ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of
E NGLISH for
A CADEMIC
Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6 (2007) 238–253
P URPOSES
www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap

Rhetorical functions of citations in high- and

low-rated master’s theses
Bojana Petrić
Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK

Abstract

This study compares rhetorical citation functions in eight high- and eight low-graded master’s
theses in the field of gender studies, written in English as a second language. The following rhetorical
functions of citations are identified: attribution, exemplification, further reference, statement of use,
application, evaluation, establishing links between sources, and comparison of one’s own work with
that of other authors. It is shown that both sets of theses use citations predominantly for attribution,
suggesting that one of the functions of citation in student writing is knowledge display. The use of
citation for non-attribution functions is found to be considerably lower in the low-rated theses than
in the high-rated theses, both in the whole theses and in individual chapters. The findings show that
there is a relationship between citation use and thesis grade, thus pointing to the importance of
effective citation strategies for students’ academic success. In conclusion, the paper argues that
source use and citation skills should receive more attention in EAP instruction and suggests activities
focusing on this area of academic writing.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Citation; Master’s thesis; Academic writing; High- and low-rated writing; English for academic
purposes

1. Introduction

Citation, one of the distinguishing features of academic writing, is of interest not only
to EAP scholars (e.g., Hyland, 2000; Swales, 1986, 1990; Thompson, 2001, 2005) but
also sociologists of science (e.g., Gilbert, 1977; Latour, 1987) and information scientists

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doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2007.09.002
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(see White, 2004, for an overview). Despite differences in approaches and methods in these
fields, they agree that the role of citation in scientific discourse is not only to acknowledge
the work of others but also to promote the writer’s own knowledge claims. Berkenkotter
and Huckin (1995) aptly illustrate this by the title of their article You are what you cite, and
Latour (1987) even likens citations to weapons scientists use to transform previous
literature in the field to work to their advantage (see, however, White’s (2004) critique of
social-constructivist views of citation). Within applied linguistics, research on citation has
investigated disciplinary variation in citation use (Hyland, 2000), cultural differences in
citation use (Belcher, 1994; Bloch & Chi, 1995; Pennycook, 1996), diachronic development
of citation (Bazerman, 1988; Salager-Meyer, 1999) and reporting verbs accompanying
citation (Hawes & Thomas, 1997; Hyland, 2002).
Most of this work, however, focuses on citation in published writing. When it comes to
citation and source use in student writing, especially in the second language, researchers
have mostly focused on its problematic aspects, such as difficulties in paraphrasing and
summarising (Campbell, 1990), plagiarism (Angélil-Carter, 2000; Howard, 1999; Pecorari,
2002, 2003, 2006), and difficulties in expressing one’s voice, which includes lack of stance
towards the cited material, inappropriately harsh criticism of other authors, tendency to
make claims without reference to previous work, and unclear distinction between one’s
own points and those of other authors (Borg, 2000; Dong, 1996; Groom, 2000). In sum,
research shows that students have difficulty using sources in academically acceptable ways.
However, there is little research on what constitutes effective citation practices in student
writing. This may be due to an underlying assumption that citation use by scholars should
be the model for student writing. However, scholars and students write for different
audiences, have different writing goals, and use different genres, all of which could affect
their citation use. For example, some citation roles, such as creating a social network
through ‘‘invisible colleges’’ (Crane, 1972), or showing allegiance to a school of thought
may be less relevant in the case of student writing since it is typically read by one reader
only. While scholars generally cite their peers, students refer to the work of those in much
higher standing than them; therefore, issues of power are also different, which may affect
students’ confidence to express evaluation. Conversely, the use of citation for knowledge
display and for demonstrating one’s ability to apply a theory may be a more prominent
function of citation in student writing. In other words, what is considered effective citation
use in student and scholarly writing may not be the same. If that is the case, it is necessary
to understand what constitutes effective citation use in student writing so that realistic
goals can be formulated for EAP courses.
In order to identify effective citation strategies in student writing, I compare citation
strategies in high- and low-rated master’s theses, where grades are awarded by subject
specialists (i.e., insiders to the discipline). If there are differences in citation use in high- and
low-rated theses, then citation strategies associated with high-rated writing may offer an
insight into what is regarded as effective citation strategies. By describing what constitutes
effective citation strategies, this study aims to contribute to a more informed teaching of
source and citation use.

2. Citation typologies

Attempts to classify citations have yielded various typologies; White (2004) noted that
over 20 different typologies had been devised by 2004. This variation can be attributed to
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different aspects of citation use the typologies were intended to capture as well as to
disciplinary and generic differences of the corpora analysed. Broadly speaking, citation
typologies can be divided into content-based typologies and typologies based on formal
criteria. Developing content-based typologies requires the knowledge of the subject matter
and double-rating procedures to ensure reliability. A well-known example is the Moravcsik
& Murugesan typology (1975), which consists of four sets of contrasting features of
citations. Each citation is classified along the four dimensions as either: conceptual or
operational, organic or perfunctory, evolutionary or juxtapositional, and confirmative or
negational (Moravcsik & Murugesan, 1975, p. 88). The subsequent uses of this typology
have shown, as is the case with many citation typologies, that not all of the categories are
applicable to other disciplines. Swales (1986), for instance, found that the first two criteria
were irrelevant in the case of texts in applied linguistics.
Citation typologies based on formal criteria avoid this pitfall by focusing on the linguistic
realisation of citations, i.e., their surface forms rather than their meaning. Using these
typologies does not require the knowledge of the discipline; they typically employ corpus
linguistic methods and can therefore be used with large corpora. The most frequently used is
the distinction introduced by Swales (1990) between integral and non-integral citations, on
the one hand, and reporting and non-reporting, on the other hand. In integral citations, the
name of the cited author occurs within the sentence, foregrounding the researcher, whereas
non-integral citations place the author’s name outside of the text, either in parentheses or in
footnotes/endnotes, emphasising the reported research rather than the researcher.
Further elaboration of this typology can be found in the work of Thompson (2001,
2005), who divides integral and non-integral citations into sub-types, based on the analysis
of a corpus of 16 doctoral dissertations in two disciplines: agricultural botany and
agricultural and food economics. This classification takes into account a combination of
formal linguistic criteria, such as the syntactic position of the citation within a clause, and
function, such as whether the citation identifies the origin of an idea or is used as an
example. Integral citations are thus divided based on the formal criteria into:

a) verb controlling (if the citation controls a lexical verb);

b) naming (where the citation is a noun phrase or its part); and
c) non-citations (where the author’s name is not followed by other data, such as
publication year).

Non-integral citations are further divided into five categories:

a) source, or attribution citations, which indicate where the idea or information is taken
from;
b) identification citations, which identify an actor in the sentence, as in ‘‘It has been
suggested (Wilson, 1999)y’’;
c) origin citations, which indicate ‘‘the originator of a concept, technique or product’’
(Thompson, 2001, p. 105), as in ‘‘The CPE procedure (Kim, 1985)y’’;
d) reference citations, which point to work containing further information; and
e) example, where the cited work illustrates what is stated in the sentence.

In addition to the three integral sub-types of citation, one of the non-integral citation
types—the identification citation—is also defined by reference to formal criteria as it
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includes cases where the citation is an actor in a sentence but is not in the subject position.
The other sub-types of non-integral citations, i.e., source (attribution), origin, reference,
and example, indicate citation functions, which ‘‘reveals something of the intention of the
writer’’ (Thompson, 2001, p. 103).
This study focuses precisely on the intentions writers realise by using citations, which I
refer to as rhetorical functions of citations. A typology which makes it possible to identify
the purposes for which writers use citations can be of direct pedagogical use in the EAP
classroom as students’ awareness of such purposes of citations is likely to promote their
own use of citations for a range of rhetorical purposes. Therefore, I take as a starting point
the functional criteria of Thompson’s (2001) typology of citations. I exclude the formally
based categories and introduce other function-based categories that emerged from the
analysis of the corpus. Section 3 describes the corpus and the method, while Section 4
outlines the typology of rhetorical functions of citations used in this study.

3. The corpus and the method

The corpus used in this study consists of 16 master’s theses written in English at an
English-medium university in Central Europe. All these were written by second language
writers from 12 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, with no country being
represented by more than two theses. The theses were written in the field of gender studies
and were defended within a period of 2 academic years. The main distinguishing feature in
the corpus was thesis grade, awarded by a committee consisting of three gender studies
lecturers. The grading criteria used at the university do not directly refer to use of sources
or citation; however, the thesis requirements imply effective source and citation use:
Theses should show a good knowledge of the literature in the field; contribute to the
study of the field through original research and/or by relating the subject studies to
the broader academic literature; and demonstrate analytic ability through the careful
and critical use of relevant concepts and approaches. (Faculty handbook 2003–2004,
2003, p. 17)
All three requirements assume use of sources but for different purposes: good knowledge
of the literature requires an understanding of the major themes in the field as a whole, as
well as the ability to identify links between different authors’ work; contribution to the
field assumes an awareness of what is considered established knowledge and what is novel
in the field; finally, analytic ability and critical use of relevant concepts implies
an evaluative perspective on the work of others and its use in ways relevant to one’s
research aims.
The grading system used in the university consists of six passing grades: A (outstanding),
A (excellent), B+ (very good), B (good), B (satisfactory), and C+ (minimum pass).
There are no separate descriptors for each grade. Instead, grades are divided into
three categories: pass with high honours (A), pass with honours (A , B+), and pass
(B, B , C+), with the assumption that all theses must fulfil the three basic requirements
but to differing degrees. Thus, the lowest pass grade range is described as demonstrating all
the requirements ‘‘with the exception of analytical ability’’ (Faculty handbook 2003–2004,
2003, p. 26).
My original plan was to collect eight theses graded A and eight theses from the lowest
grade group available. Collecting theses graded A was easy since out of the total of 61
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students who graduated in the 2 years I investigated, 19 (31.15%) received the top grade
(A). The lowest grades, however, turned out to be rarely used: in the 2 years, no thesis
received C+ and only one thesis (1.64%) was graded B ; seven (11.48%) were graded B,
and a further seven received B+, with the remaining 25 (40.98%) receiving A .
After eliminating theses based on two further criteria for thesis selection to ensure
comparability, i.e., that at least one of the graders was a permanent faculty member and
that theses were based on empirical rather than theoretical research, the corpus consisted
of eight theses graded A and, for the lower graded texts, one thesis graded B , 6 theses
graded B and one graded B+. This variation, which reflects the skewed grade distribution
in the department, will be shown to have some implications, which will be discussed in
Section 5.
Once the corpus was compiled, citations were identified following Hyland’s (2000)
criteria. Each occurrence of another author’s name was counted as citation, regardless of
whether it was followed by the year of publication or not. In the theses using a footnote
documentation style, each bibliographical footnote as well as the mention of an author in
the text was counted as citation. Following Hyland (2000), instances such as ‘‘this theory’’
or ‘‘their definition,’’ which clearly referred to a previously mentioned source, were
counted, while expressions which did not point to a specific author or source, such as
‘‘some authors’’ or ‘‘Marxists’’ were excluded. References to primary data, such as literary
works as object of analysis or interviews conducted by students, were not taken into
account. The analysis did not include textual elements outside of the main text, such as
epigraphs and explanatory footnotes.
Citations were then coded in terms of their rhetorical functions. In the initial steps,
I used the citation categories from Thompson’s (2001) classification that were based on
functional criteria. These included source (attribution), origin, reference and example.
However, while Thompson (2001) used these categories to classify non-integral citations
only, I used them in classifying both integral and non-integral citations. Initial analysis
showed that the category of ‘‘origin,’’ where citation is used to denote ‘‘the originator of a
concept, technique or product’’ (Thompson, 2001, p. 105), yielded very low frequencies;
therefore, it was merged with the category ‘‘source’’ (attribution). The low frequency is
probably due to disciplinary differences: while in agricultural botany and agricultural and
food economics discussions of products and techniques seem to be common, they are very
rare in gender studies, a highly discursive social science. Other modifications to
Thompson’s (2001) categories were terminological: to avoid confusion between ‘‘source’’
as ‘‘type of citation’’ and its more general meaning of ‘‘other authors’ work,’’ I used the
term ‘‘attribution’’ for this type of citation. For the same reasons of clarity, I use ‘‘further
reference’’ instead of ‘‘reference.’’
In addition to the three categories, new categories were established to capture those
rhetorical functions that had a considerable presence in the corpus. The main criteria for
assigning a citation to a particular category were linguistic cues in the citing sentence
signalling the writer’s intention in relation to the cited source (for example, evaluative
language or expressions of comparison involving citations). In developing the typology,
I followed the principles of coding qualitative data (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996), which
consist in repeated categorising and re-categorising of the data. In this process, certain
categories that were initially established were later merged with others if further data did
not support their existence as an independent category, while others were sub-divided into
further categories if the category was becoming too heterogeneous. Once the typology was
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developed, I re-analysed 10% of the data 3 weeks afterwards, without consulting the
results of the first coding. Although this procedure does not replace inter-rater reliability
measures and therefore does not fully ensure reliability of analysis, it tested intra-rater
consistency and contributed to further fine-tuning of the definitions of the categories,
which facilitated the coding of borderline cases of citation use. I return to this point in the
discussion of the findings.

4. Typology of rhetorical functions of citations

The typology used in the study consists of nine rhetorical functions. Each is illustrated
with an authentic example from the corpus, followed by the writer’s pseudonym and the
grade awarded for the thesis.

4.1. Attribution

This type of citation is used to attribute information or activity to an author.

The attributed information may be a proposition, a term, or a stretch of text, while
the activity may be a research, discourse or cognitive act. This type of citation can
be realised as a summary/paraphrase or quotation. Any type of surface form of
citation, i.e., integral or non-integral, reporting or non-reporting, can be used to
express attribution. Here is an example of an integral non-reporting citation used for
attribution:

According to feminist film critic Laura Mulvey’s (1975) analysis of the gaze, in binary
looking relations men tend to assume the active role of a looking subject while
women tend to be passive objects to be looked at, which in turn supports and
symbolizes the patriarchal power relations between the sexes. (Eva, A)

4.2. Exemplification

The citation, usually preceded by ‘‘for example’’ or ‘‘e.g.,’’ provides information on the
source(s) illustrating the writer’s statement. Both integral and non-integral citations can
have this rhetorical function. The following excerpt illustrates a typical use of this citation
type, where a general statement is illustrated with a specific example.

Many feminist scholars debate the concept of ‘woman’ and gender categories as such.
Monique Wittig, for example, argues that woman is defined only in relation to man,
and since a lesbian does not depend on men either ‘‘economically, politically
or ideologicallyy[she] is not a woman’’ and stands beyond the category of sex
(Wittig 20). (Olga, B+)

As this example shows, this type of citation can be effectively used to fulfil the first
requirement for a good thesis, i.e., showing the knowledge of the literature in the field,
since it can be used to create a link between general trends and the work of individual
authors. At the same time, the citation here functions as specific evidence supporting a
more general claim and thus contributes to the writer’s argumentation.
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4.3. Further reference

The citation, usually in parentheses or a footnote and preceded by ‘‘see,’’ refers to works
providing further information on the issue. Only non-integral citations are used for this
purpose, as in the following footnote:

See Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Baltic States: Social and Legal
Aspects (IOM, Finland, 2001). (Egle, B)

Note that although the citation is part of the sentence in the footnote, it is non-integral
since it is placed outside of the main text. This type is particularly useful for describing the
larger context of the writer’s study. If properly used, it shows the writer’s ability to
differentiate between relevant and additional information gathered from sources.

4.4. Statement of use

This type of citation is used to state what works are used in the thesis and for what
purposes. It is found either in introductions and introductory paragraphs in chapters as a
statement of prospective use, as in:

In further analysis I will rely on Rosemary Henessy’s (1998) theorization of how

queer visibility can be appropriated for commodity purposes. (Eva, A)

or in conclusions or summaries of chapters as a statement of retrospective use:

For the theoretical implications of the concept of cognitive mapping, I have relied on
Frederic Jameson’s elaboration of that term. (Branka, A).

Both integral and non-integral citations can have this function. In both cases, it is the
writer’s authorial decisions that are in the foreground.

4.5. Application

This type of citation makes connections between the cited and the writer’s work in
order to use the arguments, concepts, terminology or procedures from the cited work
for the writer’s own purposes. The focus is therefore on the writer’s work. Here is
an example of this type of citation from a thesis on teenage girls, written by a student
who previously worked as a teacher and who returned to her workplace to conduct
research:

Having been in contact with high school life and students gave me a tacit or
inarticulate knowledge that helps formulate interview questions in the language
of the interviewee now that I became a ‘‘retrospective researcher’’ (Reinhartz, 1992,
p. 27). (Oana, A)

In this example, the writer is using a concept from the cited source to describe her role in
her research project.
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4.6. Evaluation

In this type of citation, the work of another author is evaluated by the use of evaluative
language ranging from individual words (e.g., evaluative adverbs) to clauses expressing
evaluation. Here is an example of positive evaluation:
Elizabeth Grosz’s concept of ‘‘the body as inscriptive surface’’ is an ingenious way
out of the nature/culture impasse. (Oana, A)
Negative evaluation comes in many varieties. The following is an example of criticism
preceded by positive evaluation (the excerpt follows a direct quote from a source, here
referenced by ‘‘this definition’’):
Although I consider this definition to be useful, I think that due to its general
character, it does not say much about the effects of gender in social and institutional
relationships. (Anezka, A)
The criticism is very cautious here: in addition to praise preceding criticism, the writer uses
the tentative opinion verb ‘‘I think,’’ foregrounds the reason for the criticism (‘‘due to’’)
and finally provides a rather mild critical remark (‘‘does not say much’’). In contrast, here
is an example of a directly expressed criticism of another author, which starts with a rather
strong evaluative noun phrase ‘‘main flaw’’ suggesting that the cited work has further
minor flaws as well. The critique is continued by an evaluative reporting phrase ‘‘omits to
take into account,’’ which belongs to counter-factive reporting verbs, used to present the
reported information as false (Hyland, 2000, p. 28):
The main flaw with Gray’s analysis is that she omits to take into account the very
slippery nature of language and in that respect of jokes. (Veselina, A)
The following is an example of more subtle evaluation techniques, such as reference to
other authors’ work in order to critique an author, as in:
Language, Derrida points out, is slippery and it bears within itself the means for its
own critique (51). This is precisely why Gray’s claim that jokes in sitcoms are for the
most part purely sexist, with the laugh being on women, is once again too absolute to
hold water. (Veselina, A)
Here the writer uses an established authority (Derrida) as a pillar for her own critique:
although Derrida does not refer to the author she critiques, she juxtaposes Derrida’s
argument with Gray’s in order to show weaknesses in Gray’s claim.

4.7. Establishing links between sources

The function of this citation is to point to links, usually comparison and contrast,
between or among different sources used. This type of citation can be used to indicate
differences in existing views on a topic, thus showing that the writer is able to identify
controversial issues, which is particularly important in discursive fields. Here is an
example:
While Rich argues that men enforce compulsory heterosexuality upon women,
Suzanne Pharr claims that both homosexual women and men are perceived as a
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threat to the normative heterosexual patriarchal order, which is characterized by

male dominance and control. (Olga, B+)
This category also includes cases where a common statement is attributed to a group of
studies or authors, followed by a list of citations (Hyland, 2000, refers to this type
of citation as generalisation from multiple sources). This type of citation attests to the
writer’s ability to detect what is considered common knowledge in the field, as in the
following example:
It is often mentioned in migration studies that the loss of the breadwinner role
deteriorates men’s status within the family and community (Al-Ali, 2002; Kibria,
1990; Matsuoka & Sorenson, 1999; McSpadden, 1999). (Anezka, A)

4.8. Comparison of one’s own findings or interpretation with other sources

This type of citation is used to indicate similarities or differences between one’s own
work and the works of other authors, typically when discussing the findings. This citation
type plays an important role in fulfilling the thesis requirement of contribution to the field,
since contribution needs to be differentiated from previous work. In the following
example, the writer points to the similarity between her findings about gender relations
among refugees from Chechnya and the previous work in the field:
As in the cases of classical patriarchy (Kandiyoti, 1988), also in a Chechen family the
husband’s kin appropriates his wife’s labour. (Anezka, A)
The following example shows citations indicating both similarities and differences between
one’s own and other authors’ work:
This conclusion supports one part of Krieger’s argument that the basic function of
community is affirmation of one’s identity. While she further argues that community
is also threatening to one’s sense of self through eradication of differences (xii), such
attitude was not expressed by the respondents in my research. (Olga, B+)
Like statement of use (4.4 above), the purpose of this type of citation is to foreground the
writer’s own research and its position in relation to the work of others.

4.9. Other

This category includes cases where the relationship between the citing sentence and the
citation is obscure. Here is an example from a thesis on women in prison, which uses
citation to a work on qualitative research methods:
What are the central research questions about women inmates, and what are the
appropriate methods to be used in answering these questions? (Steward (1994:p).
(Elena, B)
It is important to address possible overlaps between some of the categories in the
taxonomy. First, most citations are, by definition, attributions. In this taxonomy, however,
a citation is coded as attribution only if it does not have any explicit markers of an
additional function. Keeping this category separate allows us to identify instances where a
source is cited with no immediate rhetorical purpose other than to present information
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from it. Secondly, statement of use is a category that implies positive evaluation, i.e.,
writers choose those theoretical frameworks that they believe have explanatory power,
even if they are critical of some of their aspects. However, according to the taxonomy,
citations are coded as evaluation only if an explicit evaluative marker is present. This way a
distinction is kept between statement of use, where the focus tends to be on the writer’s
goals, and evaluation, which focuses on the cited work, albeit foregrounding the writer’s
argumentation. Finally, it needs to be stated that a citation can have more than one
function, as in the following:
In drawing a picture of this wider field, I shall rely on Susan Gal and Gail Kligman’s
valuable analysis The Politics of Gender after Socialism (2000) about recent
phenomena in the transformational process of East Central Europe after 1989.
(Eszter, A)
In this example, the writer states the works used in her thesis (statement of use) and, at
the same time, explicitly expresses positive evaluation by using an evaluative adjective.
A possible approach to coding the rhetorical functions of the citation in this and similar
cases would be to identify the most salient function only. However, this would lead not
only to data loss but to difficulties in determining the most salient function. It was
therefore decided to record all rhetorical functions of citations with multiple functions. As
a result, there is a certain overlap of functions: in the low-rated theses, 3.79% (30 of 792) of
all citations were used to express more than one function, while in the high-rated theses
the percentage of such citations is 9.34% (117 of 1253). This suggests that citation is used
in synctactically and rhetorically more complex ways in the high-rated theses than in the
low-rated ones.

5. Findings and discussion

A total of 1981 citations were identified in 310,624 words, of which 1253 were in the
high-rated theses (182,896 words) and 729 in the low-rated ones (127,728 words). Citation
density, i.e., number of citations per 1000 words, is 6.85 in the high-rated theses and 6.2 in
the low-rated ones. In what follows, I discuss the findings about the quantitative and
qualitative differences in the rhetorical functions of citations in high- and low-rated theses.

5.1. Quantitative differences

Percentages of different functions of citations in the high- and low-rated theses in

Table 1 show that in both sets of theses the most common rhetorical function of citations is
attribution. This may be characteristic of student writing in general, since this citation
function helps writers display their knowledge of the topic. While in published writing
ultimately any mention of sources is related to the writer’s own argumentation, in student
writing knowledge display may constitute a function of its own, as students need to show
that they are familiar with the literature. Attribution can therefore be considered an
unmarked citation function since it is the most common and rhetorically the simplest one.
Data in Table 1 also show, however, that the percentage of attribution citations is
considerably higher in the low-rated theses, while other, rhetorically more complex citation
types requiring analytical skills are used less often than in the high-rated theses, suggesting
that in low-rated theses knowledge display is overemphasised at the expense of other thesis
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248 B. Petrić / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6 (2007) 238–253

Table 1
Rhetorical functions of citations in high (A) and low (B)-rated theses (%)

A theses B theses

Attribution 78.77 91.54

Exemplification 2.63 1.64
Further reference 1.20 0.51
Statement of use 4.31 1.39
Application 6.78 2.15
Evaluation 5.51 0.63
Establishment of links between sources 5.99 3.16
Comparison of one’s work with that of other authors 1.76 2.27
Other 0 0.25

Numbers may not add up to 100% due to inclusion of citations with more than one rhetorical function.

Table 2
Rhetorical functions of citations by thesis section in the high-rated theses (%)

% Introduction Lit. rev. Methods Context Analysis Conclusion

Attribution 61.59 74.04 64.10 84.83 70.00 47.37

Exemplification 5.07 2.71 1.71 0.69 1.60 0
Further reference 0.72 1.28 0.85 0 1.60 0
Statement of use 9.42 1.99 10.26 2.07 3.60 15.79
Application 3.62 2.14 12.82 4.83 15.20 26.32
Evaluation 5.80 7.12 1.71 3.45 1.20 5.26
Establishment of links between sources 13.77 9.40 5.98 2.76 1.60 0
Comparison of one’s work with that of others 0 1.42 2.56 1.38 5.20 5.26

Numbers may not add up to 100% due to inclusion of citations with more than one rhetorical function.

requirements. This tendency of low-rated theses towards descriptiveness rather than

analysis also reflects the grading criteria, which specify that lower grades are awarded for
theses lacking in analytical aspects but showing the knowledge of the field. Attribution
citations can then be associated with Bereiter & Scardamalia’s (1987) knowledge telling
mode of writing, i.e., re-telling what other authors stated, in contrast to knowledge
transformation, which requires novel associations to be established among different
sources and links to be made between sources and one’s own findings. A parallel can be
made here with Dong’s (1996) study of mentors teaching non-native doctoral students to
use citation to support their knowledge claims. The students in Dong’s study, accustomed
to writing in the knowledge telling mode encouraged in their previous education, needed
instruction in using citations for knowledge transformation and construction of new
knowledge claims. While at the doctoral level knowledge transformation as a writing mode
is an essential requirement, it may be the case that at the master’s level the ability to use
citation for knowledge transformation is generally found in top grade theses only.
Further differences in citation use in the two groups of theses are revealed when citations
are compared for each section of the thesis: introduction, literature review, context of the
study, methods, data analysis and discussion, and conclusion (see Tables 2 and 3). The
data confirm the low-rated theses’ tendency towards greater descriptiveness since they use
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Table 3
Rhetorical functions of citations by thesis section in the low-rated theses (%)

% Introduction Lit. rev. Methods Context Analysis Conclusion

Attribution 82.61 83.92 68.75 94.69 86.75 70

Exemplification 4.35 2.10 6.25 0.94 0.80 0
Further reference 1.45 0.70 0 0.31 0.40 0
Statement of use 2.90 1.40 6.25 0.94 0.40 20
Application 1.45 1.40 15.65 0 3.61 0
Evaluation 0 1.40 0 0.94 0 10
Establishment of links between sources 5.80 7.69 0 2.19 1.20 0
Comparison of one’s work with that of others 0 1.40 0 0 6.83 0
Other 1.45 0 3.13 0 0 0

Numbers may not add up to 100% due to inclusion of citations with more than one rhetorical function.

citations for attribution to a greater extent than the high-rated theses in all thesis parts.
The most remarkable differences include the five times higher percentage of evaluation
citations in the theoretical chapter in the high-rated theses (7.12% as compared with
1.40%) and the four times higher percentage of application citations in the analysis chapter
in the high-rated theses (15.2% as compared with 3.61%). These figures can be interpreted
in light of the functions of these thesis parts. The literature review, for example, serves a
variety of complex purposes (Ridley, 2000; Swales & Lindemann, 2002), including
justification of the focus of the research and the choice of the theoretical framework,
operationalisation of major concepts and establishment of the grounds for the analysis
that follows. This complexity of purposes entails the use of a variety of rhetorical functions
of citations. The prevalence of attribution citations, then, suggests the type of literature
review that writing teachers often complain about, where a selection of studies is
summarised and presented without much elaboration on the links among them or on their
relevance to the writer’s own research. Interestingly, citation density in the literature review
chapters in the low-rated theses is slightly higher (15.31 citations per 1000 words as
compared with 14.17 in high-rated theses), indicating more frequent reference to sources,
but more often for the purposes of attribution. In contrast, in literature reviews in the high-
rated theses, writers refer to the work of others for a greater variety of rhetorical purposes,
most frequently to establish links among sources and to evaluate them.
Of all structural elements, the difference is the most remarkable in the introductions.
Here it is useful to refer to Swales’s (1990) CARS model of introductions and its three
moves, which help set up the context for one’s study. In the first move, establishing the
field, reference to previous research plays an important role in overviewing previous work
on the topic. A rhetorical citation function matching this aim is establishment of links
between sources in the field, which, as data show, is used more than twice as often in the
high-rated theses as in the low-rated ones (13.77% as compared with 5.80%). The second
move, identifying the problem, can be realised by one or more of the following: indicating
a gap in the existing research, continuing a previous line of enquiry, disagreeing with
previous research, and asking a question, while the third move offers a solution by
outlining the writer’s goal, methods and the structure of the paper (Swales, 1990).
Rhetorical functions of citations matching these moves include evaluation for indicating a
gap and disagreement, and statement of use and possibly evaluation for continuing a
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previous line of enquiry and for offering a solution. The data show that the high-rated
theses use a higher percentage of both rhetorical functions: 5.8% of all citations in high-
rated introductions are used to evaluate the work of others, while no such instances of
citation use are found in the introductions to the low-rated theses; the high-rated
introductions also feature almost four times as many citations with the function of
statement of purpose (9.42% as compared with 2.90% in the low-rated thesis
introductions).
The low-rated theses do, however, show a slightly higher proportion of citations used for
non-attribution purposes in two thesis parts: in the methods chapter they display a higher
figure for the function of application (15.65% as compared with 12.82% in the high-rated
ones), and in the analysis chapter they use proportionally more citations for comparing
one’s and other authors’ work (6.83% as compared with 5.20% in the high-rated ones).
The latter finding deserves closer attention as the majority of citations with this function
(15 out of 18, or 83.33%) come from a single thesis, while five low-rated theses do not use
citations for this purpose at all. The same thesis is the source of 49.46% of all non-
attribution categories in the low-rated set of texts. This thesis is the only one in the corpus
that was awarded B+. The use of citations for different rhetorical functions certainly
marks this thesis as above the average of the low-rated thesis group.

5.2. Qualitative differences

In addition to using citation for a more limited range of functions, low achievers also use
citation in qualitatively different ways from high achievers. Some of the examples of the
rhetorical functions in Section 4 illustrate the skilful use of citations for different purposes
in high-rated theses (see, for example, Veselina’s use of negative evaluation), while such
sophistication in expression is rare in the low-rated theses (exceptions are examples from
Olga’s thesis, already discussed above). Realisations of rhetorical functions of citations in
low-rated theses tend to display two types of inadequacies. The first refers to cases where
the rhetorical citation function is expressed clearly enough for the reader to understand the
writer’s intention but due to her low level of language proficiency it is linguistically
deficient, as in the following example of citation used for evaluation:

The author does not report the number of surveyed just pointing out it was limited
number. (Natalia, B)

The second type includes cases where language proficiency may be sufficient but the
rhetorical function of citation is inappropriate. A typical example is positive evaluation in
phrases introducing an author, as in the following example:

Prominent scholar of the Central Asian region Mihanany. (Aigul, B)

As Rose (1996) notes, such phrases can reveal a novice in the field who ‘‘introduces’’
established authors. The evaluation here is misplaced: instead of evaluating the work, the
writer ‘‘plays safe’’ by praising its author. In contrast, in high-rated theses it is more
common to find praise of specific works or particular arguments for which the authors are
well known in the field, which positions the writer as an insider to the discipline, as in:

Greer’s now famous ‘female eunuch’ argumenty. (Oana, A)

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The two types of inadequate expressions of rhetorical functions of citations point to two
areas that EAP instruction should focus on: the lack of adequate linguistic resources can be
solved by teaching structures and phrases for the expression of different rhetorical
functions of citations, while in the case of a lack of awareness of citation roles students
need to be familiarised with different rhetorical functions of citation as well as the language
resources necessary for their expression.

6. Conclusions and implications

Despite the limitations in research methodology, the comparison of the rhetorical

functions of citations in high- and low-rated theses in this study shows that there are both
quantitative and qualitative differences in their citation use. It is shown that citation use
associated with higher grades is characterised by the use of citation for a greater variety of
rhetorical functions and by greater use of citation for purposes other than attribution. It
may be assumed that such citation use is thus related to the features of high-rated writing
described in the thesis grading criteria, such as showing a good knowledge of the literature
and demonstrating analytic ability. This does not mean, however, that effective citation
strategies can compensate for the lack of knowledge or analytic ability. Nevertheless,
effective use of citation may help highlight the knowledge and abilities highly valued by
thesis graders and may thus contribute to students’ academic success.
The findings therefore suggest that source and citation use should receive more attention
in EAP courses. One way to develop students’ citation skills is by raising their awareness of
the rhetorical functions that can be achieved through citation. The typology of rhetorical
functions outlined in this study can be used for developing classroom activities, such as
exercises where students are given clear examples of different rhetorical functions of
citation and asked to match them with the corresponding function, or text analysis tasks
where students discuss the writer’s intentions behind citation use in authentic excerpts
from different chapters in high-rated theses. Activities for increasing language proficiency
for EAP can focus on phrases for expressing different rhetorical functions of citations,
such as evaluative adjectives and adverbs or types of reporting verbs used for different
functions in the students’ discipline. However, such activities may not be effective if
students are not cognitively ready to use some of the citation functions or have not yet
acquired a knowledge base in their field that would allow them to be critical or
make comparisons of different authors. It may be more productive to deal with such finer
issues of citation use once students begin writing longer papers, than during pre-sessional
EAP courses.
This study also shows that investigating citation functions can be a fruitful avenue of
citation research, which can be combined with data on formal features of citations to
provide more comprehensive insights. A particularly interesting direction for future
research would be to compare citation functions used by scholars and by high-
achieving master’s students in the same discipline in order to explore citation functions
specific to student writing. Finally, it needs to be stated that the typology presented in this
study may not be applicable to analysis of texts in different disciplines. Its advantage,
however, is that many of its functions may be suitable for analysing citations in
master’s theses, which in most universities have requirements similar to those described in
this study.
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252 B. Petrić / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 6 (2007) 238–253

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Maggie Charles, the two anonymous reviewers, and the audience
at the 3rd BAAHE Conference in Leuven, Belgium, where an earlier version of this paper
was presented, for insightful questions and comments on the earlier versions of this paper.

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Bojana Petrić is a lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of Essex. She has published papers on contrastive
rhetoric, plagiarism, writer identity, and English teacher identities. She is a Board member of the European
Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing.