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Learning to construct authorial voice through citations: A longitudinal case

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DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2022.102765

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

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Learning to construct authorial voice through citations: A

longitudinal case study of L2 postgraduate novice writers
Qingyang Sun a, b, *, Irena Kuzborska b, Bill Soden b
a
School of Languages, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren Ai Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, PR China
b
Department of Education, University of York, Heslington, YO10 5DD, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The construction of authorial voice through citations is an important criterion for judging the
Academic writing success of students’ academic writing. Students are required to distinguish a diversity of other
Citation views or voices advanced in texts, including their own, and to adopt an identity as an author that
Postgraduate
maintains the control of other voices. Thus, while a complex undertaking, the construction of
Rhetorical functions
International Chinese students
voice also requires the reflection and reshaping of self as learners. Learners need to compare their
existing knowledge of writing with the writing demands of their new disciplinary communities
and revise it to meet those demands. Relatively little is known, however, about the process of such
construction. To fill this gap, this study focused on ten Chinese students enrolled in a one-year
master’s programme in a UK university and examined their rhetorical purposes for source use
over time, while also comparing source use by academic score. Students’ course assignments and
their dissertation literature review chapters were collected and analysed using an adapted
framework following Petrić (2007) and Swales (1990). To understand students’ citation practices,
discourse-based interviews with students were also employed. The results from the text analysis
showed that students tended to use citations primarily for knowledge display but less for
comparing and contrasting sources and evaluating them, although more of the latter were made
in their literature review chapters. The thematic analysis of the discourse-based interviews further
revealed the influence of complex factors of citation use. These were students’ language profi­
ciency, reading skills, subject knowledge, their commitment to and time limit on coursework
writing, and their beliefs about themselves as learners and knowledge construction.

1. Introduction

The use of source materials is a prerequisite for students’ academic writing success in many universities, including the university
where this study was conducted. Students are expected to read a variety of texts and to integrate information from those texts into their
writing using citations. The use of sources, especially at a higher university level such as master’s, is, however, a complex task
encompassing a range of interconnected subskills. It requires students not only to understand the content of texts, but also to
distinguish contrasting viewpoints presented in texts while also articulating their own viewpoint towards the content. In other words,
in addition to displaying subject knowledge through the use of source texts, students are also expected to express their own voice. By
articulating their voice explicitly and representing themselves as authoritative writers, students can then make a positive contribution

* Corresponding author. School of Languages, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 111 Ren Ai Road, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215123, PR China.
E-mail addresses: Qingyang.Sun@xjtlu.edu.cn (Q. Sun), Irena.kuzborska@york.ac.uk (I. Kuzborska), Bill.soden@york.ac.uk (B. Soden).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102765
Received 15 December 2020; Received in revised form 6 February 2022; Accepted 8 February 2022
Available online 9 February 2022
0346-251X/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

to the knowledge base of their field of study.

While different explanations of voice are provided in the literature (see Hyland & Guinda, 2012), voice, in our study, is defined after
Hutchings (2014) and refers to ‘the student’s own views and to the ability to present other views as other voices’ (p. 315). In other
words, it is students’ engagement with viewpoints of others and their evaluation of those viewpoints conveyed through taking a
position or so-called stance of their own. In addition, the construction of voice is closely intertwined with the aspects of power and a
sense of self or identity situated in a specific discourse community. Students’ perceptions and feelings about the extent to which they
belong or fit in with their new community, the extent to which they feel that they have the power to question others’ views and, thus,
adopt an identity as an author, have an important bearing on the construction of their voice (Hutchings, 2014). To put it differently, the
construct of voice in our study emphasises the construction of both the authorial self and the discoursal self, as proposed by Clark and
Ivanič (1997), since it is a writer’s belief of themselves as authoritative and their active engagement with the voices of other writers as
well as their ongoing negotiation of specific disciplinary conventions that are essential for successful academic communication. The
development of voice, thus, is a demanding undertaking. It requires students not only to understand various perspectives presented in
texts, but also to revisit their previous learning experiences and values attached to writing, and then to decide on the extent to which
they wish to negotiate their own perspectives.
However, despite the importance of voice construction in academic writing and its complex nature, relatively little is known about
the extent to which students, especially L2 students whose previous learning experiences involved little questioning of other views,
respond to this writing demand (Cumming et al., 2018; Davis, 2013; Lancaster, 2014; Petrić, 2007; Wette, 2017; 2018). Moreover,
while conveying stance and projecting evaluations are particularly expected at a master’s level, interpretations of successful citation
practices also differ by discipline (Hirvela & Du, 2013; Petrić, 2007; Petrić & Harwood, 2013) and, thus, deserve more attention. Thus,
to further contribute to the knowledge of students’ citing behaviour, especially their development of a critical approach to writing
where students distinguish diversities of views, including their own, this study focused on ten Chinese L2 students enrolled in a
master’s programme of TESOL and Applied Linguistics at a UK university and investigated the range and types of rhetorical purposes of
their citation use in their texts written for their course tutors at three stages of their academic year: term one, term two and at a
dissertation stage, while also exploring their self-reported reasons for using specific citations. Moreover, the study also compared the
writing of successful and less successful student writers, who were defined in this study by their marks given by their subject lecturers
(regarded as ‘insiders to the discipline’, according to Petrić, 2007). The findings of the study can contribute to the development of more
appropriate tasks for teaching L2 students how to convey their evaluative views towards the content and a broader community of
practice and to persuade their readers of their knowledge claims.

2. The construction of authorial voice through citations

An awareness of rhetorical functions that citations can serve in making academic writing persuasive and promoting one’s own
knowledge claims is crucial for successful written communication. As Thompson et al. (2013) rightly pointed out, ‘[a]n important
aspect of using sources effectively is understanding the rhetorical exigencies of academic writing’ (p. 101). Writers who are aware that
academic writing is a communicative and persuasive act used to communicate with their readers and to achieve their specific purposes,
employ citation strategically. The research on expert writing has also confirmed that effective writers position themselves as
authoritative in relation to the authors they cite in their texts as well as in relation to their own audience (e.g., Groom, 2000a, 2000b;
Hyland & Tse, 2005; Mansourizadeh & Ahmad, 2011). They clearly show their readers how each piece of propositional content belongs
to the writer or other authors, while also ensuring that their voice is manifest to the audience. In other words, successful writers do not
only differentiate author voice and their own voice clearly as in appropriate attribution to sources, but also make their own voice more
manifest than the sources’ voices (Groom, 2000a, 2000b; Hyland & Tse, 2005). As Groom (2000b) pointed out, ‘a successful argu­
mentative text is one which always positions the writer as its dominant voice: other voices must be allowed to speak, but they must
ultimately be subordinated by … the textual subjectivity of the writer herself or himself’ (p.19). Successful writers, thus, use sources
and simultaneously provide their personal comments on the sources’ ideas, making the latter more prominent. Furthermore, in
addition to effectively manipulating citations to create an authoritative voice, successful writers also use integral and non-integral
citation forms strategically. It is generally accepted that integral citations are author-prominent, while non-integral citations are
idea-focused (e.g., Swales, 1990). Successful writers use both forms tactically according to the disciplinary conventions of building
knowledge claims and their own purposes of writing (Mansourizadeh & Ahmad, 2011).
Conveying stance and projecting evaluations have been also shown to contribute to success of student writing in some disciplines.
For example, while Petrić (2007) argued that students’ writing purposes and audiences are different from expert writers, her study of
high-rated and low-rated master’s students in the field of gender studies confirmed that a wider range of evaluation and comparison
and contrast functions were used in high-scoring master’s dissertations than the low-scoring ones. Similarly, Lancaster’s (2014) study
of third and fourth year undergraduate students on economics and industrial organisation courses revealed that high-graded papers
contained more contrastive positioning moves and signalled students’ ‘awareness of possible other views before pulling the reader over
to their own’ (p. 40). A study by Harwood and Petrić (2012) on assignment writing by two accomplished postgraduate student writers
in business management also showed that they were skilful in their rhetorical manipulation of citations, although their rhetorical use of
citations was often cynical and not necessarily sincere. That is, both students used citations strategically, such as citing many sources to
show their markers that they had read widely (even though the students may not have properly consulted the sources in question), and
even if they had not found all the sources particularly useful.
The students also selected authors whose positions coincided with those of their markers, even if they did not agree with those
positions. Thus, as these cases show, using citations tactically could help students secure high grades in writing; however, students’

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motivation for their citing behaviour varies and deserves further investigation.
While the appropriate mastery of citations seems crucial for students’ academic success, it could, however, be challenging for
novice student writers. As recent studies have shown, novice writers use a limited range of citation functions, and when they use them,
they are primarily for displaying knowledge and acknowledging sources (Cumming et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018; Petrić, 2007; Wette,
2010; 2017; 2018). For example, Wette’s (2018) study with both L1 and L2 students in a first-year health science course in New
Zealand showed that while the students could paraphrase ideas from sources quite accurately, they were not yet skilled at using others’
ideas to advance their own arguments and to build up an interaction with their readers. Similarly, Cumming et al.’s (2018) study of
undergraduate and master’s students’ course papers written in English as a foreign language for their English and Commerce majors
across four Chinese universities found few instances of agreement or disagreement with sources in Year 1 and Year 2, and most ci­
tations were used to merely acknowledge sources. Lee et al.’s (2018) analysis of L2 student essays in a first-year writing course in a US
university also found a tendency for students to distance themselves or to remain neutral to sources and to primarily use sources for
attribution to display their topic knowledge. Thus, while appropriate source use seems a demanding skill for many novice writers,
many of these studies have focused on student writers with different educational backgrounds (Lee et al., 2018; Wette, 2018), lower
English language proficiencies (Cumming et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018), or students enrolled on English for academic purposes (EAP)
courses (Lee et al., 2018; Wette, 2010). Examining citation practices of a more homogenous group of students who come from a similar
educational background and possess an advanced level of the English language could offer a more comprehensive understanding of
source use in a specific academic discipline.
In order to shed more light on students’ citation practices, a handful of studies have also focused on students’ citation use over time.
The findings regarding students’ developmental pathways are however inconclusive. For example, some studies have shown that some
students start to recognise the importance of the rhetorical nature of academic writing and develop their authorial voice over time, as
demonstrated, for example, in Hutchings’s (2014) study with L2 mature master’s students in a South African context, or in Thompson
et al.’s (2013) study with first year undergraduate students (most of whom were Chinese) in an Australian context. However, Beau­
fort’s (2004) study of one L1 undergraduate history student at a private university in the U.S. tracked developmental progress of his
writing over the course of his undergraduate degree and found that the student did not develop his rhetorical use of citation skills over
time. Another longitudinal study by Davis (2013) with three Chinese postgraduate students from different academic disciplines,
business, technology and public relations in a UK university also showed the lack of students’ development of appropriate citation use
over a two-year period. By focusing on source use on both EAP and master’s programmes, Davis (2013) established that while one
student with a more advanced linguistic and academic knowledge used sources more effectively than the other two students, none of
the three students had reached a competent level of source use at the end of their master’s programme, even after completing an EAP
course prior to their master’s studies. The range of citation forms and functions employed in their writing was still limited. Thus, while
Davis’s (2013) and other longitudinal studies have been crucial in advancing our understanding of L2 students’ citing behaviour, we
still need more compelling evidence about how L2 students use citations in their specific academic disciplines and how their citation
use progresses over time.
The reasons for the lack of the development of citing competency have been also investigated. First, students’ self-reports on their
citation use reveal their lack of awareness of citation functions (Hirvela & Du, 2013; McCulloch, 2012). Students’ previous writing
experiences and values attached to writing often stand in the way of recognising different writing conventions and expectations that
exist in specific disciplines (Harwood, 2009; Lea & Street, 2000; Petrić & Harwood, 2013; Roig, 2001; Wette, 2017). Students,
especially L2 students, report their previous academic literacy practices as centring on reading of textbooks and comprehension of the
main ideas, without the need to consider and evaluate different viewpoints and to reference them in their writing (Chanock, 2008).
Therefore, when performing their new literacy tasks, they approach them as opinion-based rather than source-based and lack
awareness of the need for credible evidence (Plakans, 2010; Roig, 2001; Shi, 2012). Moreover, the taken-for-granted disciplinary
conventions and expectations are often left unexplained to students. They receive only general guidelines on source use and have to
infer specific disciplinary values by themselves (Hutchings, 2014; Lancaster, 2014). In addition, L2 students’ limited knowledge of
vocabulary and syntax is another most commonly reported reason for their difficulties in understanding and evaluating positions
(Hutchings, 2014; McCulloch, 2012; Pecorari, 2008). For example, less proficient language users may struggle to understand how
various reporting verbs position their stance differently, or how integral and non-integral citations can be used to merge their own
voice with the sources. Further, the inability to express their own views of sources may also relate to a lack of domain knowledge,
which in turn could be a result of students’ unfamiliarity with the subject or their limited reading skills (Hirvela & Du, 2013; Penrose &
Geisler, 1994).
Some research also indicates that even with an awareness of a range of rhetorical citation purposes and despite possessing a range of
linguistic devices necessary for the construction of appropriate citations, students may still lack an authorial voice due to their beliefs
about their academic identity (Clark & Ivanič, 1997). Student writers may identify themselves as peripheral participants with a
reduced role in the cycle of producing academic knowledge (Thompson et al., 2013) and regard sources as expert voices that are
impossible to challenge (Abasi et al., 2006; Chanock, 2008). On the other hand, they may also believe that maintaining a distant stance
is a feature of the academic discourse convention; being overly critical or overly agreeable could jeopardize the writer’s credible
academic identity (Coffin, 2009; Woodward-Kron, 2002). It is also important to note that some student writers may be skilled at
manipulating citations to create the image of a critical writer and meet the expectations of tutor markers, but they may not genuinely
believe in the critical messages they put forward, as shown in Harwood and Petrić’s (2012) study. In short, thus, students’ beliefs about
themselves as learners and their learning may considerably influence their citation behaviour. The impact of such beliefs, we argue,
could be even greater in the construction of an authorial voice. When students’ prior learning experiences are focused on merely
regurgitating facts from their readings with no debate or critical thinking, they are highly likely to distance themselves from their

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writing.
To summarise, while previously a large number of studies have investigated L2 students’ citing behaviour in EAP programmes
outside students’ subject learning (Lee et al., 2018; Wette, 2010) or under test conditions (Abasi et al., 2006; Plakans, 2010) despite the
fact that source use in EAP contexts is different from the expectations and processes in subject coursework writing, an increasing
number of studies have now shifted their focus to student citing behaviour in their specific academic disciplines (Cumming et al., 2018;
Hutchings, 2014; Petrić, 2007; Petrić & Harwood, 2013; Thompson et al., 2013; Wette, 2017, 2018). While these studies have shown
that evaluative citations are highly regarded in some academic disciplines (e.g., gender studies in Petrić, 2007 or economic studies in
Lancaster, 2014) and that successful student writers use citations more skilfully and purposefully, displaying more evaluation of
sources than less successful student writers in their coursework writing, it is also worthwhile to understand how such citations are
valued in other academic disciplines and how much skilful student writers are aware of their citation use. Moreover, many of the
studies on citation use have relied on students’ self-reports, narrated either in dialogical journals or through interviews (Hutchings,
2014; Thompson et al., 2013), and have been conducted either at one single stage (Pecorari, 2008; Petrić, 2007) or investigated the
development of source use of students with EAP training (Davis, 2013; Lee et al., 2018; Wette, 2010). Thus, a gap in our knowledge
remains in relation to how L2 students, especially students with limited EAP training before their degree courses, use citations in
academic disciplines that have different norms for student writing. While such students usually have an advanced level of the English
language and thus do not require an EAP preparation, citation use in an academic discipline with its accompanying expectations of
student writing could, however, be challenging even for L1 students (Beaufort, 2004). Finally, none of the previous studies have paid
particular attention to the construction of the authorial voice of L2 students at master’s level study of TESOL and Applied Linguistics.
Thus, to better understand how L2 students appropriate their citation use for their specific coursework writing and the challenges they
experience in using citations over time, this study posed the following research questions:

1. What is the extent and type of rhetorical citation forms and functions that students use in their coursework over a one-year taught
master’s programme?
1.1. Is there any difference between high-scoring and low-scoring students’ use of citation forms and functions?
1.2. Is there any change in students’ use of citation forms and functions at different stages of a one-year programme?
2. What are students’ reported reasons for their use of citation functions?

3. Methodology

3.1. The context and participant profile

The study was conducted at the Department of Education in a research-intensive UK university. In the academic year 2016–2017
when the data were collected, the Department had a total of 166 students enrolled on MA programmes, the majority being TESOL. The
majority of the students were mainland Chinese nationals; therefore, the focus was on these students only. The participants’ profiles
are summarised in Table 1.
After obtaining the ethics approval from the Department, a call for participation was disseminated through a departmental email,
and ten students answered the call. All ten participants were female, aged from 22 to 27, with a bachelor’s degree in English-related
subjects from China. Nine participants were taking the MA in TESOL while one (Fiona; all names are changed) was taking the MA
Applied Linguistics programme. All participants had an overall IELTS score of above 7 to be admitted to the programmes.
The participants’ average marks for written coursework during their master’s programmes were calculated (Table 1). Similar to the
departmental scoring criteria, where assignments are marked with three levels of pass (distinguished: above 70; merit: 60–69;
satisfactory: 50–59), the participants were initially categorised into three groups. The high-scoring group comprised of five students

Table 1
Participants’ profile.
Pseudonym H-high-scorer M-mid-scorer L-low- Age Undergraduate Major Average mark of MA written Marks per term
scorer work
T1 T1 T2 DS
CM OM OM

Olivia-H 23 English for Education 70.6 64 68 – 80

Naomi-H 23 English Language & 70.5 60 64 85 73
Literature
Fiona-H 27 English Language 67.4 72 73 57; 72 63
Elsa-H 25 English Language 65.8 64 64 63 72
Jennifer-H 22 Advanced Translation 65.3 68 71 58 64
Helena-M 23 English Language 61.3 64 53 54 74
Lucy-M 22 English Language 60.0 66 52 62 60
Mina-L 22 English Language 53.0 50 39 58 65
Isabel-L 22 English Language 48.3 54 45 52 42
Kim-L 24 Business English/ 46.7 38 52 50 –
management

Note: T1 = Term, T2 = Term 2, DS = Dissertation Stage; OM = optional module, CM = core module.

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Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

(Olivia, Naomi, Fiona, Elsa, Jennifer) with an average mark of 65–70, the mid-scoring group had two students (Helena and Lucy) with
an average mark of 60–62, and the low-scoring group consisted of three students (Mina, Isabel and Kim) with an average of 44–55.
Later, we decided to combine mid-scorers and low-scorers in one group to facilitate a comparison between the five high-scoring
students and the five mid/low-scoring students. Any differences in citation features found between the mid- and low-scorers were
still noted when presenting the results.
A baseline interview with each participant established generally limited prior experiences of academic writing, given that degree
programmes in English-related majors in China required substantial writing in the English language, but the genres of writing tended
to be general rather than academic. For example, the participants reported writing stories, letters, and opinion-based essays. The
purpose of such writing was more about demonstrating language competence rather than subject knowledge. For eight participants
(except for Lucy and Olivia), the only opportunity for source-based writing throughout the whole programme was writing an un­
dergraduate thesis of 4000 to 6000 words. There was no dedicated explicit instruction on source use, and only three participants (Lucy,
Isabel and Mina) reported receiving limited EAP guidance from their institutions or tutors about referencing formats, avoiding
plagiarism, and searching for sources. Moreover, essay writing in their previous education was remembered as simply ‘repeating
others’ sayings’ (Kim), where students could use expressions of famous people without the need to reference them and with no specific
requirement to distinguish between different viewpoints or to express their own view in writing.

3.2. Data collection methods

A case study approach was adopted, using a text analysis approach and discourse-based interviews (DBI) with students. In total,
students had to submit three essay type assignments and a dissertation throughout their master’s studies. To obtain a representative
sample of each participant’s citation use in each term, we analysed citation use in one assignment (4000–5000 words) in Term 1, one
assignment (4000–5000 words) in Term 2, and the Literature Review (LR) chapter (3000 words) of the dissertation (selected as­
signments are marked in bold in Table 1). Since the students wrote two assignments in T1, they were asked to select the assignment that
they wished to discuss the most. As Table 1 shows, most of the students chose a weaker assignment as they believed they would gain
more from reflecting on such an assignment. While we acknowledge that there could have been different patterns of citation behaviour
even in the same term (as shown in Beaufort’s study, 2004), we also needed to ensure that the amount of time that we were asking of
our participants was reasonable and the disruption to their normal routines was at an acceptable level. All the assignments were
documented essays, where students needed to make an argument within the subject area based on a prompt given by their module
tutor. Below is an example of a writing prompt:
How does an understanding of the theories behind the product approach, process approach and genre approach help a writing
teacher to be most effective in the classroom?
We selected the dissertation LR chapter for analysis because it was dense in citation use and allowed us to explore students’ source
use competence at the end of their academic year. We acknowledge, however, that a LR chapter cannot be seen as equivalent to
students’ coursework because different assignments, each with their specific writing tasks, have different expectations for citation use,
and that the comparison of students’ citation use in coursework and the LR chapter will need to be interpreted with caution. We chose
students’ first drafts of their LR chapter, before they were checked by their supervisors, as we wanted to look at students’ citation use
without any supervisor influence. In total, thus, a corpus of 108,743 words was created and analysed for its source and citation density,
percentage of integral versus non-integral citations, and percentage of each rhetorical function.
In order to gain an in-depth understanding of participants’ reasons for using certain citation forms and purposes, a discourse-based
interview was conducted at each stage for each analysed text (see Appendix A for an example of an interview protocol). Similar to
Petrić and Harwood’s (2013) study, questions querying citation choice were open ended (see Appendix A). More specifically, we
examined all occurrences of citation use in the students’ texts and highlighted these before showing the highlighted uses to the students
and asking them to comment on their citation use. During the interview, students were asked why they used specific citation types in
their texts and the reasons for their use. Due to the time constraints, we preselected the types of citation to query but made sure we had
at least one instance of each type of citation to discuss.

3.3. The analysis of students’ citation use

To analyse students’ use of citations, we created an adapted framework from Swales (1990) and Petrić (2007). Swales’ (1990)
categorisation of integral and non-integral citation forms was used in order to better understand students’ linguistic realisation of
citations, and an adapted version of Petrić’s (2007) typology of rhetorical functions of citations was employed to investigate students’
development of an authorial voice. Developed from previous work (e.g., Thompson & Tribble, 2001) and used for the analysis of
citations of master’s level writing, Petrić’s (2007) typology was deemed suitable for the analysis of our master’s students’ citing
behaviour. The typology was then piloted and adapted in the following way. The function establishing links between sources was sub­
divided into three sub-functions, generalisation, compare/contrast, and exemplification/further reference, as they all indicate the link
between the used source and the wider body of literature. The generalisation function attributes a statement to a group of authors by
putting several sources together in brackets at the end of the statement. This function can signal a writer’s ability to identify common
knowledge in the field, as demonstrated in Hyland (2000) and Wette (2017). The exemplification/further reference function acts as
evidence to support a writer’s statement. The compare/contrast category indicates the similarity or difference in authors’ views and
can, therefore, reveal an ability to distinguish between controversial views on the topic, which is of particular interest to the current
study. The evaluation category was divided into positive evaluation and negative evaluation signalling a writer’s evaluation of other

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Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

authors and contains reporting verbs and phrases showing either a writer agreement or disagreement (e.g., ‘demonstrate’ versus
‘dispute’) and other evaluative language such as ‘ … is an ingenious way’ (Petrić, 2007, p.245). Positive evaluation is agreeing and
taking the position, while negative evaluation is criticism or objection to the position. The evaluative function attests to a writer’s ability
to express their own voice on the topic, which is the focus of this study. Finally, citations that simply acknowledged a source without
explicit markers of particular functions and contained reporting structures showing no clear signal or neutral stance were coded as
simple attribution. While all citations have the function of acknowledgement, only citations without any other rhetorical function were
coded as attribution. The separation of this category allowed a more precise identification of students’ use of sources for specific
rhetorical purposes.
The citation functions framework that was established for the purpose of our study is summarised in Table 2.
An online Regular Expression searching tool (https://regexr.com/3dl04) was used to automatically detect integral and non-integral
citations. As all the texts used the APA referencing style, the formula \(\D*\d{4}(; \D*\d{4})*\) was used to detect non-integral forms
(created by Cuerda, cited in Graham, 2016) and the simplified formula \(\d{4}\) was used to find four digits in a bracket, which lead to
expressions like (1990) that identify as integral citations. A manual check on a sample of three texts ascertained that all the attributions
were accurate. A further manual check took into account irregular citation forms such as (Author, 1990a).
Each instance of citation was coded for its rhetorical function. In each text, the occurrence of each rhetorical function was added up,
divided by the total instances of citations to show a percentage of each function. However, as noted by Petrić (2007), one citation can
have two or more rhetorical functions. For example, the format ‘(e.g. Author X 2000; Author Y, 2001)’ uses both the generalisation
citation function and the exemplification/further reference function. Thus, to fully capture students’ citation use, we double coded such
instances. Therefore, the percentages of all citation functions in a text might not add up to 100%.
Checking of the reliability of the framework was performed on two assignments and one LR chapter (about 10% of the whole
corpus). A Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient of 0.95 (p < 0.01) was reached between the first author’s and a colleague’s coding.
Discrepancies were discussed, and the coding decisions were adjusted in the final results.

3.4. Interview data analysis

The interviews were conducted in the first author’s and the participants’ L1, Chinese Mandarin, which was preferred by all the
participants. This might have enabled them to better express themselves and to reduce the cognitive demands of retrospective recall
(Dörnyei, 2007). The interviews were transcribed and translated as idiomatically as possible by the first author and later checked for
the accuracy of transcripts and translation by another native speaker of Chinese who was also an applied linguist. The transcripts were
then coded using the NVivo qualitative data analysis software. First, using the above analytical framework, we categorised students’
comments from discourse-based interviews into types of citations that they commented on. Within each category of citation, we then
used an inductive approach (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify reasons for employing specific types of citations. So, for example,
regarding the use of certain citation functions, several reasons emerged from students’ responses. These were to support and strengthen
their arguments; to demonstrate their amount of reading for the marker; or to highlight the differences between different views (see the
Results chapter for other reported reasons). No independent coder checks were carried out for the coding of interview data, as the
authors established the coding system together and agreed on all the coding decisions.

Table 2
Framework of rhetorical functions of citations (adapted from Petrić, 2007, pp. 243–247).
Citation Sub-category Explanation Example from students’ texts
Category

Attribution – Simply acknowledging the source; no other English native speakers often use lexico-semantic, syntactic
citation functions can be recognised. and acoustic-phonetic information to help them segment
speech in daily life (Sanders and Neville, 2000).
Links between Generalisation Making a generalisation from multiple sources. …, research has been conducted to seek its underlying factors
sources using factor analysis (Aida, 1994; Liu and Jackson, 2008; Mak,
2011; Park, 2014).
Compare/Contrast Highlighting the similarity or difference between MacIntyre (1999) defined FLA in general as … Young (1992)
sources. expressed FLA as … Both of their definitions regard FLA as a
distinct kind of anxiety specific to foreign language learning …
Exemplification/ Using a source as an example of a larger body of … FLA could play a positive role in Second Language Anxiety.
further reference literature. For example, Park and French’s (2013) study showed that …
Evaluation Positive evaluation Evaluating a proposition positively, using positive Reppen (2010) pointed out that the corpus allowed language
evaluative expressions; e.g., demonstrate, point out, learners to master the knowledge deeper and longer as they
usefully, reasonable. manipulate language when using the corpus.
Negative evaluation Evaluating a proposition negatively, using Lip (2009) focuses on different reasons for uses of VLSs.
negative evaluative expressions; e.g., neglected, However, its interview questions are too specific, which might
biased. be misleading.

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4. Results

4.1. Forms and functions of citation use

To determine the extent of citation forms that students used in their writing, we first counted the total frequencies of sources and
citations. A total of 862 sources and 1652 citations were found in the corpus. To account for the variation in source use, we calculated
the frequencies per thousand words (ptw). High-scoring students’ texts contained consistently more sources (9.49 sources, SD = 4.61)
and more citations (17.67 citations, SD = 5.65) than the mid/low-scoring students’ texts (7.24 sources, SD = 2.85; 12.85 citations, SD
= 4.95) at all three stages of their study. In terms of their use over time, the participants’ average source frequencies consistently
increased from T1 to DS (6.54 in T1, 7.18 in T2, and 11.60 in DS). Their citation frequencies also increased consistently (13.23 in T1,
14.38 in T2, 18.40 in DS). However, while the use of sources and citations was greater at DS, this increase was more of an indication of
different rhetorical demands of such genres as an essay and a literature review, than the development of students’ citing ability. In a
literature review, writers usually use more sources, as citing sources is one of the central purposes of a literature review; whereas the
primary objective of an essay is to answer the question set.
After identifying frequencies of citation use, we then explored students’ use of integral and non-integral citations to determine their
citation use patterns. Our analysis revealed that the high scorers tended to balance the two forms, while the mid/low scorers preferred
to use non-integral citations. The ratio of integral versus non-integral citations was on average 48.2%–51.8% in high-scorers’ texts and
35.4%–64.6% in mid/low-scorers’ texts. This tendency was not, however, consistent across the three stages. In T1, high-scorers used
more non-integral citations than mid/low-scorers, but this trend was reversed in T2 and DS LR.
To establish what rhetorical functions guided students’ use of citations, we first calculated the frequencies for each broad category,
such as attribution, links between sources and evaluation, as well as the frequencies for each subcategory. These results are presented in
Table 3.
As Table 3 shows, simple attribution accounted for the highest percentage among all the categories, amounting to 67.98% of the
citations. This was followed by generalisation citations (12.95%), positive evaluation (9.93%) and compare/contrast (7.93%).
The table also indicates that there were differences between the use of rhetorical purposes by score. The high-scorers used lower
percentages of simple attribution (62.09%) than the mid/low-scorers (76.85%), but higher percentages of most of other functions,
including three types of links between sources and positive evaluation. The percentage of negative evaluation was low in both groups.
To observe change in citation patterns from T1 to DS, average percentages of rhetorical functions at each stage are presented in
Table 4.
The average percentage of attribution was 76.97% in T1, 81.22% in T2, and finally decreasing drastically to 49.40% in DS. This
shows that the students used a far wider range of rhetorical functions in LR chapters. Accordingly, the average percentages of
generalisation and compare/contrast citations were far higher in LR (17.61% and 19.00%) than in T1 and T2 (ranging from 2.87% to
8.32%). The average percentages of other functions, i.e., exemplification/further reference, positive and negative evaluation, were at a
similar level in T1, T2 and DS. It is important to reiterate though that while there were definite differences in citation patterns between
coursework and dissertation, the changes were likely due to different genres, the essay and the dissertation literature review, that the
students were writing.

4.2. Reasons for the use of citation functions

Students’ reported reasons for the use of certain citation functions revealed important findings. With regard to the use of stand-
alone non-evaluative citations, coded as a simple attribution function, nine out of ten participants reported using sources for the
purpose of supporting their own arguments. This intention was already apparent in the first interview. For example, when asked about
the requirements of academic writing, Olivia commented on the purpose of using sources:
The most important is, when you use others’ words, after all, it’s all for the purpose of forming your own argument. This is a very
challenging requirement. (T1)
For citations categorised as links between sources, nine participants used multiple sources to support and strengthen their argu­
ments, as evident in Lucy’s comment,
These authors all think like this, so I thought it can make my points even more convincing (Lucy T2).
Lucy’s comment also highlights her consideration of various authors’ views and the connection to others’ views. This also suggests

Table 3
High and mid/low-scorers’ average percentages of rhetorical functions.
Percentage of functions in total citations % High-scorers (14 texts) Mid/low-scorers (14 texts) Total Averages (28 texts)

Attribution 62.09 76.85 67.98

Links between sources Generalisation 12.81 8.88 12.95
Compare and Contrast 11.26 6.19 7.93
Exemplification/further reference 4.04 2.98 3.57
Evaluation Positive 11.47 7.55 9.93
Negative 2.04 2.80 2.41

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Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

Table 4
Average percentages of rhetorical functions in T1, T2 and DS LR.
Percentage of functions in total citations % T1 (10 texts) T2 (9 texts) DS LR (9 texts)

Attribution 76.97 81.22 49.40

Links between sources Generalisation 5.77 8.32 19.00
Compare and Contrast 6.00 2.87 17.61
Exemplification/further reference 4.36 2.98 3.08
Evaluation Positive 9.45 9.56 9.54
Negative 3.16 1.39 2.64

her ability to identify common ground shared by different voices, and in doing so foregrounding the writer’s own authorial voice.
Six participants (Jennifer, Naomi, Olivia, Helena, Lucy, Mina) also linked sources in order to highlight the differences between
different views; this tendency was, however, more observed towards the end of their study. For example, Mina said that she ‘wanted to
discuss it from more perspectives’ because
… they (two sources) both used their own theories to explain SLA. Krashen firmly insists that input is the most important, but
the other one says that both input and output are important. I think I need to make this point here. (DS)
Again, in this excerpt, Mina appeared to be confidently aware of the exact difference between the two authors’ views.
In addition, five participants (Elsa, Jennifer, Naomi, Isabel, Mina) confessed that they used many sources to demonstrate their
amount of reading for the marker, as, for example, seen in Jennifer’s comment, ‘I just want to say that I’ve read so much’ (T3), but did
not provide clear explanations of how the use of many sources could contribute to their own voice in that particular context. Another
example is when Fiona, a high-scoring student, explained why she used two sources for a topic sentence in her assignment:

Fiona’s text T1 OM Fiona’s comments T2 DBI

(beginning of a section) First, support is available in the process approach that This is my point. But I also added a reference to support it. Now I know that
facilitate writing (Krashen, 1984; Keh, 1990). A process approach sees every point or idea that I have, they don’t come out of a vacuum, but they need
writing as a problem-solving process … (Flower & Hayes, 1981) … somebody to support. But in the past, I only cited what I happened to have read.

This excerpt indicates that Fiona is aware of the need to use citations to support her ideas. However, it also suggests that while in the
past Fiona would only cite what she had read, she is now also citing sources that she has not read. The intention to impress their
markers, thus, seemed to be the main driver behind students’ use of sources.
Reasons were also reported for not making links between sources. Six participants (Elsa, Olivia, Lucy, Isabel, Kim, Mina) reported a
number of difficulties that prevented them from connecting sources and presenting different viewpoints, even though they were aware
of the desirability of so doing. One was related to finding sources that contained linkable viewpoints:
I feel I should compare different studies, but there were too few studies in this area, so I really couldn’t write like that
(comparing sources). (Lucy DS)
This comment could, however, also suggest her poor literature searching skills. An inability to synthesise ideas was yet another
reason for not making links between sources, as observed in Isabel, a low-scoring student’s comment, ‘in reading I found many separate
points, but then I need to put them together – that’s where I found difficulty’ (T3). Inadequate decoding skills in English and time
constraints were further important factors influencing students’ practice of using citations purposefully. Olivia, a high-scorer, reported
the following:
I was trying to find other sources to link, on purpose. But my reading speed is very low, so still can’t do this within the time (T3).
Thus, while the majority of the students considered contrasting viewpoints on the discussed topic, their limited reading and
research abilities as well as time limits, reportedly prevented them from appropriately articulating them in writing.
With regard to the use of the evaluative function, six participants (Elsa, Fiona, Jennifer, Naomi, Lucy, Mina) attempted to make
evaluative comments in order to show their attitudes towards the information from sources. For example, Elsa, a high-scorer, reported
the following:

Elsa T1 text: Elsa T2 DBI:

The notion of metacognition proposed by O’Brien Moran & Soiferman (2010) is If I just say it, not mentioning ‘useful’, others won’t know what my attitude is
a very useful skill. It requires writers to … monitor their thinking constantly like. This is like my stance, my viewpoint, that this is good … I really like what
during the whole course. these people said.

Elsa here showed her awareness of evaluative stance. However, it is worth noting that in her writing, Elsa evaluated the concept but
not the source (‘The notion of metacognition … is a very useful skill’). She only favourably evaluated the authors in her interview (‘I
really like what these people said’). Elsa’s evaluation of the concept was also limited. The evaluative word ‘useful’ that she employed
was simply followed by the description of the concept of ‘metacognition’, without any explanation of how this skill was useful or
whether it was more useful than other skills. Thus, to distinguish between different positions, including her own, Elsa could have

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Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

provided an explicit evaluation of the source and a more detailed appraisal of the concept.
Further, three participants (Fiona, Naomi, Helena) had written evaluative comments on sources based on their interpretation of
several sources, which occurred only at the dissertation stage. Fiona, a high-scorer, for example, said the following:
Fiona LR text: Fiona DS DBI:

Second, different taxonomy systems have been developed to classify a wide list of
learning strategies (Rubin, 1987; Oxford, 1990; O’Malley et al., 1985; Stern,
1992), among which Oxford’ classification frame is the most comprehensive
and the validity has been confirmed in subsequent research (Green, 1991;
Hsiao & Oxford, 2002).
Interviewer: Why did you say it (the underlined words)?
Fiona: many articles said this. I also cited this point.
Interviewer: Did they say validity was confirmed?
Fiona: I wrote it mainly because of the fact that they all used this classification
… it must be quite valid. But I don’t necessarily want to or need to prove here
exactly how valid it is.

Fiona seemed to have made her evaluative comment here not because she saw such a statement in another source, but because she
was able to make an inference that since the classification frame had been adopted in many sources, it was important and valid. In
contrast, two low-scoring students, Isabel and Mina, merely passed on the evaluative perspective from a secondary source to their own
texts. Isabel, for example, explained that she made an evaluative comment (‘their findings were questionable because … ’) since she
had read it from a secondary source that evaluated the primary source (T2 DBI).
Sometimes when we asked students to comment on specific citation uses, students also explained why they did not evaluate sources
by articulating their perceptions of themselves as novice writers and source texts by experts as above criticism (Elsa, Jennifer, and
Kim). For example, when commenting on her tutor’s feedback ‘to think more critically’, Jennifer noted that she could ‘only trust the
sources … [because she was] not a scholar … [and had] only been studying English major for five years’. She could not, therefore,
‘challenge their studies’ (T2 DBI). Similarly, Elsa felt that ‘those sources look so superior [and she couldn’t] find any weaknesses. She,
therefore, worried she ‘would be wrong to talk about any’ (T3). Such perceptions, thus, suggest that students lacked confidence to
criticise other sources and express their own views of the topic. For them, it was more about acceptance or sometimes comparison of
different ideas, rather than also an articulation of their own voice.
Another reason for failing to show their evaluation of sources was the lack of understanding of a text author’s stance (Olivia, Kim,
Mina, Helena, Isabel). As Kim, for example, commented, she ‘couldn’t digest their original viewpoints’ (T2 DBI). This finding further
indicates that even at this rather advanced language level, reading was a challenge for the students.

5. Discussion

5.1. Novice writers’ patterns of citation use

This study confirms previous findings that novice writers use citations for a limited range of functions. Similar to previous research
(Lee et al., 2018; Mansourizadeh & Ahmad, 2011; McCulloch, 2012; Petrić, 2007), this study found that student writers tended to use
citations mainly for attribution rather than establishing links between sources. This study also confirmed previous findings of low
frequency of evaluation in novices’ writing who favour neutral stance with little agreement or disagreement towards sources
(Cumming et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018; Wette, 2017). Thus, despite the important value attributed to the ability to compare and
evaluate sources and to express one’s own position on the sources, students’ demonstration of these abilities was limited. It could be
that the comparison and evaluation of sources are more linguistically and cognitively demanding than mere attribution. However,
students’ cautious approach in writing could be also due to their fragile authorial identity that was still evolving. Students’ occasional
attempts to compare and contrast other views did not enable them to confidently articulate, at least in writing, how their own views
aligned with those of others.

5.2. Development of source use over the year

Longitudinal development of the use of citation features was investigated in all ten students. First, it was found that the participants
used more sources and more citations in their coursework as the study progressed, showing a greater extent of support for their ar­
guments. This is similar to Cumming et al.’s (2018) finding that undergraduate students used more citations in their second year than
in their first year, although for the students in this study the learning curve was rather steep, from little previous experience in
source-based writing to completing source-based essays and empirical research projects within only one year. The interviews further
confirmed that the participants’ main rationale for attributing sources was to support their ideas. Four participants also confidently
reported an improvement in source attribution over the year.
Second, in terms of rhetorical functions, while the percentages of most functions remained similar in T1 and T2, in the LR chapter,
the participants made considerably more links between sources. This could be because of the specific requirement of the LR chapter to
provide an overview of the field and a rationale for the participants’ own studies, as well as participants’ development in source use
skills by the dissertation stage. On the other hand, their frequencies of evaluating sources remained similar at all three stages, showing
no observable development. This finding is similar to Cumming et al. (2018) where their postgraduate students’ uses of the agreement
and disagreement functions were of similar frequencies in Year One and Year Two, and little change was observable in their evaluation
of sources over the two years. This similar finding could be due to the fact that the participants in both studies were Chinese students
and may have displayed similar cultural tendencies to avoid conflict and judgements towards sources that are regarded as

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Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

authoritative.
Meanwhile, developmental trends of each individual student were different. Two participants’ texts contained a decreasing per­
centage of the simple attribution function over the year, while other participants showed no such tendency. Such findings confirm
previous longitudinal studies’ findings that students develop their source use in different ways within the same educational context
(Davis, 2013; Dong, 1996). On the other hand, as we noted previously, tracking students’ progress of citation behaviour over time and
comparing the frequencies with which writers use certain citation functions is problematic, as different writing tasks and writer
purposes at different times require different uses of citations. Therefore, any longitudinal studies seeking to understand students’
developmental patterns of citation use should carefully consider such factors as task rubric and genre variation.
The students’ neutral position towards other writers’ positions at the beginning of the academic year is perhaps expected given
their previous experience with transmissive rather than constructive systems of learning where they rarely questioned other ideas and
views. When entering the university, students may not have the skills and confidence to adopt an authorial voice that maintains control
of other voices and may, therefore, use other ideas without expressing their own. However, the fact that the students maintained a
neutral approach in writing throughout the year is rather concerning given that the evaluation of different viewpoints is particularly
valued at master’s level.

5.3. Comparison of citation use among high and mid/low-scorers

There were some clear cross-sectional differences between the high and mid/low-scoring participants’ citation use in this study.
First, high-scorers used more sources and more citations than mid/low-scorers. This is in line with some of the previous studies that
compared novice and more advanced writers’ citation density (Mansourizadeh & Ahmad, 2011; Swales, 2014), but different from the
findings of other studies that investigated the relationship between citation density and the mark that the work received (Petrić, 2007).
These discrepancies in findings suggest that the amount of supporting citations may have an impact on the quality of work, but citation
density is only one possible indicator of good source use.
Second, and more importantly, high-scorers overall used a wider range of rhetorical functions of citations in their texts than mid/
low-scorers. This concurs with Petrić’s (2007) findings that high-rated master’s dissertations employed richer rhetorical functions than
low-rated master’s theses. This is also in line with Davis’ (2013) and Lancaster’s (2014) findings that competent source users tended to
show more engagement with sources in their use of integral citations and evaluative phrases than less competent users. In particular,
this study also found that high-scoring students used more evaluative citations. Thus, similarly to other academic disciplines such as
gender studies, economics, business, technology and public relations, this study also implies that the evaluation of others’ ideas is
regarded as an essential feature of good student writing in the discipline of TESOL and Applied Linguistics.
Third, the participants’ self-reports of their intentions behind citations in part confirmed that stronger students tended to use ci­
tations for rhetorical purposes that contributed to their overall arguments, doing so more often than weaker students who tended to use
citations simply for acknowledging the sources. High-scorers’ purposeful use of citations in this study is in part similar to that in Petrić
and Harwood’s (2013) case study of a successful student’s intentions to use sources for a range of purposes in different tasks. However,
exceptions were also prevalent in this study, as high-scoring students did not always pay attention to or effectively communicate
rhetorical messages. For example, similar to mid/low-scoring students, they also reported a simple intention to vary citation forms in
their texts, such as mixing up integral and non-integral formats, or using different reporting verbs simply for the sake of variety.
Moreover, this study also found instances of ‘cynical’ (over-) use of sources, as in Harwood and Petrić’s (2012) study, where students
tactically used citations to fit their instructors’ subject interests but did not provide convincing explanations of how such citations fit
rhetorically into the context of their writing. These inconsistent explanations, thus, suggest that while high-scoring students had a
greater awareness of citation functions, their citing practices tended to be grade-focused. The students believed that citing what they
thought their markers wanted to see was the most rhetorically effective strategy suited to that particular context and would have the
best chance of securing them the highest grade.

5.4. Awareness of and constraints in using sources appropriately

Complex reasons behind students’ use of citation were identified. Most students reported an awareness of the need to use sources as
evidence, to show similarities or differences in ideas, to express their own attitudes, or to impress their markers. Unawareness of the
functions of citations was only an issue for a few participants but not for the majority. This is in contrast to some previous studies that
reported novice writers’ limited awareness of citation purposes in constructing their arguments (Angélil-Carter, 2000; McCulloch,
2012; Wette, 2010). Students’ reasonable level of awareness of citation purposes in this study could well be related to their relatively
high English language proficiency. They all had a high IELTS score of 7 or more overall as compared to students with an overall IELTS
score of 6 in other studies (e.g., Cumming et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2018; McCulloch, 2012; Wette, 2010), and this may have enabled
them to better understand source use expectations from tutors and learning support.
However, several constraints limited the participants’ potential to use sources to construct their authorial voice, despite their
awareness of rhetorical purposes. Many difficulties were associated with reading the sources. Students reported inadequate decoding
skills and difficulties in synthesising ideas. They also lacked subject knowledge to understand sources appropriately. These findings
support other studies (Jamieson & Howard, 2013; Thompson et al., 2013; Wette, 2010) showing that one of the major causes for
ineffective source use was students’ problems with reading. Furthermore, while students were aware of their tutors’ expectations to use
a discoursal self (Clark & Ivanič, 1997) by critically evaluating other sources, their sense of themselves as authoritative was more in
conflict. Issues of their authorial self were evident in relation to self-belief in their authorship as constructors of knowledge and their

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Q. Sun et al. System 106 (2022) 102765

perceived lack of power to criticise other authors. Students felt more comfortable in articulating their neutral position towards ideas,
because such an approach seemed to be better aligned with their previously developed learner identities. However, different from the
students in this study, L2 students in McKinley’s (2018) study, in their first and second year in the English department at a Japanese
university, while attempting to write using an objective, discoursal self, tended to adopt a more authorial self. As exemplified by one
student Aya, they were more comfortable in using many attitude phrases and establishing personal positions in their arguments than
positions based on outside sources. In contrast, students in the current study lacked a sense of ownership of their own ideas and tended
to hide their voices behind others. This may be because the students in our study were more concerned about performing an objective
and academic voice, while not being fully aware of how personal positions could be incorporated into source-based writing. Finally,
time pressure and students’ reported investment in time and effort to complete the tasks also played a role in their source use.

6. Conclusion

To advance an understanding of students’ development of an authorial voice in writing, this study investigated Chinese students’
citation use and their self-reports on citation use in their one-year master’s programmes in a UK university. While it was found that
students used more sources and more citations as the study progressed, in terms of the rhetorical functions, their patterns of use were
similar in coursework over the first two terms. However, they made far more links between sources in the Literature Review chapter at
the end of the year, and though this may in part be a function of genre differences noted earlier, there was little evidence of more
frequent use of evaluation. Indeed, this lack of evaluation is significant given that evaluations were found to be integral to successful
communication of student writing in the discipline of TESOL and Applied Linguistics.
The study reports on citation practices of a relatively small number of students and, as such, does not seek to generalise the findings
to other situations. Nevertheless, we argue, it makes an important contribution to enhancing our understanding of how Chinese L2
postgraduate students use citations to construct their voice in writing and can, therefore, act as a catalyst to enable other students to
examine their own citation practices and reflect on their beliefs about citation use. The study also adds to the emerging picture of the
lack of students’ construction of voice in their writing and unravels the reasons for such behaviour. While the study explored students’
construction of voice through citation, studies investigating other linguistic mechanisms, such as complement clause constructions,
stance adverbials, or modal verbs, and the way they contribute to the expression of voice, would be also important for furthering our
understanding of the construction of voice.
Given the study findings, we propose the following recommendations for teaching. In addition to raising students’ awareness of
rhetorical functions of citations in writing support, students also need to be exposed to substantial examples of citation use in authentic
texts and given numerous opportunities to practise citation use. They also need to be guided in reading subject-specific texts in order to
learn how expert authors skilfully show relationships with other authors in their writing. Most importantly, however, students also
need to understand that while the construction of an authorial voice in writing begins with other voices, where students present
different ideas they have read, it ends with a clear indication of the extent to which they align with those ideas. While such support can
have resource implications, it is nevertheless essential given the challenges that students experience when constructing this critical
aspect of academic writing.

Author contributions

The first author designed and conducted the research and drafted the article.
The second author provided support on theoretical and methodological constructs, revised the literature review and discussion
sections, and checked the coherence of the manuscript.
The third author provided support on research design, and checked data analysis and the drafts.

Funding

There was no funding for this study.

Data statement

The full data cannot be provided due to confidentiality concerns.

Informed consent

The participants signed informed consent forms before the study began.

Declaration of competing interest

There was no conflict of interest.

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Appendix A. Interview protocols

A semi-structured interview followed by a discourse-based interview were conducted in T2, T3 and DS. For comparison purposes,
the same questions were asked at each stage despite slight adjustments in the wording.

Semi-structured interview questions

1. During this term, what do you think about source use? Have your thoughts changed since the last interview?
2. What was your approach to writing this assignment/chapter? Can you briefly comment on the following:
- When did you start and when did you finish
- Your task planning
- Your reading approach (note taking, sequence of reading, ways of finding sources; selecting sources based on what principle)

Discourse-based questions

(citation instances to query were highlighted beforehand).

Why did you use this citation in this way? Please comment on any concerns you had except for the content of the citation.
Probe 1 (if they don’t know what to say):
Why did you choose to cite in this way instead of another? What kind of message did you want to convey apart from the content?
How would citing in this way be different from putting a bracket at the end, for example?
Probe 2 (optional):
Where did you get this perception from? How did you master this type of citation? What do you think of this type of citation?

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