Event Information

Teaching Academic Citation Rhetorically: Attribution, Plagiarism & Context

Presenter(s):
Tim Amidon, Department of English
Description:
Whether following Chicago, Turabian, MLA or APA styles, parenthetical and bibliographic citation is a central feature of academic writing. Yet, discourse circulating outside of academic contexts--boardrooms, pop media, hospitals, and private lives--demonstrates that socio-cultural expectations surrounding how and when to utilize attributional practices are highly variant. Within professional and technical contexts, for instance, practices such as ghost-writing, resourcing open content, and recycling boilerplate language reveal textual economies and standards which deviate markedly from the ways that citation and plagiarism are discussed and understood in academic contexts (Austin, 2008; Reyman, 2008). I begin by offering a brief overview of scholarship that demonstrates the critical importance of teaching attribution with sensitivity to a range of rhetorical contexts and their economies. To better understand the relationship between attributional norms and contexts, workshop participants will work in small groups to analyze texts such as hip-hop songs, press releases, university policies, instruction manuals, academic journals, and news reports. The activity attendees will participate in can be adapted for a variety of classrooms.
Dates and Times:
October 12 - October 12, 2015 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Location:
TILT 105
Learn More:
Debora Colbert, 970.491.2645, Debora.Colbert@ColoState.edu