This thesis is a corpus-based investigation of citation practices III undergraduate dissertations in Education written in English as a second language. The first part of the study draws on a corpus of 60 literature review sections to provide a quantitative analysis of citation practices across the parameters of citation density, source type, secondary citation, integral and non-integral citation, reporting and non-reporting citation and forms of integrating report. The second part of the study uses a case-study approach to examine the contribution of these features to textual voice and overall success in a subcorpus of six dissertations chosen from the top end and the bottom end of the grading scale. It also investigates the expectations of members of the academy with respect to citation practices, and any positive or negative underlying factors as reported by the dissertation writers. It is shown that citations in the corpus are characteristically primary, integral, reporting summaries that are likely to be taken from a book. The case study results suggest that the single, most reliable predictor of success was the use of non-reporting citation; that citations with a combination of non-integral, non-reporting structures, the use of text transforming forms of integrating report and the use of journal articles and book sections was more frequent in higher-graded dissertations. Citation density was not generally shown to be a good predictor of success. The fulfilment of supervisor expectations with respect to citation practices tended to reflect overall success. Previous training, supervisor support and language competence were found to be positive underlying factors whereas lack of time was reported to be the most negative underlying factor. The study introduces the notion of framing in citation as a contributor to textual voice. The results from the case studies suggest that citations with stronger, more visible frames weaken textual voice and are less conducive to success and citation with weaker, less visible frames strengthen textual voice and are more conducive to success. The study further proposes the application of a knowledge-telling/knowledge-transforming perspective on citation as an interesting link between knowledge and its transformation, in particular as applied to text transforming forms of integrating report. The thesis supports previous work documenting a relationship between citation use and dissertation grade.

This thesis addresses academic writing using two practice-led disciplines, academic literacies and ethnomethodology. It is first concerned to evaluate the possibilities of cooperation between these cognate endeavours, and concludes that where academic literacies provides a locus and set of topics for academic writing studies, ethnomethodology can contribute a sharpening of focus and of analytic tools. Ethnomethodology provides a reassuring message in that it confirms the value of detailed local studies, in this case of literacy. However, it is also the source of critique for those literacy scholars who have tried to site their studies in dualisms. This is seen as a rejection of situated studies. There is therefore a prominent methodological focus in this thesis. These methodological issues are then discussed in regard to how they translate into agendas and technologies for the study of social literacies. It is shown that ethnographic-type methods are necessary for such studies, even where they do not qualify as ‘full’ ethnographies by traditional standards. This study itself took on a quasi-ethnographic or ethnographic-type approach, using a longitudinal method to track the academic writing practices of eight undergraduate students with the aim of ascertaining the social and collaborative ways in which their work is accorded plausibility. Material from the study is presented in the form of interview analysis, and in a series of ethnographic case studies that use a variety of material, including interviews with students and staff, student essays, and various other materials that were accrued throughout the administrative life of the essays. Various methods for achieving or according plausibility, on the part of both students and staff, are discussed and analysed. Although all protagonists involved in essay writing and marking looked for and dealt in conventions wherever possible, the material presented here demonstrates that participants were generally aware of the limits to the possibilities of phenomena, and that there may be cause to locate, challenge, change, and adapt to the things that can acceptably be said and done in essay writing.