Analysis Of Efl Students' Citation Practices And Problems In Academic Writing

Citing sources correctly is vital in academic writing including research proposals. Despite its significance, students seem to perform it poorly due to lack of knowledge and awareness of its role in their writing. As the result, they are often accused of committing plagiarism. One of the ways to prevent students from committing plagiarism is by providing them with sufficient knowledge and skills related to proper citations. This study is a preliminary effort to identify student citation practices within the English Education department of a state university in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Employing qualitative content analysis, the researcher examined samples of students' proposals to describe the ways in which citations were written and the common problems that occurred. The findings suggest that students mostly cited as non-integral/non-reporting. The study also reveals that students' most common mistakes in the citation are found in language and content. The study concludes with the need to provide students with clear guidelines for citation and strong remarks on plagiarism.


INTRODUCTION
Citation refers to the writer ¶s acknowledgments of RWKHU SHRSOH ¶V ZRUN in his/her writing. The importance of citation has been addressed by researchers including Bereiter and Scardamalia (as cited in Hinkel, 2004, p. 11). Both researchers argue that LQ DFDGHPLF ZULWLQJ VWXGHQWV DUH UHTXLUHG WR ³REWDLQ V\QWKHVL]H LQWHJUDWH DQG DQDO\]H information from various sources, such as published materials, textbooks, or laboratory H[SHULPHQWV´ In addition to providing credits for the authors whose works are cited, citation aims at showing readers or audience what a writer knows about a topic and helping them to follow up the source materials and to locate the relevant sources that may be useful for their own work (Lipson, 2006). Failure to cite properly will lead to plagiarism, which is a serious problem yet commonly happens in almost all fields (Kashkur, Parshutin, & Borisov, 2010) and especially among non-native speakers of English (Wallwork, 2011). While citation has gained serious attention in the western academic society, the case is different in EFL context, including in Indonesian universities. In such a context, citation materials and guidelines are not explicitly included in the curriculum and its requirement is not strongly imposed, especially at the institutional level. As the results, students are found making a lot of mistakes in the citation, including in their research proposal.
This research employs writing as social practice (Lillis, 2013) as its theoretical framework. Viewed as a social practice, writing counts as a way to participate in the practices of the specific community of which writers are members. In the context of EFL higher education, academic writing is considered an integral part of the student writers because it is primarily used to assess and evaluate their competence (Sun, 2008). Thus said, every discipline has its own conventions that rule out the ways academic writing should be conducted not excluding citation. Sun (2008) emphasizes that citation LV ³RQH RI WKH PRVW LPSRUWDQW UHDOL]DWLRQV RI WKH UHVHDUFK ZULWHU ¶V FRQFHUQ for his or her DXGLHQFH´ p. 2). As a practice of a specific community, citation formats and styles follow the specific field in which it is used. Different field of study usually assigns a specific reference system with formats unique to each style, such as APA (American Psychology Association), Harvard, MLA (Modern Language Association), and Chicago style. In brief, students' citation practices should be framed under which system they are required to confirm and how much this system is introduced to them.
Although each referenced style carries out different rules, Swales (1990) contends that citation generally can be categorized into integral/non-integral and reporting/nonreporting. According to Swales, a citation is integral when a writer puts the cited author in the citing sentence or running text whereas non-integral citation is where the cited author occurs in parenthesis or referred to using notes, numbers or through other devices. Furthermore, Swales classifies citation into reporting citation when the writer uses reporting verbs such as suggest, claim, state, argue, and content. On the other hand, non-reporting citation, as the term suggests, refers to the citation that does not contain reporting verb.  (Sun, 2008).
In addition to the level of in-text citation demonstrated above, reference guides also regulate the ways in which the cited works should be written. These guides include the ways page number is used and written and how subsequent sources should be stated. As a text translating a narrative time and space characterized by many kinds of travel, Gardens in the Dunes puts into motion increasingly hybrid sequences of transnational plots, narrative forms, and admixtures of environmental and archeological objects. The resulting narrative syncretism enacts a narrative politics that could be described variously as "post-nationalist" (Rowe 78) or as ideologically "hybrid" (Bhabha 1). Their narrative politics share a call for discourses not fully defined by any singular national identity. Bhabha keys hybridity to the service of "transnational and translational sense[s] of imagined communities" (1).
If the citation is written by following the 6 th Edition of APA style, the above excerpt becomes (please note that years are given a modification of the original source) : As a text translating a narrative time and space characterized by many kinds of travel, Gardens in the Dunes puts into motion increasingly hybrid sequences of transnational plots, narrative forms, and admixtures of environmental and archeological objects. The resulting narrative syncretism enacts a narrative politics that could be described variously as "post-nationalist" (Rowe, 1980, p. 78)  Notice that while in MLA the year of the work cited is not stated and the page number is directly writWHQ IROORZLQJ WKH DXWKRU ¶V QDPH in the APA style, the year is included and the page number follows it and written as µS ¶ L H SDJH QXPber). Due to the differences and complexities of citation formats and styles, writers are required to follow these sets of rules carefully and consistently throughout a single paper.
A large body of research KDV LQYHVWLJDWHG VWXGHQWV ¶ SUREOHPV LQ a citation in their academic writing. For example, Sun (2008) examined the citation problems found in Chinese MA theses. Among the findings, Sun reported that students lacked an awareness of the importance of citation in the introduction section of their theses and WKDW WKH\ KDG OLWWOH FULWLFDO HYDOXDWLRQ ZKHQ FLWLQJ RWKHUV ¶ ZRUN 6LPLODUO\ -DOLOLIDU DQG 'DEEL LQYHVWLJDWHG WKH FLWDWLRQ SUREOHPV RI 0$ VWXGHQWV ¶ WKHVHV EXW LQ DQ Iranian context. Their findings showed that integral citation outnumbered other ways of FLWLQJ DXWKRUV ¶ ZRUN as LQGLFDWHG E\ WKH SURPLQHQW RFFXUUHQFH RI WKH DXWKRUV ¶ QDPHV within the running texts. Moreover, Lamptey and Atta-Obeng (2012) sought challenges in citation faced by more than five-hundreds postgraduate students in a university in Ghana. One of the challenges reported was their difficulties in mastering the many variations in citation styles. All the researchers agree that inadequate ability to cite properly may lead students to plagiarism. Relating citation and plagiarism, Gullifer Gullifer and Tyson (2013) conducted a study to investigate students' understanding of plagiarism. They found that the majority of participants did not read the university policy on plagiarism and that they felt confused about what behaviors count as plagiarism.
The above studies mostly involved postgraduate students and were carried out in ESL context. Since the research proposal and thesis writing have been the major requirements for most undergraduate students in Indonesian universities, research that ORRNV LQWR FLWDWLRQ LVVXHV DW WKLV OHDUQHUV ¶ OHYHO LV WLPHO\ $QRWKHU UHDVRQ WKDW necessitates the current research is the increasing cases of plagiarism by EFL students, including in Indonesia. The fact that they major in English and thus are required to write academic papers in English might present another challenge for students in the citation. Despite the increasing plagiarism cases, most evidence is anecdotal. Henceforth, this study aimed to fill in these gaps by investigating Indonesian EFL undergraduate VWXGHQWV ¶ FLWDWLRQ ZULWLQJ LQ WKHLU UHVHDUFK SURSRVDOV 6SHFLILFDOO\ LW aimed to answer these research questions: 1) In what ways do students cite in their research proposal? 2) What FRPPRQ PLVWDNHV DUH IRXQG LQ WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ FLWDWLRQ" )LQGLQJV RI WKLV UHVHDUFK serve as a preliminary effort to identify the ways students cite and whether or not they have done it properly.

METHODOLOGY
7KH EHVW ZD\ WR XQGHUVWDQG WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ SUDFWLFH in citation writing is by doing an indepth analysis on the ways they write the citation in their research proposals. Therefore, qualitative research methodology is considered the best approach for the study. It allows WKH UHVHDUFKHU ¶V FORVH DWWDFKPHQW WR the data and eases data analysis and interpretation (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007).

Subjects and Data Collection
The data source for this research was 10 XQGHUJUDGXDWH VWXGHQWV ¶ UHVHDUFK SURSRVDOV submitted in the academic year 2015/2016 to the English Education department of Lotus University, Indonesia (pseudonym). They were written as partial fulfillment for the degree of Bachelor of Education in the institution.

Data Analysis
Qualitative content analysis was employed to analyze the data for the study by focusing on the communication of meaning and analyzing the data inductively (Merriam, 2009). This means that categories and themes may occur at any stages in the data analysis. The main characteristic of qualitative content analysis is that it looks for insights in which "situations, settings, styles, images, meanings, and nuances are key topics" (Altheide, 1987 as cited in Merriam, 2009, p. 205). Similarly, Schreier (2014) mentions three characteristics of qualLWDWLYH FRQWHQW DQDO\VLV ³>LW@ UHGXFHV GDWD LW LV V\VWHPDWLF DQG LW LV IOH[LEOH´ S The process of data analysis using this technique involves ³simultaneous coding of raw data and the construction of categories that capture relevant characteristiFV RI WKH GRFXPHQW ¶V FRQWHQW´ (Merriam, 2009, p. 205). Applying this to the current study, the researcher analyzed the contents of the research proposals that are related to the citation, identified common themes and used them to answer the research questions.

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Based on the data analyses, the following  The present study confirms previous findings (Jalilifar & Dabbi, 2013;Okamura, 2008;Sun, 2008) in that students utilized all citation forms categorized by Swales (1990). It was found that out of 412 citations, non-reporting/non-integral form of the citation was employed the most (i.e., 171 citations) whereas the least form used was reporting/integral citation (i.e.,162 citations  (Biggs, 1999;Dochy, 2001in Naidu 2003. (P1) Parts of speech are consisting of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections (Stobbe, 2008: 2 With regard to the prominent use of non-reporting/non-integral citations, this finding contradicts Jalilifar and Dabbi ¶V (2013). Researchers argue that the ZULWHU ¶V choices of a certain form of citations indicate his/her emphasis on the authors or their work, as well DV ³WKH ZULWHU ¶V DWWLWXGH WRZDUG ZKDW LV FLWHG´ (Sun, 2008, p. 5). They also argue that these choices are also reflected in the uses of reporting verb and tense. As seen in the findings, the students used various reporting verbs, such as state, explain, say, and maintain. However, the reporting verbs that they used were mostly positive in that they represent their agreement toward the cited work. Reporting verbs that indicated their negation or showed that the information presented by the author is false, such as fail, exaggerate, ignore, or overlook (Hyland, 1999) were absent. In this sense, the findings echoed the previous research (Jalilifar & Dabbi, 2013;Sun, 2008) and proved that VWXGHQWV ¶ RYHUXVH RI SRVLWLYH UHSRUWLQJ YHUEV SRUWUD\V WKHLU ODFN RI FULWLFDO HYDOXDWLRQ WRZDUG DXWKRUV ¶ ZRUN In addition to the use of reporting verEV WKH ZULWHU ¶V FKRLFHV RI WHQVH LQ FLWDWLRQV FDQ also be an indication of their knowledge about proper citation. Evident in the findings is that the students inconsistently used present tense and past tense. They did not seem to distinguish the use of eaFK WHQVH EDVHG RQ WKH LQWHQWLRQ RI FLWLQJ DXWKRU ¶V ZRUN )RU example, they used present tense ZKHQ WKH\ FLWHG DXWKRUV ¶ GHILQLWLRQ. Other time, they also used present tense for previous research results. Align with SXQ ¶V UHVHDUFK findings, the studenWV ¶ inconsistency in using appropriate tenses demonstrated that they lacked adequate knowledge about proper citation.

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In addition to revealing the citation forms and what they indicated, this study also located problems or incorrect ways of citing especially the areas of language and content, each is discussed below.

Language
a) Starting paragraphs with citations or quotations It was found in the data that students often began a paragraph with a quotation or citation, which is not recommended in academic writing. Example: The examples below show that the writer put too much detail on the sources that is E\ LQFOXGLQJ DXWKRUV ¶ IXOO QDPH LQLWLDOV Rr research or book title. It is UHFRPPHQGHG WKDW WKH\ MXVW LQFOXGH DXWKRUV ¶ VXUQDPH In other occasion, student writers did not include sufficient details of the sources. For example, they did not provide the author or year of the sources.

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Example: According to Patel in his journal in International Journal of advancement in 5HVHDUFK DQG 7HFKQRORJ\ VWDWHG WKDW WKHUH DUH« (P1) Research finding conducted by Ali-Saadi, Hamed, [and] Samuel entitled ³$Q $QDO\VLV RI WKH :ULWLQJ 1HHGV RI 2PDQL ()/ VWXGHQWV « (P8) A similar research has been conducted in one of the Universities in Japan.
In the example below, the writer used double subjects to refer to the authors they cited, which is incorrect. An author should be cited only by their surname or pronounce if they have been referred to in the preceding section. Example: $V LQ OLQH ZLWK -DPHV KH VWDWHG WKDW WKH JHQHULF VWUXFWXUH RI « (P7) Completely, they (Dudley-Evans & John, 2011, p. 125) Siahaan (2007: 215) states that writing is a psychological DFWLYLW\ RI WKH ODQJXDJH« (P3) e) Mechanics of writing (e.g., punctuation, capitalization) and Grammar (tense) Mistakes related to the improper punctuation, capitalization, and S-V agreement are frequently located in students' proposal writing analyzed in this study. In terms of punctuation, the most occurring problem is in the case when students did not put a comma in non-reporting/integral citations, which contains µDFFRUGLQJ WR ¶ Example: ________________________________________________  J. B. Heaton (1988: 96), The criteria are fluency, vocabulary, accuracy, and comprehensibility. (P4) According to Diestch (2003), the general purpose of writing may « (P3) Thornbury (2002: 75) state that there are three stages in teaching vocabulary. (P6) The frequently found misWDNHV LQ WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ FLWDWLRQ related to language aspects as described above might be the indication of their poor proofreading and editing skills, low English competence, and knowledge about proper citation.

a) Indications of plagiarism
The findings of this study also reveal cases of plagiarism intentionally or unintentionally committed by the student writers whose ¶ SURSRVDOV KDG EHHQ examined. $Q H[DPSOH RI WKLV LV WKH ZD\V LQ ZKLFK DXWKRUV ¶ RULJLQDO LGHDV were copied while proper citations were not given. This is visible by their XVH RI µZH ¶ RU µ\RX ¶, leaving out the quotation mark. Example: According to Wallace (1992)  In the above example, although the writer has provided the sources, it is not clear where his/her statements started and which statements belonged to the cited author. A proper citation would require that author's original words are to be written within the quotation mark as a sign of direct quotation (Elander, Pittam, Lusher, Fox, & Payne, 2010). In the above case, the use of µ\RX ¶ FOHDUO\ VKRZHG WKDW WKH VWDWHPHQWV ZHUH WDNHQ GLUHFWO\ IURP WKH original source. Thus, the fact that proper citation was not given has made this a case of plagiarism.
Furthermore, a case of plagiarism is also shown by the improper student citation for the materials taken from other sources such as tables, diagrams, formula, or samples of texts. The data showed that such materials were often used without acknowledging the authors of the original sources at all (e.g., P7; P8; P2). 7KH VWXGHQWV ¶ SURPLQHQW XVH RI QRQ-reporting/ non-integral form of citations described previously and the unclear difference between the original words and the student writer's indicate that they lacked critical analysis and evaluation when reading supporting references. Additional evidence is the students' overuse of direct quotations. In P10, for example, direct quotations were found on almost every page.
While identifying reasons that underlie student citation practices is beyond the purpose of the current research, viewing academic writing, in this case, citation as socially constructed (Lim & See, 2001;Lillis, 2013) helps generate what contextualizes student FLWDWLRQ SUDFWLFHV ,W FDQ EH FRQFOXGHG WKDW VWXGHQWV ¶ FLWDWLRQ SUDFWLFHV LQFOXGLQJ problems they encountered when citing, might be related to the ways citation is perceived and treated at the personal and institutional level (Elander et al., 2010;Park, 2003). For example, students' excessive use of direct quotation was possibly caused by their lack of English academic writing skills. Additionally, despite the fact that students' research proposals have been through a consultation process with their supervisors, evidence of plagiarism indicated that plagiarism has not been considered a serious matter by all parties (faculty members, the institution).

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This research has examined the citation practices of EFL undergraduate students in their research proposals. It has described the ways in which students wrote their citations and identified problems in the citations. Among the major findings is that the citation was mostly written as non-integral/ non-reporting. There were also indications of plagiarism DQG HYLGHQFH RI VWXGHQWV ¶ ODFN RI FULWLFDO WKLQNLQJ 7KLV UHVHDUFK RQO\ H[DPLQHG VWXGHQWV ¶ UHVHDUFK SURSRVDOV WKXV the findings could not be generalized beyond this scope. However, the researcher is able to offer several suggestions. First, further research needs to include bigger data, employ more detailed GLVFRXUVH DQDO\VLV DQG HOLFLW VWXGHQWV ¶ SHUFHSWLRQV. Second, students must develop their critical thinking skills to be able to evaluate relevant sources. Third, citations and issues of plagiarism must be explicitly introduced in the curriculum as early as possible. Last, clear guidelines on citations and regulations for plagiarism must be made available to all students.