Radcliff, S., & Wong, E. (2012). English Composition students: How are they using their sources? Paper presented at CARL Conference 2012, San Diego, CA, 5-7 April. Researchers collected papers from eight sections of English Composition at a liberal arts college and analyzed and compared sources listed in bibliographies to sources cited within the paper to see if all sources listed in the bibliographies were cited. Researchers tabulated how sources were used, including paraphrasing, stand-alone quotes and quotes either preceded by an introductory comment or followed by analysis or both. The goal was to discover how students were (or were not) using sources listed in their bibliographies and to determine the degree to which students were integrating information from their sources into their writing. Researchers analyzed the bibliographies by type of source and counted instances of un-cited data in papers. The overall purpose of the study was to help both composition instructors and librarians adjust their instructional strategies to address the problems highlighted by the study which included: Use of stand-alone quotes, use of un-cited data and inclusion of sources in bibliographies that were not cited in the paper. This research project was also an excellent vehicle for partnering with English composition faculty to learn how library instruction and composition instruction interact and overlap. The research highlighted for both how the boundary between library and English composition instruction has gaps that need to be filled by changing instructional methods and by creating more cooperation between librarians and composition faculty. Various ideas on how to accomplish this are included in the presentation.

1. Presenters: Sharon Radcliff, Elise Y Wong
Saint Mary’s College of California
1

2.  In-text citations and bibliographies
 Types of sources used in bibliographies
 Paraphrasing vs. quoting
 How quotations are integrated
2

3.  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
3

4.  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
4

5.  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%
5

6. Learning outcomes for ENG 5 includes:
 Write analytical, evaluative, and
argumentative essays
 Employ research skills in writing
 Support and cite argument with sources
6

7. Learning goal:
 Information Evaluation and Research Practices
Learning outcome:
 students will integrate and cite evidence
appropriately with increasing proficiency
7

8.  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.
8

9.  Summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting
 Paraphrasing, less quoting
 Use quotes to support your arguments
 Introduce and analyze your sources
9

10.  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.
10

11.  Good citation practices are essential
 Classroom discussion on citing
 Instructor’s assignment requirements
11

12.  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
12

13.  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)
13

14.  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.
14

15.  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.
15

16. Reference materials 6%
Books 28%
Journals 8%
Magazines 9%
Newspapers 21%
Web sites 22%
Other 6%
16

17.  Instruction: librarians can use their expertise
on research methods, processes and sources
to teach the research component of the
course.
17

18.  Research: provides both composition faculty
and librarians with assessment student
performance in various areas and thus on
how well existing teaching methods are
working
18

19.  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).
19

20.  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
20

21.  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.
21

22. 44%
30%
3%22%
1%
citation types
websites
mag/journal
film/media
books
interviews/surveys
22

23. Current Study Pilot Study 2006 study
Books 22% 24% 32% (includes
reference)
Websites 44% 34% 22%
Media 3% 2.6% N/A
Magazine/journals
/News
30% 28.2% 38%
Interview/survey 1% 9.8% Other:6%
23

24. 58%
42%
use of quotes
paraphrasing
24

25. 0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Y axis = number of papers
X axis percent of citations that are quotations
25

26. 0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
X axis= percentage of citations that are paraphrases
Y axis= number of papers
26

27. Current Study Pilot Study
Percentage of Quotes 58% 57%
Percentage of
Paraphrasing
42% 43%
27

28. 28
20%
14%
13%
53%
intro comments /
IQ
analysis /QA
quote has
no intro or
analysis (Q None)
quote has
analysis and
intro (IQA)

29. 78%
22%
tot bib cits
Bib uncited
29

30. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
X axis= number of papers
Y axis= Percentage of bibliography cited in paper
30

31. 14%
86%
percent uncited
percent cited
31

32. 0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
X axis= Number of items not cited per paper
Y axis= Number of papers
32

33.  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.
33

34.  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
34

35.  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.
35

36.  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
36

37.  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.
37

38.  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.
38

39.  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.
39

40.  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
40

41.  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
41

42.  Collaborative opportunities for faculty,
librarians, and writing instructors
 MLA format & quoting and paraphrasing
needs to be taught explicitly and practiced
more.
42

43.  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
43

44.  Develop multiple instructional strategies
 Design a study to test these strategies
 Compare results to a control group
44

45.  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
45

46. 46

47.  Collaboration with the writing center
 Short class exercises or group work on
citation practices
 Citation tools in databases
 Citation software to collect bibliographies
47

48.  Good citation practices
 Effective paraphrasing
 Explicit assignment instructions and
expectations
 Collaboration with library and writing center
48

49.  Use research data
 Workshops on MLA
 Collaboration with librarians
◦ Online tutorials
◦ Embedded workshops
49

50. Sharon Radcliff sradclif@stmarys-ca.edu
Elise Wong yw3@stmarys-ca.edu
50