Presentation at the 'Sources and Resources: Engaging with the Academic Community' EAP conference in St Andrews, Scotland, on March 9th, 2019

1. Using exemplars to discuss
variable source quality in
computer science.
Dr Mark Carver
mac32@st-andrews.ac.uk
@themarkcarver
A recording of this presentation can be downloaded here
Slides on Slideshare at https://tinyurl.com/sscarver
March 9th, 2019

2. Overview
• Reading to improve writing
• Peculiarities in CS
• Exemplars and evaluative judgement
Context
• English for Computer Science 18-month masters
• Concurrent delivery with general EAP, leading into school-only
provision

3. EAP tutor as curator
• Accessible but authentic exemplars
• Limited contradiction/complication
• Structures which map onto assessment design (although
authentic assessment would be preferable!)
• Need for sources which don’t overcomplicate our own advice
• Mediating tacit expectations from schools

4. Reading to be a better writer
• Familiarity with patterns and structure
• Immersion in the tacit norms of a discipline
• Reading widely to avoid mimicry, allowing own voice to
emerge
• A handy by-product from something you have to do
anyway
• Incidental vocabulary acquisition

5. Reading as communicating source value
• “…you need to tune in to each tutor’s perspective by
considering the debates, key questions and issues they
highlight in taught sessions. You can also learn a huge amount
about how they view the topic from the reading that they ask
you to do. It’s vital that you engage with this, as it’s another
crucial aspect of getting to know your tutor and being sure that
your work eventually meets their expectations” (Sambell et al.,
2010, p.25).

6. Developing evaluative judgement
• A “nose for quality” (Sadler, 2010)
• Essential for models such as Learning-oriented assessment
and Sustainable assessment
• A slowly-learnt literacy, perhaps even CoP
• Gets to the why, not just the how – a key value in CS

7. Peculiarities of CS
• Nominally underpinned by mathematics, but multidisciplinary with
much local variation
• Established tools of thinking: programmers fix problems, CSs address
the underlying issue
• Very direct language (Strunk & White), but sometimes conversational
• Importance of conventions and ways of doing
• Precision in formal languages vs. relaxed approach to citation in
natural languages
*Create variable for primary/secondary level
RECODE primaryprep (1 thru 5=1) (ELSE=2) INTO Level.
VARIABLE LABELS Level 'Teaching level’.
• Use any citation system you like, as long as it’s Harvard or APA

9. So here are the 2 distinction samples…
A good source?

11. Source credibility in CS
• Speed of change and relative lack of traditional publishing
culture means that lectures, blogs, self-published books,
guides, etc. are all core parts of the literature
• Many experts in CS are not proficient English users
• Requirements for essay writing partly reflect this (position
paper, technical essay), but are mostly based on traditions in
the wider university
• Creates mismatch in features of text read vs. texts expected
from students

12. What have I learnt about source use?
• Anything can be a source – important to evaluate argument and
evidence used in each source; equally important to not blindly
trust peer-reviewed articles
• There are key players, but few idols – recent and well-argued
seem more important criteria than the author
• Sources are too variable to be useful for ‘reading into writing’
pedagogy: CS conventions must be ‘slowly learnt’, and
exemplars can help in this
• Need to incorporate sources such as lecture transcripts, blogs,
tweets, YouTube tutorials, etc. to teaching resources

13. What have I learnt about citation?
• Good practice of archiving webpages on wayback (‘save page
now’), then give that link in the reference list – may need to
change ‘available from’ and ‘accessed’ conventions
https://web.archive.org/web/20190307212836/https://www.st-
andrews.ac.uk/elt/eapconference/
• The technicalities don’t seem to matter, attention to detail is
evidenced elsewhere
• Students’ own arguments and position should be brutally clear:
citations can ‘get in the way’ in introductions and conclusions –
perhaps a case to be made for changing to footnotes?

14. Using exemplars to share this learning
• Key point: developing evaluative judgement/complex appraisal
to identify what good work looks like, how one’s own work
compares, and what needs to be done to bridge the gap
(Sadler, 2010)
• Working with real examples rather than model answers (To &
Carless, 2017)
• If marking exemplars can help students understand tacit criteria
in general, why not language and structure?
• Rich source of peer feedback

15. A case for change?
• CS2 – Computer Science Citation System
• Design principles
• Familiar to Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) style users,
which itself is based on Chicago
• Number system
• Current/archived online sources
• Norms for quoting spoken English, inc. non-proficient speakers
• Increased searchability of sources
• Compatibility with BibTeX, Mendeley, EndNote, etc.
• Emphasis on state-of-the-art: move year from end of the reference, maybe even
add month?
• In any case, we need to discuss this between EAP and CS – we get to
the root cause rather than just fix the problem!

16. Just a CS problem?
• Exemplars are useful wherever there is tacit knowledge to be
shared
• A bridge between expecting students to ‘absorb’ writing
conventions from their reading and oversimplifying advice

17. References
Writing guidance, project library
Sadler, D. R. (2010) ‘Beyond feedback: Developing student
capability in complex appraisal’, Assessment and Evaluation in
Higher Education. Routledge, 35(5), pp. 535–550.
Sambell, K., Gibson, M. and Miller, S. (2010). Studying childhood
and early childhood: a guide for students. London: Sage.
To, J. and Carless, D. (2016) ‘Making productive use of
exemplars: Peer discussion and teacher guidance for positive
transfer of strategies’, Journal of Further and Higher Education,
40(6), pp. 746–764.