Tackling illegitimate intertextuality through socialization - An action research project

Without proper guidance, some graduate-student writers can misstep and break with the source-use conventions of their disciplines in various ways, including acts that could be considered plagiaristic. Many universities attempt to reduce such missteps with published definitions of plagiarism, guidance in formatting styles, and training in discrete writing skills such as paraphrasing and summarizing; however, the persistence of illegitimate intertextual practices suggests that the issue might be more complex than simple ignorance of conventions or lack of writing skill. This paper reports on a five-year action research project that sought to explore illegitimate intertextuality in research proposals submitted by the members of five diverse cohorts of social science graduate students near the outset of their studies. Data were collected through Turnitin.com similarity reports, discussions with students and instructors, submitted written assignments, and a survey. Over the five years, the project evolved away from simple definition and skill-building toward a focus on socializing students into an academic community of practice. The findings from this project suggest that the core of the issue may be that students hold fundamentally different conceptions of the role of sources in academic texts to those held by their more experienced discourse-community mentors. These results have implications for the training of graduate students in writing in their disciplines, suggesting it may be better to start with the “why” of citation, before moving on to the “what” and the “how.”