Source-based writing in a health sciences essay: Year 1 students' perceptions, abilities and strategies

In recent years, research interest in writing using sources has broadened from a focus on plagiarism to studies of source based writing in academic settings and the challenges it presents for novice writers. While previous research has largely involved assignment writing or experimental tasks by L2 students in pre-sessional or adjunct EAP courses, this naturalistic study explored students' source text use in the disciplines. It used a questionnaire, citation analysis and text-based interviews to examine the views, approaches and citing practices of a group of L1 and L2 students for an essay assignment in a first-year health sciences course. Citation analysis showed a reasonable degree of accuracy with regard to students' paraphrases of source meanings; however, as revealed in textual analysis and interviews, these novices were still unskilled at conveying a clear stance on sources and their presence as authors. Their main citing strategy appeared to be efficient reformulation through attribution citations. Guidance from tutors and task instructions set modest expectations and helped students to understand disciplinary conventions for source text use, and it was evident that argument and understanding of core issues was much more important than citation quality in markers' evaluations of their essays.