In my last two posts on responding to drafts of student writing, I have emphasized the need to prioritize comments and to focus as much—if not more—on content and organization than on grammar and mechanics. The same philosophy can be applied to helping students refine their citation and documentation at the draft stage.
While it is tempting to roll up your sleeves and just make the citations look right, that’s putting the cart before the horse, or I should say, the title before the author. Before students focus on the format of citations, they should focus on “higher-order” issues.
Early on in making an assignment, you should have discussed why we cite, as well as defined plagiarism. Students need to understand that citation not only helps the reader trace the logic or check the facts but also adds to the writer’s ethos and puts the writing in the context of a tradition or a scholarly/professional conversation.
Following is a list of some of the more common problems you may encounter in drafts:
- When to use direct quotes, paraphrase, or summary
- How to work citations gracefully into the text
- How to keep quotes accurate
- How and when to document visuals
- How to format documentation consistently and correctly
When to use direct quotes, paraphrase, or summary. In some disciplines, direct quotes are common, especially where the topic of study is a text. Because students usually learned to write research papers in an English class, they may be quote-happy. So figure out how your discipline uses direct quotes, if at all, and impart that wisdom to your students. Remember to qualify what you say, since they may have heard something very different in n English class. Paraphrasing (of specific passages) may also be more common in the humanities or in disciplines where what a specific authority said is important. Summary would be more common if reporting findings or the basic gist of research.
How to work citations gracefully into the text. Sometimes students will just plop a quotation into a text. “They just end a sentence, throw in a quote, and begin again.” Or they may have difficulty signaling where the use of a source begins and ends—they may put a parenthetical citation at the end of the paragraph, which the reader will likely think is only referring back to material in that sentence, while the novice writer may mean it to cover the whole paragraph.
How to keep quotes accurate. Two problems often come up here: taking poor notes or mistyping from the source and taking material out of context. Often, too, students leave the citation blank when they draft and fill in the information later, which causes a problem if they can no longer locate the source. Explain why they should at least put the basic citation information into the draft or teach them how you keep track of your citations. I recommend RefWorks, which is supported by University Libraries. Also point out anything that looks wrong, out of context, or incorrectly copied.
How and when to document visuals. If a visual is not original, its source should be provided, with the exception of free or purchased artwork such as clip art. Students tend to think if they found a picture on the web (sometimes any graphic) that they can use it without attribution. Visuals, like words, are intellectual property.
How to format documentation consistently and correctly. This is a lower-order concern, so don’t spend too much time on it in commenting on drafts. If the citation and documentation is rough at the draft stage, don’t be surprised. Many writers leave sorting these issues out until they revise. If your students are learning good note taking habits, however, they may be a bit less sloppy about these important considerations. If the format is annoyingly wrong, a brief comment, rather than editing each particular error, will be enough: “You are mixing various citation styles. Stick to MLA.” Or “Make sure everything you cite is also listed on your References (Works Cited) page.”
An effective way to teach all these skills (before you even get to drafts) is to have students examine a professionally written article in your discipline to see how citations were handled. While you are looking at whether direct quotes, paraphrases, or summaries are being used, you can also look at how citations are worked into the text. Do the authors use tags (“according to …”) or are parenthetical cites at the end of a sentence more common? What verbs introduce the text (state, explain, argue, content, etc….)? How are tables, figures, and other visuals not created by the writer labeled to indicate a source? You might even have them trace a quote back to the original source so they can check its accuracy and whether it was taken out of context.
The UWC has a handout (Documenting Sources) to cover some of these issues. Students may also appreciate Documentation Styles, which links to pages that detail different styles. Let me know if you have a style or a site you’d like to add to the list.