Citation Analysis of the Literature Review Sections of Dissertations at M.Phil. Level
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55737/qjss.539197486Keywords:
Citation Analysis, Literature Review, M.Phil. Level, Dissertation, Linguistics, Literature, EnglishAbstract
The topic of the study conducted is Citation Analysis of Literature Review sections of dissertations at the M.Phil. level in the disciplines of literature and linguistics in English. The sample was comprised of ten theses, five each from literature and linguistics. The purpose of the study was to find out the citation pattern in the text of the LR chapter based on Swales’ (1990) work on citations. A mixed method approach was adopted for this purpose, which was contained in both quantitative as well as qualitative analysis of the data. Hence, the data was analyzed, organized and tabulated, and a number of conclusions were made on the basis of the findings that were deduced. The findings suggested that the writers of the sampled theses did not follow sense as was suggested by Swales (1990) in his work. Rather, they just reproduced other people’s arguments just for the sake of citations, irrespective of the logic behind various types of citations. The most preferred citation type was integral, while the most preferred reporting verbs were ‘say,’ ‘argue,’ ‘discuss,’ and ‘explain.’ It was suggested that genre genre-based or analytic-synthetic approach needs to be adopted for teaching academic writing.
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