Citation difficulties in nonnative undergraduate English teachers’ monographs

Abstract

Citation use is a significant challenge for Colombian undergraduate English teachers. Continuing the line of inquiry on citation difficulties in nonnative novice writers, the present study aims at describing the main difficulties this group of students have in citing external sources. The analysis was carried out on 30 theoretical framework chapters from their monographs. Findings indicate that (1) Some undergraduate English teachers lack further textual elaboration since they just cite but do not explain or make a comment to complement the external authors’ idea; (2) These undergraduate English teachers lack citation type variety because the predominat citation type is integral citation, turning the disocurse monotonous; (3) These teachers highly employ attribution as the main citation function which indicates an epistemological dependency on key disciplinary authors since external authors’ ideas are duplicated. This study can be used to raise awareness on nonnative undergraduate English teachers towards better citation practices in their disciplinary academic papers, which can be supported by (a) formal direct instruction in writing composition courses, in research tutoring sessions, etc., and in institutional research hotbeds; (b) analysis of experts’ texts to identify and understand the important features of academic English; (c) incorporation of studies like the present one and others in the universiry syllabus of research and writing composition courses.