Dissertation Writing in Practice: Turning Ideas into Text

2. Making Use of Source Materials

As we have seen in Chapter 1, it is essential when writing a dissertation to refer to other scholars whose work you have used for source material during your research. References to the work of other scholars appear throughout a dissertation, although they are, naturally, most frequent when actually reviewing the literature. As making references to your sources is such an important element in your dissertation, this chapter aims to consider the reasons a writer has for referring to the work of others and looks at different methods of referring, before examining the language that is used to make these references. REASONS FOR REFERRING You may have a variety of reasons for referring to the work of others, but there are two reasons which underlie all other. We will discuss these first and then move on to consider other reasons. 1. To Avoid Being Accused of Plagiarism The need to acknowledge the work and ideas of others in order not to be accused of plagiarism clearly applies to each and every instance of making a reference. It is vitally important that you should give full credit to those who have done/are doing work in your field and one Making Use of Source Materials 38 DISSERTATION WRITING IN PRACTICE way of doing this is through referring to these people in your writing. This is not only a matter of academic courtesy, but an ethical and legal issue. 2. To Demonstrate Familiarity with the Field Another reason for citing others that underlies all citations is the need to demonstrate familiarity with the field in order to establish your membership of a particular academic community. You can consider that the situation is rather like joining a club for experts. To become a member you need to show that you share the interests of the other members; you want the other members, i.e. your readers, to know that you are familiar with what has been said on the topic being investigated, that you have read what you should have read if you wish to be considered an expert. Below are two examples of references made for this reason. EXAMPLE 2.1. Casanave and Hubbard (1992) stated that supervisors of postgraduate students at Stanford University rated spelling and punctuation quite low on the scale of items affecting their grading. EXAMPLE 2.2. Students in a study by Parkhurst (1990) indicated that to improve their style they adopted a strategy of reading extensively and imitating what they had read. The writer of these examples is merely showing an awareness of what else has been written in the area being researched. In neither of the examples does the writer express an opinion about the research reported; there is no analysis or evaluation of the works cited. The writer’s reason for citing here is only to demonstrate familiarity with the field. 39 MAKING USE OF SOURCE MATERIALS 3. To Show Your Support for or to Refute the Work of Other Researchers Frequently, however, it is not sufficient only to report what has been done and to remain neutral towards the research. You need to evaluate the work of others in order to negotiate your position with regard to the present body of knowledge and to establish your stance. This then is another reason for referring to background sources. Below are three examples of references made for this purpose. EXAMPLE 2.3. Smith (1995) presents a convincing argument in favour of introducing legislation to legalise soft drugs. EXAMPLE 2.4. Innovative research by Yang et al. (1999) demonstrates that there is a significant correlation between the mother’s age at birth and increased risk of birth defects. EXAMPLE 2.5. According to Clark (1991) the students in his survey found the use of the passive voice to be the most difficult grammatical feature to master. However, he fails to explain why the student samples that he cites do not exhibit errors with this aspect of writing. This is further evidence of the unreliability of his findings. Example 2.3 gives a clear idea of the writer’s positive attitude towards the research by the use of ‘presents a convincing argument’. Example 2.4 also makes it clear that the writer is praising the research referred to by the use of the positive adjective ‘innovative’ and a reporting verb that indicates that strong evidence was provided, i.e. ‘demonstrates’. In these two examples the writers...