The Citation Project: Preventing plagiarism, teaching writing * Research Methods

The Citation Project
Preventing plagiarism, teaching writing

Research Methods

The primary task of the Citation Project is to compile an aggregate portrait of 100 college writers' researched papers. We are studying these papers using what is variously known as "citation content analysis" or simply "citation analysis." Harold White provides a useful history and overview of citation analysis in his 1994 "Citation Analysis and Discourse Analysis Revisited." Of the various uses of citation analysis mentioned by White, the Citation Project focuses on one: classifying the "abstract features of the relationship between citing and cited work" (99).

Citation Project researchers began with these methods developed in information studies and applied linguistics, and have adapted them for inquiry in the field of composition and rhetoric. Useful in our adaptations is the work of Diane Pecorari. We first encountered Pecorari's 2003 "Good and Original: Plagiarism and Patchwriting in Academic Second-Language Writing," but she has since published several other insightful works that use citation content analysis to understand how student writers use their sources.

Working from Pecorari's model, the pilot stage of our research examined 18 student papers, asking whether each citation employed quotation, summary, paraphrase, or patchwriting in its use of the cited source. Like Pecorari, we work from Howard's definition of patchwriting (233), which we have revised: Patchwriting involves copying source language while deleting or adding some words, altering some grammatical structures, or substituting some synonyms.

Now, as we add student work from more institutions to our data pool, we are adding additional questions to our analysis, to answer the question, "Why?" We are drawing on the work of information studies as we explore what kinds of sources are cited in addition to tracking how they are used and incorporated. As we understand the nature of the sources students are working with, we can better understand what causes them to choose quotation, summary, paraphrase, or patchwriting as their way of representing what is in the source. And then we will be in a position to make useful recommendations about the instruction in source-based writing that students need if they are to be able to handle sources in rhetorically effective and ethically responsible ways.

References

Howard, Rebecca Moore. "A Plagiarism Pentimento." Journal of Teaching Writing 11.3 (Summer 1993): 233-46.
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Pecorari, Diane. Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis. New York: Continuum, 2008.
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Pecorari, Diane. "Good and Original: Plagiarism and Patchwriting in Academic Second-Language Writing." Journal of Second Language Writing 12 (2003): 317-345.
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Pecorari, Diane. "Visible and Occluded Citation Features in Postgraduate Second-Language Writing." English for Specific Purposes 25 (2006): 4-29.
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White, Howard D. "Citation Analysis and Discourse Analysis Revisited." Applied Linguistics 25.1 (2004): 89-116.

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