Nasrin Kowkabi will present her dissertation at 12:30 PM on Monday, March 11, 2019 in Room 2012, Ponderosa Commons (6445 University Boulevard).
All are welcome to attend.
Supervisory Committee:
Dr. Ling Shi (LLED),
Dr. Margaret M. Early (LLED),
Dr. Ryuko Kubota (LLED)
Examiners:
University examiners: Dr. Anthony Paré (LLED) and Dr. Beth Haverkamp (ECPS)
Chair: Dr. Amy Metcalfe (EDST)
External examiner: Dr. Yongyan Li (University of Hong Kong)
Title: Processes of Academic Source-Based Writing in Graduate School: A Socio-Pedagogical Approach to Students’ Interactions with Source Texts.
Abstract:
Source-based writing is replete with decisions about what to include from others’ work and how to include it. The process of source selection and source integration is an integral yet occluded aspect of writing from sources (Pecorari, 2006). Issues pertaining to appropriate versus inappropriate source use have been among the controversial topics of discussion among university students and instructors (e.g., as noted in Harwood & Petric, 2011, and Shi, 2016), yet current scholarship is still in need of an explicit understanding of the process of source-based writing—in particular, among graduate-level students as emerging scholars in their fields.
In light of such exigency and to better understand the source-based writing practices of student writers at graduate levels, my doctoral research project aimed at exploring the processes of source selection and source integration in the research-paper writing of eight domestic and international Master’s and PhD students in the field of education at a major Canadian university. Data included drafts of research papers students prepared as part of their course requirements, related source texts, three rounds of text-based interviews with students, and individual textbased interviews with their course instructors. Employing a socio-pedagogical approach by interweaving the conceptual frameworks of Community of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), Forms of Capital (Bourdieu, 1991), and Dialogism (Bakhtin, 1986), this study provided the ground to cross-examine not only each participant’s multiple drafts, but also to compare the practices of the Master’s and doctoral participants as they strived to join the expert dialogues in their communities through collecting acceptable forms of textual capital.
Macro analyses of data depicted dilemmas and solutions of participating graduate students in their source-based writing processes. Micro analyses of these Master’s and doctoral students’ written texts and oral accounts identified a wide range of motivations for source selection and purposes for the use of various types of source integration. This study offers insights for institutional and educational action plans to support students’ interactions with source texts.