The document discusses using blogs to teach students about source citation as a rhetorical act. It argues that focusing on what sources do, what citing them accomplishes, and what citations themselves do, shifts the conversation from proper citation formatting to how citations direct attention and reflect on the author. The document advocates moving students from seeing citation as simply covering their ass to understanding it as epistemic, situated, contingent and interactional. It provides examples of blogs for students to analyze how bloggers cite sources and how those citations affect the blogger's voice and impression.

1. Using Blogs to Teach Source Citation
as a Rhetorical Act
Elizabeth Kleinfeld
Metropolitan State University of Denver
ekleinfe@msudenver.edu
Slides are at http://www.slideshare.net/lizkleinfeld

3. When we focus on
• what sources do,
• what we do when we cite them, and
• what source citations themselves do

4. the conversation shifts from “here
is the template for a works cited
entry” to “How does this source
citation direct readers’ attention?”
and “How does this source citation
reflect upon the author?”

5. source citation =
“cover your ass” move

6. source citation =
“cover your ass” move

7. Barbara Fister
“When our students are distracted by arcane
citation rules, when they spend more time creating
a list of works cited than they do composing a
paper, they won’t be inspired to see themselves as
people who can make meaning. Instead, they will
focus on avoiding punishment by carefully
describing the containers of other people’s ideas.
They’ll miss the whole point.”

8. By shifting the question from “how am I
supposed to cite this source?” to “what
happens when I cite this source in a
particular way?”, we can move our students
(and ourselves) from a CYA attitude toward
source citation to one in which source
citation is seen as
epistemic, situated, contingent, and
interactional.

9. • Experiments in Lifestyle Design
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
• We Make Money Not Art
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/
• Salty Running
http://www.saltyrunning.com/

10. Experiments in Lifestyle Design

11. We Make Money Not Art

12. Salty Running

13. Read 3-5 entries from each blog, then
answer the following questions:
1. How does the blogger signal to you, the reader, that source
material is being referred to?
2. What types of sources does the blogger cite?
3. To what degree does the blogger rely on paraphrase, summary, and
quotation?
4. What does the blogger do with those sources? Elaborate on the
source material? Interpret the source material? Something else?
5. How do the citations make you feel toward the source material?
For example, do you feel invited to go to the source material?
6. How do the citations make you feel toward the blogger? Do you
feel close or distant?
7. Describe the blogger’s voice. How do the citations contribute to the
blogger’s voice?
8. How does the blogger come across
(serious, trustworthy, goofy, etc.)? How do the citations contribute
to this impression?