Understanding Citations Through Disciplinary Values Emily Forcier, Metropolitan State University of Denver abstractThis lesson on citation starts with the concept of disciplinary values and the ways that disciplines create and build knowledge, including how they use citation. First, it asks tutors to reflect on their own experiences in classes and within their majors when working with source material and citations. After that paired work, tutors complete an annotation activity with two articles, written in different citation styles, looking at how and where the authors of those pieces used citation. The lesson concludes with a large group discussion of what tutors know from experience, what they learned from the annotation activity, and how they can apply disciplinary knowledge in tutoring sessions to demystify citation and guide students to understanding its purpose.
Instructional feedback/approaches Sentence-level/lower-order/lower gravity concerns Writing in the disciplines/writing across the curriculum LESSON OVERVIEW We we often hear in tutorials that students (and sometimes our tutors) think of citation as “jumping through hoops” and are overly focused on format. We wanted to shift our tutors’ focus from thinking of citation as a “necessary evil” to thinking of it more as a way to signal membership in a discipline. Therefore, this lesson aims to teach tutors how to read rhetorically for the lower-order concerns, or rules-based concerns, of citations and citation styles, and to connect this information to disciplinary values (Barney, 2016; Smith, 2007; Thonney, 2011). Even if a student just wants to know what to cite and how, we feel that reframing this discussion is important for both tutors and students. The theoretical grounding for this lesson includes discourse communities (Swales, 2017), examining disciplinary values (Adler-Kassner & Wardle, 2022), writing in the disciplines, and transferring writing skills and knowledge across the curriculum (Thonney, 2011). Because "academic citation practices contribute to the construction of disciplinary knowledge" (Hyland, 1999), tutors will focus on the lower-order concerns of MLA and APA citation styles by identifying four components: in-text citations, signal phrases, narrative and/or parenthetical citations, and stacking citations (Mueller, 2005; Hyland 1999) in an annotation activity. In our experience, students and tutors have found this approach to teaching citation styles helpful. Components of this lesson have been used at different points in the semester for staff meetings, included a mix of returning tutors and new tutors, and has served as a nice citation refresher. Additionally, we noticed tutors’ talk around citation shifted to the why of citation instead of the how. Learning outcomes for this lesson plan include tutors understanding the larger idea of disciplinarity, disciplinary values, exploring their own knowledge base in certain disciplines and citation styles, and preparing to work with a variety of disciplines and citation styles. By unlocking some of tutors’ experiential knowledge from their own coursework and by asking them to read sources more rhetorically, we can prepare them to work with citations beyond formatting.
FORMAT TYPE In-person TIMING & OCCURRENCE Lesson Time: 30-60 minutes TUTOR AUDIENCE Novice tutors
AUTHOR INFORMATIONEmily Forcier, Metropolitan State University of Denver
Emily Forcier is a lecturer and the assistant writing program administrator of first-year writing at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her research consists of writing center administration, tutor training curriculum, and first-year writing pedagogy. Melody Denny, St. Lawrence University Melody Denny is the WORD Studio Director at St. Lawrence University. Her research focuses on writing center discourse, writing center administration, first-year writing, writing across the curriculum, and, more recently, AI. |
