hasno intro oranalysis (Q None)

quote hasanalysis andintro (IQA)

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78%

22%

tot bib cits

Bib uncited

Percent of bibliography cited in paper

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0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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X axis= number of papersY axis= Percentage of bibliography cited in paper

Frequency of bibliography cited

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14%

86%

percent uncitedpercent cited

Percent of data cited

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02

46

810

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0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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X axis= Number of items not cited per paperY axis= Number of papers

Frequency of un-cited data

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Sources in the bibliographies were fairly evenly distributed between books, articles and websites, with websites taking the lead. Results were similar for the pilot and new study.

Analysis of results

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The researchers see this as an expected and fairly good result, students are not limiting themselves to the web! They are using library resources though faculty could change these percentages via their paper requirements

Analysis of results

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The percentage of quotes to paraphrasing was almost identical in both studies (60/40) and shows a strong preference for quoting.

Generally paraphrasing is preferred as it requires students to integrate the material into their papers.

Results continued

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However 53 % of the quotes did have an introduction and analysis which does integrate the next strongest level of integration.

30% of all citations are Quotes without I or A. This group is the one of most concern (in addition to data not cited) and should be addressed by faculty via instruction

Results continued

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The percentage of sources from bibliographies that were cited was high 78 %, but should really be 100%!

This element can be addressed by both faculty and librarians.

Results continued

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The percentage of factual statements and/or data in papers that was cited adequately was high: 86 %

But this should be 100%

Instruction in the importance of citing data needs to be addressed by both librarians and faculty.

Results continued

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MLA format was not followed exactly in most cases though most students did include the essential elements to uniquely identify sources.

In some cases, citing was not counted by researchers because it was too incomplete to indicate a unique source.

Results continued

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Students' citing behaviors

◦ 14% sources in text not cited◦ 22% bibliography not cited in text◦ 47% quotes without I or A or both

Both librarians and faculty can improve instruction

Implications

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What are the possible instructional strategies to strengthen the liaison between librarians and composition faculty?

How does this study influence library instructional design?◦ SMC Library’s statement on information literacy

Implications continued

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Collaborative opportunities for faculty, librarians, and writing instructors

MLA format & quoting and paraphrasing needs to be taught explicitly and practiced more.

Discussion

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No random sampling

Summaries are not defined

No discussion on types of sources

No association between un-cited information in the papers and plagiarism

Papers from different sections by various instructors

Limitations of this study

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Develop multiple instructional strategies

Design a study to test these strategies

Compare results to a control group

Directions for future research

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Add specialized instruction on citing to sections of first semester English Composition

Compare results with sections not receiving instruction

Track the progress of first semester college students who receive library instruction

Directions continued

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What are faculty and librarians’ recommendations on improving students’ research writing skills?

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Collaboration with the writing center

Short class exercises or group work on citation practices

Citation tools in databases

Citation software to collect bibliographies

Librarians’ recommendations

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Good citation practices

Effective paraphrasing

Explicit assignment instructions and expectations

Collaboration with library and writing center

Faculty’s recommendations

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Use research data

Workshops on MLA

Collaboration with librarians

◦ Online tutorials

◦ Embedded workshops

Writing center’s recommendations

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Questions, comments, suggestions?

Sharon Radcliff sradclif@stmarys-ca.eduElise Wong yw3@stmarys-ca.edu