Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates

Citing other works poses difficulties for novice writers, especially the non-native English speaking students in their first experience of writing for academic purposes; the master’s (M.A.) thesis. However, few studies were conducted on these students’ citations in their M.A. theses. This paper,...

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Main Authors: Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan, Issra Pramoolsook
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/1/9667-38503-1-PB.pdf
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author Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan,
Issra Pramoolsook,
author_facet Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan,
Issra Pramoolsook,
author_sort Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan,
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Citing other works poses difficulties for novice writers, especially the non-native English speaking students in their first experience of writing for academic purposes; the master’s (M.A.) thesis. However, few studies were conducted on these students’ citations in their M.A. theses. This paper, therefore, presents the study of in-text citations in 24 literature review (LR) chapters of TESOL M.A. theses written by Vietnamese students. Employing the Antconc software, Thompson and Tribble’s (2001) framework for citation types and functions, and discourse-based interviews with the actual thesis writers and their thesis supervisors, the study confirmed the claim that non-native novice writers cannot fully learn crucial citation practices from mere reading of the guidelines. Besides these writers’ preference for integral citations and a very limited number of citation functions used in their LR chapters, this study also identified the presence of several secondary citations, the students’ “invented” ways of citing previous researchers, grammatical mistakes and the absence of further discussions of the cited works. These findings tend to render the students’ LR chapters as ineffective, in terms of grammar and the rhetorical functions of LR chapters in synthesizing, arguing and indicating the relevancy of the reviewed literature for the niche of their research to be established. Furthermore, these findings indicate a need for an increased amount of formal instruction in academic writing courses which aims at equipping novice writers with the means to successfully acknowledge the sources and at raising their awareness about the various functions and rhetorical effects of the students’ citations in their academic writing.
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spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:101472017-02-23T04:09:43Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/ Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan, Issra Pramoolsook, Citing other works poses difficulties for novice writers, especially the non-native English speaking students in their first experience of writing for academic purposes; the master’s (M.A.) thesis. However, few studies were conducted on these students’ citations in their M.A. theses. This paper, therefore, presents the study of in-text citations in 24 literature review (LR) chapters of TESOL M.A. theses written by Vietnamese students. Employing the Antconc software, Thompson and Tribble’s (2001) framework for citation types and functions, and discourse-based interviews with the actual thesis writers and their thesis supervisors, the study confirmed the claim that non-native novice writers cannot fully learn crucial citation practices from mere reading of the guidelines. Besides these writers’ preference for integral citations and a very limited number of citation functions used in their LR chapters, this study also identified the presence of several secondary citations, the students’ “invented” ways of citing previous researchers, grammatical mistakes and the absence of further discussions of the cited works. These findings tend to render the students’ LR chapters as ineffective, in terms of grammar and the rhetorical functions of LR chapters in synthesizing, arguing and indicating the relevancy of the reviewed literature for the niche of their research to be established. Furthermore, these findings indicate a need for an increased amount of formal instruction in academic writing courses which aims at equipping novice writers with the means to successfully acknowledge the sources and at raising their awareness about the various functions and rhetorical effects of the students’ citations in their academic writing. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2016-06 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/1/9667-38503-1-PB.pdf Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan, and Issra Pramoolsook, (2016) Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates. GEMA: Online Journal of Language Studies, 16 (2). pp. 17-32. ISSN 1675-8021 http://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/801
spellingShingle Nguyen Thi Thuy Loan,
Issra Pramoolsook,
Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates
title Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates
title_full Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates
title_fullStr Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates
title_full_unstemmed Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates
title_short Citations in literature review chapters of TESOL master’s theses by Vietnamese postgraduates
title_sort citations in literature review chapters of tesol master’s theses by vietnamese postgraduates
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10147/1/9667-38503-1-PB.pdf