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Student Bibliographies Improve When Professors Provide Enforceable Guidelines for Citations
- portal: Libraries and the Academy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 4, Number 2, April 2004
- pp. 275-290
- 10.1353/pla.2004.0035
- Article
- Additional Information
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This paper uses bibliometric analysis to test the efficacy of in-class library instruction in relation to the quality of student term paper bibliographies and grades. It finds that: instruction alone has limited effect; instruction combined with academic penalties tied to the use of a minimum of scholarly sources has positive and significant effects; electronic citations are less scholarly, but not necessarily less valid than print citations; and papers with longer bibliographies tend to receive higher grades irrespective of the kinds of citations. The paper concludes that since academic penalties are important to the success of in-class librarian instruction, librarians should work closely with professors to design class assignments; the provision of minimal guidelines is preferable to banning Internet citations.