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Undergraduate Students' Problems with Citing References
Abstract
This study explored the problems undergraduate students are faced with in citing references in their academic work. The study revealed that undergraduate students face difficulties in citing references in their academic work and that they are inconsistent in the way they cite. The article suggests ways in which faculty and library staff can work together to address this problem.
... For example, McWilliams and Allan (2014) stress the importance of acquisition of academic writing conventions by students, such as referencing and use of formal register. Previous research suggests that students lack confidence when it comes to correct citation and referencing (Kargbo 2010). Universities must also inform students about database research and referencing and citation standards and give students opportunity to work on a range of written assignments. ...
... Faculty comments include statements such as: "practice of citing sources is not always correct and not consistent throughout the thesis", "list of references is not always complete or not completely correct respectively", "the citations in the text sometimes do not really relate to the author or the source" and so on. Findings confirm that students often struggle with the originality and synthesis and that graduate students, in general, struggle with technical and rhetorical requirements of citations (Borg 2002;McWilliams and Allan 2014;Kargbo 2010). Furthermore, students may not be familiar with ethical considerations surrounding information (Virkus et al. 2005) ...
... Due to an expectation that researchbased writing must also be of high practical relevance, students may be confused with it comes to information sources or they simply rely on Google for quick and simple information search (Rempel & Cossarini 2013). Students also lack knowledge when it comes to citation and referencing (Kargbo 2010). ...
The paper investigates the state of academic writing literacy and research skills of graduate business program students based on an evaluation of assessment rubric evaluations. Results indicate that graduate business program students have sufficient general writing skills, but struggle when applying these to academic writing for a specific discipline. Results also show that students have significant deficiencies when it comes to research skills. This paper discusses the implications of these outcomes and proposes a number of recommendations for program managers
... The researchers chose not to focus on this search aspect of IL in this study, and the literature review reflects this decision. Several of the studies mentioned above also cover evaluation of information sources whereas other research focuses specifically on source evaluation (Walraven et al. 2009;Hogan and Varnhagen 2012) or citation of sources (Kargbo 2010;Lee 2013). Students' use of Wikipedia is a question that is addressed, and one which also has been studied by Head and Eisenberg (2010), Biddix et al. (2011), Traphagan et al. (2012 and Head (2013). ...
... These observations are similar to those by Andrew Y. Lee (2013), whose research also reveals students' lack of basic understanding of citations, especially with regard to citing electronic sources. The survey findings also correspond to those of John A. Kargbo (2010), who found that undergraduate students at a university in Sierra Leone lacked the skills necessary to write proper in-text citations and references. ...
This study aims to document first-year undergraduate students’ information literacy (IL) skills at a typical university college in Norway. This research is the first of its kind in Norway as previous studies on new students have focused mainly on the literature search. Prior to library instruction a selection of these students completed a survey with questions on the critical evaluation of sources, on plagiarism and on citing sources. Survey questions were designed to reflect the content of the library course in IL. Although most students were confident that they could avoid plagiarism when writing, many had large gaps in their knowledge, and lacked essential skills. Results also show that new students are better at evaluating sources than they are at citing them. Ethical aspects of plagiarism are discussed and comparisons drawn between students coming directly from upper secondary school and those who have some previous higher education. The article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
... It was also found that 72 (57.7%) students knew what referencing was, while 32.1% had no knowledge of what it entailed. As Kargbo (2010) observed, referencing is important in academia and the students who did not know how to reference their work, or why, were more likely to engage unknowingly in academic dishonesty. Namwera (1995: 3) argues that most students plagiarise because they do not know the conventions for using and acknowledging sources. ...
This research investigated the information literacy skills and competencies among incoming first-year undergraduate students at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA), Kenya. A total of 137 incoming first year undergraduate students for the 2013/2014 academic year were surveyed using self-administered questionnaires. Findings revealed that most or all incoming students: (a) had limited knowledge of strategies used to search for information; (b) possessed computer skills such as the use of the internet and its applications (e.g. social networking sites and websites) as well as word-processing and statistical applications; (c) were not familiar with the various retrieval tools and their applications; (d) were familiar with both electronic and printed information resources; (e) were not aware what constituted primary resources and secondary sources; and (f) exhibited little knowledge of issues relating to intellectual property rights.
... [19] claimed that for learners to improve their referencing skills, they must practice extensively in the classroom under the supervision of the teacher, and [13] revealed that students have inadequate referencing skills, and that class time is insufficient to allow teachers to provide effective instruction. [27] showed that referencing problems are not specific to undergraduate students; they also affect graduate students. The results of [40] study showed that learners' use of technology in their academic activities may help to reduce levels of plagiarism. ...
This article examines the effectiveness of a positive design chatbot in a mobile learning environment on students' referencing skills and digital well-being in a research context. The sample consisted of 150 postgraduate students at King Faisal University Education College who were writing their master's dissertations and facing challenges regarding the preparation of American Psychological Association 7th (APA7) edition-style scientific references. this search used a quasi-experimental study involving an achievement pretest and posttest together with a digital well-being scale to gather data and adopted a positive design for a chatbot to be used in a mobile learning environment. developed a chatbot mobile app called Smart Assistant for Research Referencing according to the proposed model and assessed its effect on skill development and digital well-being. The results showed that posttest knowledge increased significantly, and levels of digital well-being also improved. This study provides a model to help postgraduate students and researchers who use the APA7 style to prepare references faster, more easily, and with high accuracy. Where the research results indicated that there is a problem with students' lack of APA reference skills and their frequent feelings of failure, frustration, anxiety, and lack of motivation, the results of this research may help bridge the gap. Instructional designers may benefit from the proposed positive design model when designing positive learning environments based on artificial intelligence (AI). It can also be applied to professional environments.
... Citing sources were commonly done at the last stage in the process of writing and practice in dealing with citations is not well organized (Patak, & Naim, 2012). Similar study conducted by Kargbo (2010) undergraduate students faced difficulties in citing references in their academic work and that they are inconsistent in the way they cite. ...
The goals of the study was: 1) to describe the level of learners’ aptitudes in learning the APA style of research citations; and 2) to compare the learning achievement between two groups, (experimental and control) which disclosed the difference of two teaching approaches the activity-based teaching approach (ABTA) and the traditional method. The True Experimental Research Design were used in this study with a total sample of 60 Grade 11 learners in Techno-vocational Track and they are dived 30 from experimental group and another 30 from control group. The researcher utilized the Researcher-Made Questionnaire of Achievement Test particularly the Pre-test and Post-test which consist of 15-item-questions for each set of test. The data gathered from the learners’ pre-test and post-test scores were analysed through weighted mean, standard deviation, and Independent sample t – test. It was concluded that the Activity-based Teaching Approach for research citations of selected Grade 11 learners is effective. It is proven based on the statistical result that the critical value 2.0 is higher than the computed p – value 1.47 in level of significance .05 alpha means “significant” rejecting the null hypothesis and accepting the alternative hypothesis. It suggest there is significant difference between the two groups. The experimental group (received ABTA treatment) performed better than the control group (received no treatment). The findings revealed that the students learn faster in following the proper format of research citations when they are given series of activities or exercises that provided them opportunity to practice and acquire mastery. The Activity-based Teaching Approach (ABTA) is highly recommended among teachers in teaching research citations.
... By all means, citing is a key social practice in academia (Friedman, 2019). Moreover, citations are crucial rhetorical devices permitting seasoned writers to promote their current research findings persuasively and efficiently (Hyland, 1999(Hyland, , 2002(Hyland, , 2004Kargbo, 2010;Mansourizadeh & Ahmad, 2011). Meanwhile, Gupta (2017) The significance of citing other resources in academic writing indicates that the material and information cited are proposed by other scholars. ...
Scholars tend to give extra efforts to write the content of their study, yet some forget to pay much attention in writing the standardization of citation and reference. It yields errors in presenting citation and reference based on the guideline required by the journals. Citing and referencing are two mediums to quote authors’ opinions and also give credits for their intellectual ideas. An analysis of citation and reference of articles indexed by Scopus Quartile 2 was carried out to scrutinize errors in writing citation and reference page. The data were taken from a journal required authors to adhere the guidelines of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th Ed). The method used was qualitative. The data of 68 errors in citations and 139 errors in reference page were gathered by downloading the articles from the website of the journal. The results show that errors identified in writing the citation are classified into narrative citation and parenthetical citation. Errors vary in initiating page number, incorrect use of ampersand, incorrect style of multiple citation and wrong order of multiple citations. With regard to reference page, errors are detected in writing the titles of the works, typing the references taken from journals and proceedings and no translation provided from other languages. Errors in referencing edited works and abbreviating the authors are also pinpointed. The results imply that in order to produce accurate citations and references, authors are obliged strictly to follow and conform one style required by the journal
... Furthermore, citing sources has become increasingly difficult as a result of the widespread availability of internet materials and the proliferation of new types of content (Greer & McCann, 2018). Kargbo (2010) discovered in his study that 62.1 percent of undergraduate learners were not confident in their ability to correctly cite sources and that even those who considered themselves confident frequently produce inconsistent references. ...
This study aimed to assess the knowledge level of college students on citing sources at St. Paul University. Citing sources can solidify claims and make a research paper credible. Failing to credit the ideas of others is a form of plagiarism, which was a common problem among students in the past until today. A descriptive quantitative survey method was used in this study wherein one hundred sixty (160) college students at St. Paul University participated in a test comprising a researcher-made questionnaire based on the 7th edition of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Manual. The findings revealed that the students were proficient in both in-text citations and referencing assessments. Thus, the students have gained learning and knowledge in the activities conducted by the University's Library and Research departments pertaining on how to correctly cite sources following the APA 7th edition style. It is recommended to library and information science practitioners to sustain initiatives that enhance the students' knowledge in crediting sources by providing them with series of orientations and training workshops on APA 7th edition. Moreover, collaboration between the library and research offices of educational institutions is encouraged to improve students' citation and referencing skills. It is anticipated that the outcome of this collaboration will reduce errors on proper citations and rather promote respect to others' intellectual properties and contribution. Practitioners should also integrate the fundamental concept of crediting sources into classes to ensure that students understand the significance of acknowledging works as they support their own ideas.
... Kargbo [6] looked into the difficulties that undergraduate students face when referencing sources in their academic papers. The research found that undergraduate students have difficulty citing references in their academic work and that their citation styles are inconsistent. ...
Citation is important in academic writing because it informs the reader about the quality and authority of the information quoted. In-text citations and end-text citations or references are the two types of citations. A reference list provides readers with the information they need to locate and retrieve books cited in a text. End-text references are used to provide this information. Writers can use a variety of citation styles in their writing, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and others. The goals of this study were to identify the end-text reference forms used in written final project reports and identify the issues using end-text references in written final project reports. The data were collected using an analytic qualitative method, which included the use of a note-taking technique. The research’s data came from a selection of final projects done by English teacher candidates. Identification of end-text reference forms and difficulties with end-text references were used to examine the data. The findings show that (i) the writers primarily use end-text references, as recommended in the department’s final project writing guidelines, and (ii) there are several major issues with the use of end-text references in written reports of selected final projects, including incompleteness, inconsistency in the use of end-text reference styles, and incorrect citation order. Keywords: end-text reference, final project, teacher candidates
... 23 In his 2014 study, Kargbo found that 62.1 percent of undergraduates were not confident in their ability to cite sources correctly and that even those who considered themselves confident often produced inconsistent references. 24 This growing complexity of source types may be one of the reasons libraries are fielding an increase in student citation questions. 25 Another may be the unique position libraries have in students' academic life. ...
... Se ha analizado en artículos de investigación (entre otros, Bazerman, 1988;Hyland, 2000), en tesis de maestría en inglés (Petric, 2007;Samraj, 2013;Sun, 2008) y en tesis doctorales (Thompson y Tribble, 2001). También ha atraído la atención las diferentes dificultades que estudiantes de pregrado muestran a la hora de citar en sus trabajos (Kargbo, 2010). Sin embargo, no hay estudios relacionados con esta temática en trabajos de grado de la licenciatura en mención. ...
El presente estudio intenta hacer una contribución a la comprensión del uso de
las citas en el trabajo de grado a la hora de fundamentar el saber disciplinar en la
enseñanza del español como lengua materna. El objetivo fue analizar los tipos y las
funciones de las citas en estos trabajos en relación con la construcción discursiva del
saber pedagógico. La investigación fue un estudio cualitativo, empleando el análisis
de género de citas de un corpus de 30 muestras de estudiantes de la Licenciatura de
Español y Literatura como lengua materna de una universidad pública en Colombia.
Para el análisis, se determinó la distribución de los tipos de citas y las funciones que
cumplían las citas. Los resultados mostraron una alta frecuencia en el uso de citas
integrales con función sintáctica y que las funciones de las citas con más frecuencia
fueron: dar créditos a trabajos relacionados, proporcionar trabajos de fundamentación
e identificar publicaciones originales. Se concluye que los estudiantes del programa
proporcionan baja incidencia en sus aportaciones al saber pedagógico de su disciplina
puesto que por el tipo de cita y sus funciones, simplemente se limitan a recrear un
discurso que ya está, hasta cierto punto, elaborado. Por ello, se debe incentivar el uso
de ambos tipos de citas, en especial, las citas no integrales y de incluir otras funciones
con las que los estudiantes puedan aportar al saber pedagógico de su disciplina de
manera más asertiva, crítica y constructiva
... Studies show that students in higher education institutions fail to acknowledge their sources of data in academic discourse such as assignments. For example, Kargbo (2010) found that undergraduate students faced difficulties in citing references in their academic work due to inconsistencies in the manner of citing. Jomaa & Bidin (2017), in a study of perspectives of EFL doctoral students on challenges of citations in academic writing, found that challenges in citation included difficulties of addressing the credibility of information in published sources, adopting a stance toward the citations, insufficient knowledge about citations, and second language difficulties (Jomaa & Bidin 2017). ...
This study investigated whether students of the School of Education at the University of Zambia were adequately prepared in referencing and citation or not. A mixed methods approach was used; both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed in this study. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from two hundred and ten (210) third and fourth year randomly selected undergraduate students. Further, five hundred (500) students' assignments were collected and checked to verify lecturers' marking and comments on referencing and citation. Quantitative data was analysed by the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 16.0) to derive frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation, significant differences and similarities between programmes and the responses provided. Results indicated that students were exposed to many different referencing styles. The most common among these were the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style, followed by the Harvard and Chicago referencing styles in that order. The results further showed that the majority of the students did not demonstrate understanding and skills in referencing and citation. Failure by students to understand referencing was reported to result from, among others, inconsistencies by lecturers in their own understanding of the referencing styles. Additionally, little emphasis was put on referencing by lecturers when marking assignments. The study recommends that referencing and citation should be accorded serious attention in teaching university students in order to prepare them as scholars and for advanced studies. Further, lecturers themselves need to upgrade their understanding of referencing and citation in order to provide appropriate guidance to their students.
... While Kargbo (2010) has found that students judge their informational skills to be sufficient for their needs, other researchers have found that students need more training to further develop their informational skills in order to properly evaluate and use the information collected (Brand-Gruwel, Kammerer, van Meeuwen, & van Gog, 2017;Rodicio, 2015;Serres, 2012;Steeves, 2014). According to Roy (2009), many students would like their teachers to train them in order to be better able to assess the relevance, value and credibility of the information they find on the web. ...
Max 150 words. If possible, please submit your abstract in both English and French.
When writing an assignment, most students start by searching for information online, which they integrate in their writing and conclude by producing a bibliography for the sources used. They use their informational, writing and referencing skills to do this as well as refer to their plagiarism knowledge to make sure their text is exempt from plagiarism. In this paper, we examined which skills and knowledge students feel the need to further develop in university to prevent plagiarism in their assignments. Professors were also questioned as to their perceptions of their students’ skills development during their pre-university studies. Questionnaires were administered in six Quebec Universities to students (n = 1170) and professors (n = 279). Results show that students feel the need for more training while professors expect students to have already mastered the skills and knowledge to prevent plagiarism. Recommendations are made on how to implement better training for students through a program approach.
Lors de la rédaction d’un devoir, la plupart des étudiants universitaires commencent par chercher des informations en ligne, qu’ils intègrent dans leur rédaction et terminent en produisant une bibliographie des sources utilisées. Ils utilisent leurs compétences informationnelles, rédactionnelles, et de référencement documentaire et se réfèrent à leurs connaissances en matière de plagiat pour s’assurer que leur texte en soit exempt. Dans cet article, nous avons examiné les compétences et les connaissances que les étudiants ressentent le besoin de développer davantage à l’université pour prévenir le plagiat dans leurs travaux. Les professeurs ont également été interrogés sur leur perception du développement des compétences de leurs étudiants durant leurs études pré-universitaires. Des questionnaires ont été administrés dans six universités québécoises à des étudiants (n = 1170) et à des professeurs (n = 279). Les résultats montrent que les étudiants ressentent le besoin d’une formation plus poussée alors que les professeurs s’attendent à ce que les étudiants maîtrisent déjà les compétences et les connaissances nécessaires pour prévenir le plagiat. Des recommandations sont formulées sur la façon de mettre en œuvre une meilleure formation pour les étudiants par le biais d’une approche-programme.
... D'autres vont laisser le libre choix à leurs étudiants d'utiliser des normes de présentation ou un style particulier. Cela fait en sorte que les professeurs n'ont pas toujours toutes les connaissances des différents styles ou normes pour corriger ou indiquer les erreurs de référencement commises par leurs étudiants (Kargbo, 2010). ...
... 77). Lewis (2008) argued that the new APA Style conventions for electronic resources would frustrate users who already struggled with basic citations, and Kargbo (2010) showed that undergraduates typically have low confidence in their own citing abilities. Numerous online citation tools exist to mitigate this confusion; however, they are characterized by high rates of errors (Dahlstrom, 2012;Stevens, 2016;Van Ullen & Kessler, 2012). ...
The ability to effectively cite information sources is key to both student avoidance of plagiarism and the ongoing scholarly conversation. Previous research and experience indicated that students had significant trouble distinguishing and citing various information formats when viewed online; items are often cited as websites, and citations are incomplete or contain erroneous and extraneous information. The authors investigated the prevalence of these problems at their university, seeking out common patterns in the data to determine what, if any, information literacy objectives may be useful for future studies and instructional practice.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools have brought substantial changes to the education system, in particular to the writing process. Students must learn how to use these tools correctly and with integrity. It is the role of institutions and instructors to convey to students the importance of transparency, and how to display it when using GenAI tools to write assignments. In this paper, a theoretical model of academic assignment writing is presented, explaining at which phases of the writing process GenAI can be used with integrity and which phases must absolutely be done by the student. The appropriate use of GenAI tools when deploying informational, writing and referencing competencies to write an assignment is discussed. Advice on modifying existing institutional academic integrity policies, giving clear guidelines and permissions are presented as well as various methods of declaring GenAI usage.
As a fundamental skill of academic writing, academic writers are supposed to be able to acknowledge all authors cited in their references. However, undergraduate students find it difficult. This research aimed at finding and describing problems in writing references done by undergraduate students. This research was carried out at Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, in the English Language Education Study Program, Teacher Training and Education Faculty. This research involved 16 undergraduate students academic year 2015. The objects of this research were the research proposals written by 16 undergraduate students. This was a descriptive qualitative study. Document analysis was used to gather the 161 references taken from the research proposals. Content analysis was the analysis instrument. The data denoted that problems arouse mainly from 5 major problems: 1). Improper way of writing in- text citation, 2). Improper way of writing reference list, 3). Not including page information in direct quotation, 4). Citation style inconsistency, 5). Indication of plagiarism. From these research findings, it can be concluded that commonly, the students of English Education of English Study Program, Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Tanjungpura University still have problems in writing citation and reference list.Keywords: Reference problems, Academic writing
The prevalence of plagiarism among college students has posed challenges to academic integrity in higher education institutions (HEIs) all over the world. Through mixed methods, this study determined students’ level of knowledge of plagiarism along five areas to provide baseline data as basis for an intervention that would promote intellectual honesty. Participants consisted of 283 randomly selected undergraduate students. A validated survey questionnaire was used to gather the data, which were treated using descriptive-inferential statistics and thematic analysis. Results revealed that the participants had very high level of knowledge in terms of the basic concepts about plagiarism, the ways of detecting this form of intellectual theft, and the possible adverse consequences when one was caught plagiarizing. The students, however, had low level of knowledge of the subject in terms of its more technical aspects such as its different forms as well as accurate citation and documentation of sources. Moreover, sex had a significant main effect on students’ knowledge of plagiarism in terms of its harmful consequences while department exerted a significant main effect along harmful consequences including citation and documentation. Furthermore, sex and type of senior high school (SHS) graduated from had a significant interaction effect along ways of detecting plagiarism and consequences of intellectual theft. Considering the findings, the researcher forwarded the establishment of the SPUP Honor Code that would provide the necessary structure for managing academic dishonesty especially plagiarism through educative, corrective, and restorative mechanisms towards promoting the principles and values of academic integrity.
New image citation standards need to be developed for college and graduate students to meet visual literacy standards. The MLA Handbook, 8th edition, and Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, do not adequately clarify how to caption, attribute, and cite images. Other image captioning and citing resources are available, but they refer to the MLA and Chicago manuals. Image captions from scholarly journals vary widely and cannot be used as examples for students to follow. Recommendations are also provided for future editions of the MLA Handbook and Chicago Manual of Style.
Young people today use the web when they need information for school assignments. Quick and easy access to this information leads some students to copy and paste. To prevent plagiarism, a series of seven workshops on digital scrapbooking strategies wasoffered to 63 high school students. Participants completed questionnaires and participatedin interviews. The results show that scrapbooking strategies are unfamiliar to high schoolstudents. Students would benefit from being taught these strategies in order to developbetter writing habits and learn how to write without plagiarizing.
Information is a resource for development, which every country, developed or developing, must use to produce a national outlook. Many people view it as a raw material and commodity capable of being exploited for personal gains and for the good of a nation. However, the idea of an information society is not a global phenomenon. While there is a glut of information in developed countries, there is a dearth in developing ones. Against this background of information lag, this article examines the information divide in contemporary societies.
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