The citation struggle: Seeing the forest for the trees

The citation struggle:
Seeing the forest for the trees
Roën Ja nyk & L e a nna J a ntzi | O k a na g a n C o l l e g e L ibr a r y | Connec tions 2012

Objectives

• To discuss the citation challenges students face
• To have a better understanding of the role of
information literacy in citation
• To learn a few APA tips and tricks

The citation struggle | Connections 2012

Some background: Survey

Purpose:
• To foster citation support and instruction offered at
Okanagan College Library by incorporating evidence-based
decision making practices

Methodology:
• Business, Science, Arts, Health, and Technologies departments
• Online, confidential, and voluntary surveys
• All faculty
• Stratified random sample of students


Some background: Survey
Faculty
Surveys sent = 280
Sample size required = 84 (30% response rate)
Surveys returned= 81 (28.92% response rate)

Students
Surveys sent = 1180
Sample size required = 350 (30% response rate)
Surveys bounced = 2
Surveys not completed = 50
Surveys returned = 191 (16.19% response rate)


Citation survey: Faculty
Not sure
19%
Does your department Yes
require students to use 49%
No
a specific citation style? 32%

28

What citation style
does your department
require students to use? 8

4
2
0


30

What is your 25

expectation of 20

students' 15
1st year
2nd year
comprehension of 10
3rd year
4th year
the purpose of 5
citation?
0
1 No 2 3 4 5 Extremely Not
expectation high applicable
expectation

35

30

How do you 25
rate students' 20 1st year

comprehension 2nd year
15 3rd year
of the purpose 4th year
10
of citation?
5

0
1 Poor 2 3 4 5 Excellent Not
The citation struggle | Connections 2012 applicable

What is your expectation 1st year

of students' ability to 2nd year
3rd year
create proper citations? 4th year

1 No 2 3 4 5 Extremely Not
expectation high applicable
expectation

How do you rate 1st year
2nd year
students' ability to 3rd year

create proper 4th year

citations?
1 Poor 2 3 4 5 Excellent Not
The citation struggle | Connections 2012 applicable

Citation survey: Students
Not sure
18% Yes
Did you receive 42%
citation instruction in
high school? No
40%

Have you received
52.1% Librarian
citation instruction
Instructor
from: an OC course
instructor; an OC 42.1%
70.7%
librarian?
24.6% 5.8%
The citation struggle | Connections 2012 4.7%
Yes No Not Sure

Citation survey: Students
80

60
Please rate your confidence
40
level in terms of your ability 20

to create citations. 0
1 No 2
confidence 3
4
5 Extremely
confident

70
What is your instructor's 60

perception of your ability 50
40

to create citations? 30
20
10
0
1 Not able 2
3
4
The citation struggle | Connections 2012 5 Very able

Citation @ reference desks
September 2011 – July 2012
All campuses
Research Technical
7% 5%
Directional
34%
Reference
38%
Citation
16%


What students are saying
“I was never told to or taught how
“Citations take a long time to do.” to cite anything in high school, so I
had to completely learn how to do
so during first year.”

I’ve never learned how to do this.
This is difficult.
“[Citations] are frustrating .”

This is time-consuming. I spent more time on my references
than I did on my paper.

“It would be nice if they stopped changing the rules regarding
citations so that we only have to learn it once.”


Information literacy & citation

“To make judgments about citations – the kind of work cited, the
value of the work in the academic discipline, and the creation of
citations to support arguments or prove facts – involves
understanding disciplinary conversations and why citations are
so important in academia” (Elmborg, 2006, p. 197).


Information literacy

“Information Literacy is the set of skills needed to find,
retrieve, analyze, and use information”

- Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)


competency standards
• Know
• Access
• Evaluate
• Use
• Ethical / Legal
- Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)


What students are saying
“I'm just going to Google it for
one time I'll need it before I die. “Can be difficult to know when it
is important to [c]ite in class
It's not serious business.”
handouts and slides .”

“…there is a large amount
“I can't particularly understand why different
of grey area around what
instructors require different citation styles. It
should be cited…”
would be rather interesting to learn why the
differences are necessary for different
subjects, I would think :)”

What students are asking

How do I cite this?

Journal article? Newspaper article?

Book chapter? What is “this”? Blog post?

Secondary source? Streaming video?

I don’t know.

Challenge

“One challenge students face when citing a resource begins at
the material identification stage . . . If a student does not
understand what type of material s/he is examining, then it is
impossible to use the manual to select the correct citation
format” (Park, Mardis, & Ury, 2011, p. 45).


Newspaper article, online

Struzik, E. (2008, Aug 23). Polar bears’ long swims blamed on global warming:
Satellite images show little ice in region. Calgary Herald. Retrieved
from http://www.calgaryherald.com

(Struzik, 2008)
Struzik (2008) writes . . .
“Direct quote” (Struzik, 2008, para. 3).


APA Quick tips: electronic articles

• everything online is not a website!
• database name not required
• retrieval date not required
• use DOI (digital object identifier) if available, if not
available, provide the homepage URL of the journal, book
or report, etc.



Who is the author/editor?

What is the year of publication?

Where is the place of publication?


Chapter in an edited book

Bonson, A. (2002) Jessie Nagle and Susan Nagle. In K. Carter (Ed.),
The small details of life: Twenty diaries by women in Canada,
1830-1996 (pp. 119-122). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto
Press.

(Bonson, 2002)
According to Bonson (2002)…
“direct quote” (Bonson, 2002, p. 120)


APA Quick tips: chapter in a book

• cite the author’s largest work
• an item on the reference list indicates that you have read
that whole item
• look for a book’s publication (bibliographic) information
on both sides of the title page – not the cover


How do I cite this?


Secondary sources
(a source in another source)

Biddix, J. P., Chung, C. J., & Park, H. W. (2011). Convenience or credibility?
A study of college student online research behaviors. The Internet
and Higher Education, 14, 175-182. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.01.003

In their study, Rainie and Tancer found that . . . (as cited in Biddix, Chung,
& Park, 2011).


Citation in a direct quote
(a source in another source)

Biddix, J. P., Chung, C. J., & Park, H. W. (2011). Convenience or credibility?
A study of college student online research behaviors. The Internet
and Higher Education, 14, 175-182. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.01.003

“Pew researchers (Rainie & Tancer, 2007) found 50% of college graduates
used the site (86% if those with college experience were included), while
46% of current full- or part-time college students used Wikipedia”(Biddix,
Chung, & Park, 2011, p. 176).


APA Quick tips: secondary sources

• do your best to find the original



How do I cite this? There’s not an example.

Pamphlet My class notes

Image from the web
Professor’s lecture
Course PowerPoint

Movie on Netflix


Challenge

“It is also difficult for the citation manuals to keep up with
constantly shifting and expanding technology. The holes in
citation manuals necessitate that students try to plug elements
into examples of other resources, which might not be
comparable” (Park, Mardis, & Ury, 2011, p. 45).


PowerPoint presentation on Moodle

Rempel, K. (2007). Chapter ten: Motivating and rewarding employees
[PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://moodle.okanagan.bc.ca

(Rempel, 2007)
According to Rempel (2007)…
“direct quote” (Rempel, 2007, p. 120)


APA Quick tips: no example

• follow the closest example
• ALL citations should have:
• who
• when
• what
• where



If I’ve already cited it once in text, do I have to
repeat the citation again and again?

Yes . . .

. . . and no.


Smith (2010) stated that three in five subjects responded positively to
treatment. Smith also stated that those who responded positively found
that their symptoms began to lessen after two weeks of treatment. The
study also showed that the female subjects demonstrated a higher rate
of recovery (Smith, 2010).

Three in five subjects responded positively to treatment (Smith, 2010).
Smith (2010) also stated that those who responded positively found that
their symptoms began to lessen after two weeks of treatment. The study
also showed that the female subjects demonstrated a higher rate
of recovery (Smith, 2010).



What do I have to cite?

Anything that is not your original thought
or common knowledge.

But every sentence will be a citation!


APA Quick tips: multiple citations

• over-citing is not plagiarism (it may be poor writing), but
not citing is plagiarism



How do I paraphrase?

How do I put this information in my paper?

Can’t I just change a couple words?

I have all this information, but now what?


Comprehension & writing skills
• Rewriting
• Paraphrasing
• Quoting
• Separating “my words” from “your
words” (Buranen, 2009, p. 30)

“Even ‘good’ students who are ‘good writers’ need to be given
instruction in close reading, summarizing, and paraphrasing (never mind
documentation), but also enough time to reach the point at which they
‘own’ the language and the ideas enough to write about something ‘in
their own words’” (Buranen, 2009, p.27 ).



“However, many of these students appear to have difficulty using the
information they have found in a critical way. Half of the students
involved in this study (20 in total) provided little or no evidence that they
derived any benefits from the literature they were required to consult”
(Rosenblatt, 2010, p. 60).



“Citation counts for little if what is being cited is a fragmentary
representation of the source. Plagiarism is difficult to avoid if one is
constructing an argument from isolated sentences pulled from sources”
(Rosenblatt, 2010, p. 60).


Writing Skills?

Information Literacy?

Where should the
focus be?
Comprehension?
Citation mechanics?

Theoretical aspects
of citation?


“The ability to parse a journal citation or to read a catalog record results from
an understanding of its deep structures and derives from a disciplined and
grammatical approach to information. The citation functions to distill the
elements of publication into concise code. We can treat this citation either
prescriptively (there is a “right way” to cite and a universal truth reflected in
its structure) or as a social construct (by focusing on why citation matters in
the academy and what conversations are implied in networks of citation)”
(Elmborg, 2006, p. 197).


Resources
Okanagan College Library
Research, Writing and Citing (Full Version)
Research, Writing and Citing (Condensed Version)
Style & Citation guides

Guide to Plagiarism and Cyber-Plagiarism: University of Alberta Library
http://guides.library.ualberta.ca/content.php?pid=62200&sid=457651

Academic Integrity (Faculty resource): Dalhousie University
http://academicintegrity.dal.ca/Faculty%20Resources/

Academic Integrity (Faculty resource): Ryerson University
http://www.ryerson.ca/academicintegrity/faculty/index.html


References
Buranen, L. (2009). A Safe Place: The Role of Librarians and Writing Centers in Addressing
Citation Practices and Plagiarism. Knowledge Quest, 37(3), 24-33. Retrieved
from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals
/knowledgequest/knowledgequest.cfm
Elmborg, J. (2006). Critical information literacy: Implications for instructional practice.
The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32. 192-199. doi:
10.1016/j.acalib.2005.12.004
Park, S., Mardis, L. A., & Ury, C. (2011). I've lost my identity - oh, there it is … in a style
manual: Teaching citation styles and academic honesty. Reference Services
Review, 39, 42-57. doi:10.1108/00907321111108105


The citation struggle: Seeing the forest for the trees

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Plus de Okanagan College Library

Plus de Okanagan College Library (8)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

The citation struggle: Seeing the forest for the trees