Writing it in their "own" words? : the plausibility of preventing plagiarism in the process of developing academic competence in L2

The problem of plagiarism has in recent years attracted considerable attention in both academic writing research and pedagogy. The difficulty of dealing with this phenomenon can be attributed to a range of factors. First of all, it lies in the fact that what constitutes inappropriate use of sources is often open to interpretations even among professional writers, instructional materials designers and writing instructors. Secondly, from a critical literacy perspective, the very existence of plagiarism can be questioned as there is no such thing as originality. The view of language as being an individual’s property or idea of uninfluenced writing are contested by writing experts and literary critics. Thirdly, although the notions of idea authorship and intellectual property are in Western educational contexts regarded as indisputable values, they may not be as compelling for writers from literacy cultures other than Anglo-American one. What is more, they may seem idealistic in the era of technology which provides not only easy access to multitudes of texts but also offers countless opportunities for unlimited exploitation of unattributed information as well as customization and personalisation of writing. The causes underlying misappropriation of other writers’ words and ideas can thus be multiple and complex and certainly worth investigating before an effective pedagogic intervention can be planned and put into action. The chapter will discuss a possible background or rationale for the common misuse of other writers’ texts. It will also report major plagiarism-related concerns of seminar papers’ and theses’ supervisors stemming from the specific strategies employed by inexperienced L2 writers while writing from sources. As a conclusion, possible directions for plagiarism prevention programmes will be outlined

Les attentes des étudiants et des directeurs de recherche envers le cours de rédaction académique en anglais

Der Band enthält die Abstracts ausschließlich in englischer Sprache.Academic courses aim to develop kinds of literacy that are significantly different from what students know from other contexts. Mastering ways of constructing knowledge in scholarly disciplines in a foreign language poses a considerable challenge, not only for the uninitiated. The challenge is none the less small for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instructors as the currently observed diversity of student populations in master’s programs compels them to revise some of their long-standing assumptions and practices. The article reports on a study aiming to compare MA seminar teachers’ and beginner MA students’ perceptions of writing needs and an EAP course expectations and suggests how the responses can be used constructively in writing pedagogy.Le numéro contient uniquement les résumés en anglais

"In this paper I will prove …" : the challenge behind authorial self-representation in L2 undergraduate research paper writing

Developing expertise in EAP writing is a time-consuming endeavour, entailing not only mastery of advanced language forms and functions, but also extensive domain knowledge accumulated through interaction with a large body of reading material. By way of practice, academic writing assignments engage students with textual input from multiple sources to be synthesized, analysed, critically evaluated, responded to and, ultimately, creatively transformed. Writers of academic prose are then not only expected to provide an objective account of the data and perspectives of experts, but also to position themselves in relation to them and mark their own presence in the discourse they create. The experience of many practitioners has shown that projecting one’s own identity in the process of developing a thesis, especially when working with source texts in L2 as reference is one of the most challenging academic literacy tasks for novice writers. Discrepancies between L1 and L2 writing cultures, the learners’ status in the academic discourse community and their rigid conceptions of academic writing, often enhanced by inconsistent advice offered by instructional materials, might contribute to the excessive dependence of inexperienced L2 writers on source material and to linguistic choices which reduce their agency. This paper looks into the distribution, rhetorical functions and semantic connotations offirst person pronouns employed as identity signals by undergraduate students in source-based research papers