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Engineering Citation Practices for International Graduate Student Writers

Engineering Citation Practices for International Graduate Student Writers. Sources and Resources: Engaging with the Academic Community St. Andrews University, March 9, 2019. Joanne Lax Graduate Technical Communications & Professional Development Specialist College of Engineering

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Engineering Citation Practices for International Graduate Student Writers

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  1. Engineering Citation Practices for International Graduate Student Writers Sources and Resources: Engaging with the Academic Community St. Andrews University, March 9, 2019 Joanne Lax Graduate Technical Communications & Professional Development Specialist College of Engineering Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN jlax@purdue.edu

  2. Purdue University—Quick Facts • Public university, founded 1869 4th largest enrollment of international students in the U.S. in 2018

  3. Purdue by the Numbers • Fall 2018 Purdue total enrollment =43,4111 • College of Engineering = 13,001total enrollment2 • 3,625 graduate students • CoE enrolls 41.0% of Purdue’s international students3 • CoE international students (all levels) = 3,6673 • Graduate students = 47% of all grad students • Undergraduates = 35.7% of all undergrads 1https://www.purdue.edu/datadigest/ 2 https://engineering.purdue.edu/Engr/AboutUs/FactsFigures 3 http://www.iss.purdue.edu/Resources/Docs/Reports/ISS_StatisticalReportFall18.pdf

  4. My Background/Current Work • Earned M.A. in ESL writing at Purdue • Developed/taught academic writing course for Electrical & Computer Engineering graduate students for 15 years • Currently work in the College of Engineering Office of Graduate Education • Develop/teach numerous workshops on communications skills • Teach citation use in “Writing a Publishable Paper” literature review session • Co-present Graduate School’s Responsible Conduct of Research workshop on “Authorship and Publication in Engineering and Technology”

  5. Engineers Believe in Precedent for Their Research John of Salisbury, 12th c. theologian & author: “We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants... Isaac Newton, in a 1676 letter to Robert Hooke: “If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Google Scholar, 2015: “Stand on the shoulders of giants”

  6. Engineers & Citation Practices • Disciplinary differences—Engineers use: Adapted from Hyland,1999

  7. Engineering Citation Difficulties: What to Cite • What constitutes ‘common knowledge’ varies • Even professors don’t always agree • Some ESL students feel no need to cite previous work by research group in methods section (Flowerdew & Li, 2007) • Some feeling that reusing words is not as important as the actual results or ideas (Shi, 2012)

  8. Engineering Citation Difficulties: How to Cite • Preference for numerical in-text citations v. author-date • Allows efficient reading • Reflects engineering emphasis on the research, not the researcher • Leads to sentences such as “[1] proposes a Simultaneous Detection And Tracking method…” or “…the motion-based method proposed by [11]…” (from a student paper) • Numerous reference styles

  9. Engineering-Specific Challenges: Need to Paraphrase or Summarize • Difficult literary skill for ESL students, especially for those with lower proficiency • May not understand the original text or the purpose of citing • Dense technical text can be difficult to paraphrase • “The enthalpy of hydrogen bond formation between the nucleoside bases 2’deoxyguanosine (dG) and 2’deoxycytidine (dC) has been determined by direct measurement. dG and dC were derivatized at the 5’ and 3’ hydroxyls with triisopropylsilyl groups to obtain solubility of the neucleosides in non-acqueous solvents…” www.americanscientist.org/blog/the -long-view/the-science-of-scientific-writing

  10. ESL Challenges: Vocabulary • General lack of vocabulary—learning English and academic vocabulary • Lack of appropriate academic/technical vocabulary • “How can I say it as well?” • Much reuse of text strings & formulaic construction (Eckel, 2011) • “Using beautiful sentences from other studies…” (Yilmaz, 2007) • “I can’t change an authority’s words”

  11. ESL Challenges: Reporting Verbs • Knowledge of discipline-appropriate choices • Use, report, describe, show (Hyland, 1999) • Inability to understand nuances of reporting verbs • Positive v. neutral v. negative connotations • Overwhelming use of neutral verbs reflect desire to appear objective

  12. General Pedagogical Issues • Who teaches engineering students to write publishable papers? • Most learn by apprenticeship approach • Engineering professors may not take the time or feel qualified to do it • Their comments on student papers may not make sense to the authors • To expedite publication, professors may rewrite themselves so students don’t learn

  13. The Engineering Community on Citations • Informal survey of engineering/science communication texts indicates most only provide a “how-to” explanation • And/or discuss citations as a way to avoid plagiarism • Professional societies’ information on citation also emphasizes the how-to aspect v. why • IEEE (“Improve research reproducibility with proper citation practices.”) https://ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/publishing-ethics/cite-sources-appropriately/

  14. The Negative Side of “How to” Cite Rules • Students may get the wrong idea about citations from textbooks & some professional societies • They may see a “relatively stable rhetorical context for efficient communication…” (Bazerman 1988, cited in Hyland, 1999) • But they could get the “…false impression that good source use can be achieved simply by following formatting rules.” (McCulloch, 2012)

  15. Theoretical Frameworks for Engineering Communication Adapted from Paretti, McNair & Leydens, 2014

  16. All Students Need to Know Why to Use Citations • Teaching about avoiding plagiarism ≠ understanding citation practices • Providing university guidelines, requiring student attendance in research conduct seminars ≠ understanding • Students need to understand the role of citations to show how prior research fits into their current work

  17. Pedagogical Implications: My Thoughts • Use authentic materials to teach citation use • Empower students to be ethnographers of writing practices in their discipline by using published articles from their target journals • Students can note what is/isn’t cited, common knowledge, choice of reporting verbs, and more • But teach appropriate ways to re-use language (Cargill 2012)

  18. Reasons for Citing Exercise: Feak & Swales (2009) Several of the eight theories for discussion: • Theory 2: “Citations are used to show respect to previous scholars. They recognize the history of the field by acknowledging previous achievements.” • Theory 4: “Citations operate as a kind of mutual reward system. Rather than pay other authors money for their contributions, writers “pay” them in citations.” • Theory 6: “Citations are used to demonstrate that the author qualifies as a member of the chosen scholarly community; citations are used to demonstrate familiarity with the field.” • Theory 7: “Citations are used to create a research space for the citing author. By describing what has been done, citations point the way to what has not been done and so prepare a space for new research.”

  19. Take-Away Message • ESL engineering graduate students need to understand the why, what, and how of citations • Non-engineering writing instructors should call on resources such as engineering such as faculty & librarians

  20. Selected References • Cargill, M., O’Connor, P., & , Li, Y. (2012). Educating Chinese scientists to write for international journals: Addressing the divide between science and technology education and English language teaching, English for Specific Purposes, 31(1), 60-69, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2011.05.003. • Eckel, E. (2011). Textual appropriation in engineering master’s theses: A preliminary study, Science and Engineering Ethics, 17, 469-483. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9214-6. • Feak, C. & Swales, J. (2009). Telling a Research Story: Writing a Literature Review, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pages 7-8. • Flowerdew, J. and Li, Y (2007). Language Re-use among Chinese Apprentice Scientists Writing for Publication, Applied Linguistics, 28(3), 440–465, https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amm031. • Hyland, K. (1999). Academic attribution: Citation and the construction of disciplinary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 20(3), 341-367. doi:10.1093/applin/20.3.341. • McCulloch, S. (2012). Citations in search of a purpose: Source use and authorial voice in L2 student writing, International Journal for Educational Integrity, 8(1), 55-69. • Paretti, M., McNair, L., & Leydens, J. (2014). Engineering Communication. In A. Johri & B. Olds (Ed.),  Cambridge Handbook of Engineering Education Research (pp. 601-632). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139013451.038. • Shi, L. (2012). Rewriting and paraphrasing source texts in second language writing, Journal of Second Language Writing, 21(2), 134-148. • Yilmaz, I. (2007). Plagiarism? Now we’re just borrowing better English, Nature, 449, 658.

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