Writing in academic context requires writers to comply with certain conventions. One important aspect of these conventions is that of citing or incorporating materials from other writers. It is argued that, by confirming to the conventions of citation, writers not only negotiate membership in a particular academic community, but also establish epistemological framework, which is embedded in the context of the discipline. Therefore, this paper discusses the connection between citation practices and students’ success in their academic discipline. It raises students’ awareness of the fact that their success in their chosen academic discipline partly depends on their ability to comply with citation convention.

1. Paper I: Research methodology
Clément Ndoricimpa, PhD Scholar
Registration Number: 1901
Selected Title:
Crediting sources in academic writing: Citation
and negotiation for entry into an academic
discourse community.

2. 1. Introduction
• Writing in academic context requires writers to comply with certain
conventions.
• One important aspect of these conventions is that of citing or incorporating
materials from other writers.

3. Cont……..
• Citation is “standardized methods of acknowledging all source of information or
ideas in writing a research article, a book, a thesis, an essay assignment”
(Madhusudan, 2016).
• According to many researchers (see, Gilbert, 1976 ; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995),
citation is central to the social context of persuasion as it can both provide
justification for arguments and demonstrate the novelty of one’s position.
• By conforming to the conventions of citations in developing arguments, writers not
only negotiate membership in a particular academic community but also, as Hyland
(1999) argues, “establish a credible writer ethos”.

4. Cont……
• Although many studies recognize the importance of citation, they do not
focus on establishing connection between citation conventions and
negotiation for entry in an academic discourse community.
• Therefore, this paper aims at discussing the connection between citation
practices and students and scholars’ success in their academic discipline.
• This paper tests the following hypothesis: “Students and scholars’ success in
their chosen academic discipline depends upon their ability to comply with
citation conventions in writing research papers.”

5. 2. Academic discourse community
• Cheung (2017) points out that academic community can be explained from different
perspectives.
• First, it is explained from the point of view of membership into a particular
community.
• Second, it is explained from the perspective of community of practices, which
focuses on members’ engagement with the practices of the community.
• Last, it is explained from the point of view of language use and academic discourse.

6. Cont……
• The interpretation of academic discourse community from these
perspectives lead to defining academic discourse community as follows:
• A discourse community is a group of people who have common topics for
their discourse and common conventions for their discourse practices, with
shared assumptions of appropriate and valid ways of discussing and making
claims (Porter, 1986)
• Swales (1990, pp, 24-27) proposes six characteristics of discourse
community, which include:

7. Cont……
• A broadly agreed set of common public goals ;
• Mechanisms of intercommunication among its members ;
• One or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims ;
• Participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback ;
• A specific set of lexis ;
• A threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and
discourse expertise.

8. Cont…..
• These characteristics highlight the use of discourse for socialization in a particular
academic community.
• They also foreground the conventions, which govern the structuring of discourse.
• Therefore, since essay assignments, thesis and research articles belong to the
category of discourses that are written in academic context, they have to follow
certain conventions.
• One aspect of those rules is citation conventions: APA and MLA citation
conventions

9. 3. APA and MLA Citation conventions
• APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language
Association) are guides for many aspects of writing in many academic
disciplines.
• APA is used by scholars and researchers in the fields of social and behavioral
sciences, psychology, education, anthropology, etc.(Madhusudhan, 2016).
• MLA is used by scholars and researchers in the fields of modern languages
and literature.

10. Cont….
• Writers follow APA and MLA conventions for presenting information and
for generously acknowledging their debts to their predecessors.
• It is argued that, in following these rules, they uphold important attitudes and
values of their disciplines (see, Madigan, Johnson & Linton, 1995).
• These conventions are related to keying brief parenthetical citations in the
text and writing the list of cited sources. They include acknowledging
periodical and non-periodical sources, electronic and printed sources, and
audio-visual sources.

11. Cont…..
Examples
• The aesthetic and ideological orientation of jazz underwent considerable scrutiny in
the late 1950s and early 1960s (Anderson 7). MLA parenthetical citation in text.
• Anderson, Iain. This is Our Music: Free Jazz, the sixties, and American Culture.
Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2007. Print. MLA alphabetical list of work cited.
• The aesthetic and ideological orientation of jazz underwent considerable scrutiny in
the late 1950s and early 1960s (Anderson, 2007, p. 7). APA parenthetical citation
• Anderson, I. (2007). This is Our Music: Free Jazz, the sixties, and American Culture.
Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press. APA reference list

12. Cont…..
• Although these conventions seem straightforward, failure to comply with them
results in the rejection of a research paper, thesis or lower grade in essay
assignments.
• In addition, as Madigan, Johnson & Linton (1995) argue, citation conventions
involve more than what is articulated.
• Some of these unarticulated rules have to do with the distinction between integral
and non-integral structures.
• Other unarticulated rules have to do with the choice of different reporting verbs to
introduce the work of others.

13. 4. Negotiation for entry into discourse community
• Writing in academic context involves citing or incorporating sources from
other authors.
• Citation, as Hyland (1999) points out, help academic writers to present
arguments and persuade readers of their work.
• Through appropriate choice of citations, writers “align with particular
perspectives, draw on specific authorities and thereby develop credibility in a
particular discourse community” (Badenhorst, 2017).
• However, appropriate choice of citations may be difficult for students.

14. Cont…..
• There are many examples, which demonstrate rejection of students’ work because
of failure to comply with the citation practices of their disciplines.
• Bateson (1972) describes one example of doctoral thesis that was rejected due to
the failure to comply with the practices of literary critics in incorporating external
sources.
• Another example is related to the studies conducted by Myers (1990), Berkenkotter
and Huckin (1995). In their study, they demonstrated the ways researchers were
obliged by editors and reviewers to increase the number of references and to
incorporate intertextual framework for local knowledge.

15. Cont……
• These two examples suggest that academic texts are the products of a discourse community
of writers.
• Therefore, writers have to accommodate to ethos of the discourse community.
• It is also clear from the examples that the ethos are related to the practices of citation.
• As a result, it is argued that gaining entry and maintaining membership into a particular
discourse community involves following generic conventions including citation rules
(Flowerdew, 2000).
• Porter (1986) points out that unless students learn the citation practices of their discourse
communities, they will not be successful in writing for an academic audience.

16. 5. Conclusion
• It is clear that citation practices are contextually based and are related to
community norms of knowledge construction.
• Academic writers engage in knowledge constructions as members of a
particular discourse community.
• Therefore, when they produce a written text, their discoursal decision is
influenced by the beliefs and values of their academic community.
• It is also clear from the discussion that to gain entry into a particular
discourse community involves following its norms and convention.

17. Cont……
• Consequently, this leads to supporting the hypothesis that students and
scholars’ success in their chosen academic discipline depends upon their
ability to comply with citation conventions in writing research papers.
• Students should be made aware of these conventions when they start higher
education.
• This awareness may help them avoid academic dishonesty- plagiarism.
• It may help them learn how particular citation norms are connected to
knowledge construction of a particular discipline.

18. 6. References
• American Psychological Association, (2010). Publication Manual of the American
Psychological Association, 6th ed. Washington, DC: APA.
• Badenhorst, C.M. (2017). Literature review, citations and intertextuality in
graduate student writing. Journal of Further and Higher Education.
• Berkenkotter, C. & T. Huckin. (1995). Genre knowledge in disciplinary
communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Bizzel, P. (1982). Review: College composition: Initiation into the Academic
Discourse Community. Curriculum Enquiry, 12(2), 191-207.

19. Cont…..
• Cheung, L. M. E. (2017). Development of evaluative stance and voice in
postgraduate academic writing. PH.D Thesis, the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University.
• Flowerdew, J. (2000). Discourse community, legitimate peripheral
participation, and the nonnative-English-speaking scholar. TESOL
QUARTERLY, 34(1), 127- 150.
• Gilbert, G. (1976). The transformation of research findings into scientific
knowledge. Social Studies of Science, 6, 281-306.

20. Cont….
• Hewings, M. (2001). Academic writing in context: Implications and Applications.
Birmingham: The University of Birmingham Press.
• Hyland, K. (1999). Academic attribution: Citation and the construction of disciplinary
knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 20(3), 341-367
• Hyland, K. (2008). Disciplinary Voices: Interactions in Research Writing. English Texts
Construction, 1(1), 5-22
• Madigan, R., Johnson, S. & Linton, P. (1995). The Language of Psychology: APA style as
Epistemology. University of Alaska, Anchorage.

21. Cont….
• Madhusudhan, M. (2016). Use of Online Citation Tools by Students and Research
Scholars of Department of Library and Information Science, University of
Delhi. Journal of Library and Information Technology, 36(3), 164-172
• Myers, G. (1990). Writing Biology: Texts in the social construction of scientific knowledge.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Porter, J. E. (1986). Intertextuality and the Discourse Community. Rhetoric Review,
5(1), 34-47.
• The Modern Language Association of America, (2009). MLA Handbook for Writers
of Research Papers, 7th edit. New Delhi: First East-West Press.

22. Cont….
• Swales, J. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wenger, E. (1991). Communities of practice: Where learning happens.
Benchmark, fall, 6-8