Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice

Volume 15 | Issue 5 Article 3

2018

Integrating reading and writing: supporting

students' writing from source
Adeline Cooney
Maynooth University, [Link]@[Link]

Eamon Darcy
Maynooth University, [Link]@[Link]

Denis Casey
Maynooth University, [Link]@[Link]

Follow this and additional works at: [Link]

Recommended Citation
Cooney, Adeline; Darcy, Eamon; and Casey, Denis, Integrating reading and writing: supporting
students' writing from source, Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 15(5), 2018.
Available at:[Link]

Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:
research-pubs@[Link]
Integrating reading and writing: supporting students' writing from source
Abstract
Writing from sources is an important academic skill but students find it a difficult skill to learn. The lesson
study method was used to design and evaluate learning and teaching strategies aimed at improving students’
writing from sources skills. The team developed a seven-part lesson plan and associated learning activities and
practice opportunities which was delivered over 12 hours. The lesson was delivered to first-year students (n =
150) taking a Critical Skills module. Students’ writing was analysed to identify how they approached
integrating sources into their writing. Analyses of student texts suggest significant improvement in some skills,
for example, finding, interpreting and synthesising content across sources. Other skills showed less marked
improvement, for example, critiquing sources and creating new text. This paper shares the lesson and makes
suggestions for future iterations of the lesson.

Keywords
writing-from-sources, undergraduate students, lesson study

Cover Page Footnote

We want to acknowledge the contribution of our students, their enthusiasm and willingness to engage in these
learning activities taught us a lot. We are indebted to Dr. Brian McKenzie (Maynooth University) Subject
Leader, who developed the module. Thank you also to Dr. Alison Farrell (Maynooth University) for her
helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

This journal article is available in Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice: [Link]
 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

Introduction
It is generally agreed that first-year university students find integrating sources effectively and
appropriately in their writing difficult (Cumming, Lai & Cho 2016, Grabe & Zhang 2013, Hirvela
& Du 2013). Grabe and Zhang (2013) note that even native speaking students have to work hard to
master this skill. The Citation Project, a website with a detailed bibliography of scholarly works on
issues surrounding student source use and useful resources for university educators to use in the
classroom, illustrates the demand for works on this elusive and intricate topic (Jamieson 2017).
Studies of the processes involved in writing from sources illustrate its complexity. For example,
Yang and Shi (2003) found that students engage in a sequence of interrelated tasks when writing
from sources comprised of: planning content, referring to the sources, writing, reading what has
been written, revising and editing what has been written and commenting on the source text. These
tasks are supported by complex cognitive processes underpinning the act of writing, for example,
interpreting content, selecting key ideas, connecting related ideas, structuring, and elaborating ideas
(Cumming, Lai & Cho 2016, Spivey & King 1989, Wette 2010).
Lack of confidence in their writing ability partially explains why students fail to engage
meaningfully with the source text and struggle with component parts of writing from sources such
as quoting and paraphrasing. Although they focused on non-native speakers, Hirvela and Du’s
(2013) tracking of two USA-based undergraduate Chinese students’ application of paraphrasing
skills when using sources in their writing offers interesting insights that may be applicable more
widely. Their work vividly illustrated some of the difficulties students experience with
paraphrasing, particularly in terms of confidence in their abilities as writers vis-à-vis their sources’
authority. They concluded that students sometimes retreat to “the seemingly safer ground of direct
quoting, where they not only stayed true to the original meaning of the source text material, but also
believed that they gained a stronger authorial voice vicariously by association with the original
authors” (Hirvela & Du 2013, p.96).
Similarly, the complexity inherent in other component tasks of writing from sources, such as quoting
source material correctly is underestimated. This skill involves learning where to appropriately
incorporate a quote, learning how to integrate a quotation into text so it reads coherently, and
learning how to edit quoted text. It is not surprising that students struggle with what is often
considered the ‘simple’ task of quoting from sources. Focusing on writing conventions such as
where to place quotation marks or brackets is clearly not enough. Hirvela and Du (2013) agree and
likewise suggest that students’ difficulty with paraphrasing is reflective of a failure in teaching
students how to paraphrase. They explain that the fault lies in both how it is taught and in underlying
assumptions on the part of instructors, where paraphrasing is taught ‘as a kind of linguistic and
lexical technology (knowledge telling)’ and predicated on the assumption that students will bridge
the gap of their accord (Hirvela & Du, 2013 p. 96).
Hirvela and Du’s (2013) comment underscores the complexities involved in just teaching
paraphrasing, and so it is not surprising that teaching students the larger skill of how to write from
sources is considered a difficult task (Cumming, Lai & Cho 2016, Li & Casanave 2012). Moreover,
Howard, Serviss and Rodrigue (2010) speculate that students struggle with writing from sources
because they have not understood the source text. Their analysis of 18 student papers revealed that
students (L1 and L2) wrote from single sentences selected from the source and not the source in its
entirety. They conclude that educators should “… attend to the more fundamental question of
how well students understand their sources and whether they are able to write about them
without appropriating language from the source” (p.177 emphasis added).

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Wette (2010) comments that the literature on this topic focuses more on the problems than the
solutions. Consequently, this paper aims to contribute to the solution-focused literature by sharing:
(1) a set of learning and teaching activities designed to develop students’ writing from sources skills,
(2) the rationale for the design and implementation of the learning activities and resources used, (3)
initial findings on students’ skill development and (4) recommendations and suggestions to
strengthen the learning and teaching activities. We adopted the lesson study method to guide us in
achieving these aims.

Method
Lesson study is “… a systematic inquiry into teaching practice” (Fernandez 2002, p.394), involving
small groups of teachers working collaboratively to plan, deliver, study and refine a lesson (Cerbin
& Kropp 2006, Fernandez 2002). Cerbin (2011) explains that lesson study aims to improve the
practice of teaching overall, hence it is important to reflect on the lesson and on “… learning and
teaching more broadly” (Lewis, Perry & Murata 2006, p.3). This method informed both our teaching
approach and desire to share our experience and learning, and to this end we provide a detailed
description of the lesson, the thinking behind its design and a critical reflection on the outcome. The
lesson aimed to teach students to effectively and appropriately integrate sources into their own
writing. We (the authors) collaborated to develop the lesson and each of us delivered the lesson to
10 separate class groups, coming together afterwards to share our experience and observations
(Fernandez, 2002).
The lesson is comprised of seven parts and was delivered to students taking a Critical Skills course
at Maynooth University, in Ireland. Critical Skills is comprised of two modules (15 ECTS credits)
which run sequentially across the academic year. The course is available to almost all first-year
undergraduate students and was taken by over 1000 students in 2017/2018. These modules are
focused on fostering students’ critical thinking, analytic, communication (verbally and in writing)
and team working skills (Maynooth University 2018). Critical Skills classes are small (maximum
25 students) and interdisciplinary with students studying arts, humanities, social sciences and
sciences sharing classes. The lesson was delivered at the beginning of Module 2. During Module
1 students had been introduced to: searching and evaluating literature, paraphrasing, summarising,
citing and referencing. Delivering the lesson in Module 2 enabled students to build on this learning
and their prior writing experience i.e. we noted that students had difficulty in smoothly integrating
sources into their own writing in their essays (one element of the assessment for Module 1). The
lesson was delivered across three one-hour sessions for four weeks i.e. 12 hours in total. The content
delivered adhered to the plan outlined in Appendix 1. The data presented here was collected from
10 classes, ranging in average size from 15–20 students (circa 160 students in total).
Background to designing the lesson
The lesson plan was informed by a review of the literature on writing from multiple sources. The
aims of the review were: (1) to understand the skills involved in writing from multiple sources and
(2) to identify best practice in teaching these skills. A preliminary review of the literature focused
on identifying the most cited explanations of the processes and skills involved in writing from
sources (Table 1). A qualitative content analysis of these explanations revealed: (1) the complex
reading, writing and cognitive skills required to write from sources and (2) the range of writing tasks
involved in writing from sources, for example, knowing how to paraphrase or how to summarise
(see Table 1).
Table 1: Content analysis findings describing the skills required to write from sources

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 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

Verbatim explanations of writing from sources (Emphasis Content analysis of skills:

added).
‘Learning to write from textual sources (e.g., integrating Cognitive skills
complementary sources of information, interpreting Interpreting, integrating (implies
conceptually difficult information) is a challenging skill that connecting).
even native speaking students have to work hard to
master…Tasks that require reading/writing integration, such Writing skills
as summarizing, synthesizing information, critically Critically reading, summarising,
responding to text input, or writing a research paper, require synthesising, critiquing.
a great deal of practice.’
(Grabe & Zhang 2013, p.10) Other
Requires practice.
‘Firstly, writers need to understand the source text well, as Cognitive skills
the quality of the text they produce depends very much on Comprehending, interpreting,
the quality of that comprehension (Kennedy, 1985; Kim, integrating, evaluating.
2001; Roig, 1999). They then need to select and transform
particular items of content (Kirkland & Saunders, 1991) to Writing
construct citations that neither copy (unless quoting), nor Critically reading, critiquing sources,
‘‘patchwrite’’ by attempting to combine original and source paraphrasing, summarising,
material without acknowledgment (Howard, 1992). Writers synthesising, transforming,
need to integrate citations with their own positions and integrating own voice into their
propositions, but also to clearly indicate the boundaries writing, citing, acknowledging
between them in order to communicate an authorial identity sources.
in respect of the text they are composing (e.g., Abasi, Akbari, Other
& Graves, 2006; Hirvela & Belcher, 2001; Hyland, 2002; Evaluating the quality of sources,
Ivanic & Camps, 2001). In addition, writers need to be knowledge of disciplinary
familiar with the literacy practices of their disciplines, and to expectations and norms around
understand that the texts they compose are part of a citation.
‘‘disciplinary discussion’’ characterised by intertextual use
of language (Bazerman, 2004; Hyland, 2000).’
(Wette 2010, p.159)
‘Readers select content on the basis of some criterion, Cognitive skills
organize the content by applying their knowledge of text Interpreting, selecting, organising,
structure, and connect related ideas by discovering and linking, integrating, evaluating.
generating links … Selecting, organizing, and connecting
are also apparent in discourse synthesis, a highly constructive Writing
act in which readers become writers … In discourse Composing, transforming,
synthesis, readers (writers) select, organize, and connect integrating own voice into their
content from source texts as they compose their own new writing, generating new text.
text.’
(Spivey & King 1989, p.9) Other
(Implicit) searching and finding
sources.
The ability to use sources text ‘involves important Cognitive skills
connections between reading and writing: reading sources Comprehending, interpreting,
effectively to identify the most useful information for selecting, connecting, integrating,
writing purposes, and knowing how, in the act of writing, to evaluating.
successfully incorporate that material into the text being
created (Hirvela, 2004). Indeed, while writing from sources, Writing
students need to engage in a variety of complex reading and Critically reading, transforming,
writing activities and make contextualized decisions as they integrating own voice into their
interact with the reading materials and the assigned writing writing, generating new text,
tasks (Kucer, 1985; McGinley, 1992; Spivey, 1990) … the synthesising, paraphrasing, citing,
writer [also] utilizes such core academic reading/writing summarising, referencing.

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techniques as direct quotation, summarizing, and Other

paraphrasing.’ (Implicit) searching for and
(Hirvela & Du 2013, p.87) evaluating sources.

The findings of the qualitative content analysis provided the grounding for our conceptualisation of
the component writing tasks to be learnt: (1) finding, reading and accurately interpreting source
material, (2) evaluating the authority, credibility and relevance of the source, (3) knowing how to
re-write original text and ideas using core academic writing techniques such as direct quotation,
summarising, paraphrasing, citing and referencing, (4) knowing how to synthesise material across
multiple texts and (5) knowing how to create new text through integrating their understanding of the
source texts while giving primacy to their own voice in their writing. The identified component
tasks served as the learning outcomes for the lesson (see Appendix 1).
We envisioned these component writing tasks as a sequence, indicating therefore not only what
should be taught but the order in which it should be taught. We developed learning activities around
each learning outcome, which were informed by a wider review of the literature focused on best
practice in teaching these skills. For example, to enable students to achieve the first learning
outcome, “finding, reading and accurately interpreting source materials”, we developed content on
key word searching, critically reading, paraphrasing and summarising source material (see
Appendix 1). Each session was ‘built’ around learning strategies that provided students with
opportunities to actively engage with content, practise skills and gain feedback. A breakdown of
the lesson, together with the learning approach adopted, is provided in Appendix 1.
Approach to delivering the lesson
The instruction strategies shown to have a positive effect on students’ ability to write from sources
are multifaceted and combine: explanation of synthesis writing, modelling or demonstration,
practice, teacher feedback and evaluation (Grabe & Zhang 2013, Segev-Miller 2004, Wette 2010,
Zhang 2013). In addition, there is some evidence that simple repetition of writing tasks improves
students’ skills (Cumming, Lai & Cho 2016, Perin, 2002). Grabe and Zhang (2013) agree and flag
that insufficient opportunities to learn and practice reading/writing integration is a major
contributory factor to poor summarising and synthesising skills. Additionally, students with poorer
reading-comprehension proficiency and/or less-sophisticated reading skills find summarising and
synthesising material more difficult; which leads them to copy text directly (Grabe & Zhang, 2013).
Grabe and Zhang (2013) studied English as a second language (L2) students. However, source
integration is difficult for all students (L1 and L2). Refaei et al. (2017), based at the University of
Cincinnati Blue Ash College, report that historically first year student performance on the criteria
measuring their ability to integrate and cite sources is lower compared to performance on other
rubric criteria. A possible reason for L1 students’ difficulties is that they are required to write from
sources that are composed in a much higher linguistic register than they are used to reading on a
regular basis. Even to L1 university-level students, academic sources may appear written in a ‘semi-
foreign’ language, which use discipline-specific lexicons to introduce new concepts and express
them in a formal register. Consequently, the linguistic comprehension necessary for writing from
sources cannot be taken for granted.
Grabe and Zhang (2013) recommend that lecturers should model how to integrate reading/writing
and how to paraphrase in their classes, providing students with lots of opportunities to practice these
skills. They suggest several specific strategies, for example, extensive reading supported by reading
guides, model and scaffold-integrated reading/writing tasks and peer feedback. We applied these
strategies when designing the learning activities and incorporated practice opportunities at each

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 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

stage. We also incorporated peer and instructor feedforward and feedback to support student skill
development.
We were conscious, however, that focusing on part skills only (e.g. paraphrasing or summarising)
ran the risk of students not fully understanding that writing from sources is not about substituting
their ‘voice’ with that of authors they cited or quoted. We therefore took care to define what we
expected students to achieve. Our definition of the whole skill, based on our findings from the
literature review, is that students will be able to ‘read, select and connect content from source texts
and incorporate these into their own new writing’ (Boscolo, Arfé & Quarisa 2007, Cumming, Lai &
Cho 2016, Grabe & Zhang 2013, Hirvela & Du 2013, Segev-Miller 2004, Spivey & King 1989,
Wette 2010). This definition expresses the threshold (or whole) skill we aimed to reach. We used
this definition to explain to students that writing from sources is more than repeating others’ words
(albeit in their own words) but the strategic use of source text to construct argument and meaning.
We actively encouraged students to draw their own conclusions based on what they read and took
care when giving feedback to comment on students’ ‘own’ writing.
Analysis of student learning
The data comprised of: (1) students’ in-class writing activities (e.g. practice paragraphs) during the
delivery of the lesson, (2) the team’s notes, comments and reflections and (3) students’ summative
assessed writing (a group project in which groups of 4–5 students write a 2000-word White Paper)
and a group poster (discussing and demonstrating a skill that they have developed over the course
of the academic year). Qualitative thematic analysis at the semantic level (Braun & Clarke 2006)
was used to analyse the data. Broadly this analytical approach involves searching for patterns
(themes) across the data (Maguire & Delahunt 2017, Braun & Clarke 2006). To explain the concept
of “semantic level”, Braun and Clarke distinguish between two levels of themes (latent and
semantic) and explain that semantic themes “... are identified within the explicit or surface meanings
of the data ... the analyst is not looking for anything beyond what a participant has said or what has
been written” (2006, p. 84). This is not to suggest that the outcome is merely a description, rather
the aim is to interpret and explain the broader meanings and significance of the identified patterns.
This focus was appropriate to the exploratory nature of our aims: (1) what elements of the lesson
work/do not work as evidenced by a change in students’ skills? and (2) how can the lesson be
improved? Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six-steps for thematic analysis were applied when analysing
the data.
Our analyses across these data sources highlighted notable improvement in students’ ability to (1)
find relevant source material, (2) interpret and use source materials in their writing and (3) synthesise
material across sources. There was less marked improvement in their ability to: (1) critique sources,
(2) paraphrase and summarise content and (3) create new text. Inevitably students’ skills varied
with some demonstrating greater improvement across the module learning outcomes than others.
These findings are explored below using examples to support our interpretations. The examples
comprise of: (1) verbatim examples of students’ writing and (2) our observation and explanations
of student processes and approaches (the latter are written in italics to distinguish these from the
students’ writing).
Students’ ability to search the literature improved considerably as evidenced by their ability to find
relevant sources to support their work. They relied less on general internet searches, opting instead
to use the library databases and Google Scholar. There was marked improvement in their ability (in
comparison to their writing in Module 1) to recognise citation-worthy texts, and they were more
likely to cite academic journals, reports and books rather than internet sources. We observed that
students read more widely and across a wider range of subject areas. For example:

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One group who planned to write on childhood obesity struggled to find appropriate
sources. Their initial search was ad hoc, most of their sources were newspaper accounts
or poor quality internet sources. The group were advised to review the content covered
in ‘key word searching’ (Appendix 1) and to ‘think about what they needed to know to
understand the problem’. In the next iteration of their search strategy the group had
succeeded in breaking down the search and had identified better key words, for example,
‘prevalence of childhood obesity’ and ‘management of childhood obesity’. Their revised
search strategy succeeded in locating high-quality studies across a range of disciplines
(economics, epidemiology, human biology and public health). Their ability to search (i.e.
identify appropriate key words, devise and refine the search strategy) and to recognise
the quality of different sources had advanced substantially. (Group 1, Subgroup 1)
This was a common finding across groups.
We found students improved their ability to explain and argue points. They were more analytical
and more skilled at recognising patterns or themes across texts. For example, a student reading
about suicide noted that suicide rates differed across countries. He wrote:
‘Suicide rates within countries like the Netherlands are low while rates among Flemish in
Belgium are high we need to compare suicide rates (in other countries) to Ireland in our
paper’. This student’s recommendation (based on his reading) prompted a group
discussion on suicide rates. They queried what might explain different rates across
countries and were there other differences? The group concluded they had not read
around the topic sufficiently to understand the underlying trends. They agreed to read
around suicide rates, patterns and motivations in more depth. Having read more widely
they found (and could cite sources to support their conclusion) that there is a relationship
between gender and suicide. Further reading and analysis helped them to narrow their
topic further. Their final paper explored why Irish men were more likely than women to
commit suicide and concentrated on relevant related concepts such as masculinity, peer
socialisation and the ‘lad’ culture in Ireland. (Group 3, Subgroup 3)
In another assignment, a poster presentation on ‘information has value’, students explained in their
own words the differences between qualitative and quantitative data and linked it to example studies:
Heyvaert, Maes and Onghena (2013) state that studies are expected to have a mixed
methods research synthesis. This implies that while it is important to have two distinct
strands of research, one qualitative and one quantitative, researchers must assemble the
data, analysis and inferences of the research while linking and integrating the two strands
in a systematic method. Data must be researched, studied, assessed and summarized
according to pre-determined criteria, expected from researchers. EXAMPLE: Davidson,
Squibb and Mikkelsen (2016) exhibited an excellent use of both qualitative and
quantitative data. Their qualitative data included student reflections and faculty debriefs.
Quantitative data included GPA results at the end of the students’ first semester. (Group
10, Subgroup 1)
However while students were more analytical and able to see similarities and discrepancies across
the literature, most continued to find it difficult to integrate sources of information into their own
writing. They had good information and good ideas but their efforts to compose ‘new’ text (i.e. to
connect source materials with their own writing) was not always successful, resulting in instances
of patchwriting (defined by Howard (1992, p.233) as ‘copying from a source text and then deleting
some words, altering grammatical structures, or plugging in one-for-one synonym substitutes’).

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 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

Other students let the texts do the ‘talking’, restricting their ‘voice’ to perfunctory comments only.
However, overall students demonstrated greater skills at identifying, presenting and connecting key
information. An example of student writing demonstrating this:
A review of national statistics on childhood obesity from 2002 to 2012 observed that
‘obesity prevalence remained constant at 7% in the nationally based studies between
2002 and 2008 with the prevalence of obesity reducing to 4% thereafter.’ Results of
the study also suggested that one in fifty Irish children are morbidly obese (Keane et
al., 2014). In 2007 Ireland joined the European Childhood Obesity Surveillance
Initiative (COSI) which was established by The Nutrition and Food Security
Programme of WHO/Europe. The initiative aims to measure trends in overweight and
obesity in children aged six to ten years-old every three years, to understand the
progress of, and help reverse, the obesity epidemic. Having a standard surveillance
system across Europe is important in tackling the obesity epidemic in children and
identify groups at risk, as well to evaluate the impact of obesity preventive
interventions in school settings. In Ireland, the Department of Health and the Health
Service Executive commissioned the National Nutrition Surveillance Centre … to
commence this surveillance work among primary school children in the Republic of
Ireland (HSE, 2016). (Group 3, Subgroup 1)
We employed a number of learning activities to give students opportunities to practice reading,
interpreting and summarising research studies (see Appendix 1). Typically students were asked to
read an article in advance of class and identify its ‘aim’, ‘methodology and sample’ and ‘findings’,
before offering a ‘critical comment on strengths and weaknesses’, finishing with a summary of the
article. We found students engaged more with the aforementioned headings than the summary,
although it is unclear if this was because they approached the exercise sequentially (and whether the
situation would have been different had they been required to compose their summaries first).
Among the sequential parts of their analysis, students displayed the greatest difficulty in analysing
the second item: ‘methodology and sample’. More students left this section blank in comparison to
any other (barring the summary) and those that did complete it generally did so with less detail than
the other sections. In short, students appear to have felt more competent in identifying aims and
results of studies, or attached more value to them, than to comprehending how such results were
obtained. This pattern continued when writing the group project. In some respects this inability to
‘get under the skin’ of the article may be said to parallel students’ difficulty in grasping how writing
from sources is more than merely reproducing a mechanically altered version of the source material.
This was best reflected by the fact that most students did not comment on their reading, its meaning
or limitations. For example:
Students were asked to read a short research study (Jacob, Guéguen and Boulbry,
2014) and write about the study using the headings outlined above. This student
described the study but failed to include any comments of her own. ‘This study was a
test about consumer satisfaction and the way in which customers behave. The study
showed that non-verbal behaviours influenced the way a customer behaved. At the
end of the study the waitresses would ask three questions about their satisfaction of the
service. The results showed that after this the behaviour of the customer was
influenced when ordering tea/coffee. The overall idea of the study was to identify how
consumer satisfaction is enhanced by both verbal and non-verbal communication.’
Overall most students demonstrated in their writing that they understood the study.
However, there were some examples where students copied from, or patchwrote from,
individual sentences in the source.

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It was obvious from class discussions that students were more than capable of critiquing research
studies and other texts. Their verbal comments on their reading were both insightful and
sophisticated, consequently they had the means to write ‘new’ text. However, they rarely did. We
concluded that students were unsure how best to incorporate their criticisms of the articles they had
read into their written summaries, suggesting that students were unaware of how the various
components of the exercise were related. In other words, they did not see the links between the
tasks of reading, analysing and writing. For example, in an earlier draft of their group project one
student critiqued Prichard and MacDonald (2004), an article that investigated the extent to which
undergraduate students were given adequate information in university textbooks to combat
cyberterrorism.
“Some limitations [of the article] include: There were only two sources from which
the textbooks were chosen – their own list and Yahoo’s list. Thus, there may not have
been much diversity between the textbooks. Some major categories and/or keywords
may have been overlooked [in their searches for relevant textbooks]. The researchers
may have each had different criteria when ranking the textbooks on the Likert scale”.
This is a valid and insightful critique but the student did not include these criticisms
as part of their summary nor did they indicate how these ‘limitations’ could have an
impact on the authors’ findings.
We concluded that students possessed the ability to critique but lacked confidence in their abilities,
rarely questioned the authority of published texts, and were unsure of how exactly to incorporate
their criticisms into a reasoned analysis of the text.
Students’ ability to paraphrase source material developed but not to the extent we expected. Several
learning activities focused on paraphrasing source materials (see Appendix 1 Learning Component
1 ‘paraphrasing source material’). For example, an early learning activity involved students
paraphrasing the same paragraph. Students used criteria to peer review each other’s attempts, and
had the opportunity to discuss and clarify any differences of opinion. They also had the opportunity
to compare their attempt with a model answer. The lecturer also gave feedback on their writing and
made suggestions for improvement. In general, students demonstrated good paraphrasing skills
when completing this short class-based exercise. However, this learning did not translate into their
later writing. There are several possible reasons, for example, the source material was more difficult
to interpret or used language or concepts with which students were unfamiliar. We now recognise
that we had spent more time on the mechanics of paraphrasing or ‘knowledge telling’ than helping
students learn ‘knowledge transforming’ skills. We discuss this further below. On a more positive
note, we observed that students were less reliant on directly quoting material, suggesting that they
were more confident about using their ‘own’ words. Similarly, students’ adherence to the Harvard
referencing style (required by these modules) had developed somewhat but there was still room for
improvement. It was clear that students were trying to follow the ‘rules’ but continued to make
obvious mistakes, such as including authors first names in the text of their essay, forgetting to
include quotation marks when quoting directly, or correctly attributing a direct quotation to an author
but forgetting to include the page number.

Reflection, discussion and recommendations

We cannot claim that all of our students have reached proficiency in writing using sources as a result
of this lesson, however we did not expect them to; first-year undergraduate students are novice
writers and understandably struggle with what they are expected to achieve. A large number of
students excelled in these exercises and demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of quoting,
paraphrasing and summarising skills in their writing. However, there was still some evidence of

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patchwriting. Howard (1992) argues cogently that patchwriting is a developmental stage of learning.
This suggests patchwriting is evidence of progression or transition. However, even among those
students who began to see their writing progress as part of a transitional or developmental stage on
the path to learning how to paraphrase and write from sources (Hirvela & Du 2013, Pecorari 2003),
there was little demonstration of the key process of advancing from knowledge telling to knowledge
transforming.
Too often, students could not connect their work on paraphrasing, quoting, and summarising to
wider writing skills such as essay writing. In this instance, our original focus on the linguistic
mechanics of these tasks meant that students did not conceptualise or value these skills as central to
academic writing. As Hirvela and Du (2013, p.97) state: ‘the teaching of paraphrasing is not simply
a matter of supplying students with a host of paraphrasing skills or strategies. It is also important to
look at how students conceptualize and evaluate these skills.’ Similarly, Macbeth (2006, p.196)
flags ‘it could be that they weren't summarizing the article as much as following the individual steps
to writing a summary in good faith, so that if they did so, summarizing would be the result.’ One
possible solution is to encourage students to reflect on previous essays (see learning activity 2 under
‘appropriately apply core academic writing techniques’, Appendix 1) and to comment upon how
their representation of an argument reflects their understanding of its strengths and weaknesses.
This could then be used as the basis for a discussion on how writing demonstrates a greater
understanding of the source. This would assist students in moving from knowledge telling to
knowledge transforming and also illustrates the complicated process and pedagogical challenge this
entails (Hirvela & Du 2013).
Other minor issues emerged also, particularly in terms of referencing. Many students demonstrated
poor referencing skills in their writing, suggesting a lack of awareness of (or low value placed upon)
how this is a pivotal part of academic research, writing and recognising authority (Association of
College and Research Libraries 2015). While adherence to referencing guidelines had improved
overall some students have still not grasped what is involved and this requires more foregrounding
in future years.

Conclusion and suggestions

Overall, the majority of students were able to identify key information from research studies and
other sources and understood their importance. That said, many had difficultly relating this
information to more complex tasks in their final assignments, such as constructing an argument. In
particular, students did not adopt a critical stance to the articles they summarised (although there
was some improvement). On this point, the work of Scardamalia and Bereiter (1987) is helpful
when reconsidering future teaching and learning approaches. Scardamalia and Bereiter (1987) focus
on the mental activities involved in writing as opposed to the mechanical tasks of writing. They
identify two processes of relevance to source text use in writing, namely, knowledge telling and
knowledge transforming. The knowledge-telling model reflects the immature writer who focuses on
identifying and presenting appropriate source text material in the course of telling what they know
about the topic at hand. In contrast, the knowledge transforming model explains how the mature
writer actively engages with source text to develop a theme or argument and in this process
transforms the text. This conceptualisation of the cognitive approaches involved in writing provides
greater scaffolding for our current and future use of these learning and teaching strategies.
Our key learning and recommendations:

• While it is important to focus on the ‘rules’ and formal features of writing, too much of a focus
on the end product can stymie the development of students’ ‘own’ writing skills and styles. We

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 Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, Vol. 15 [2018], Iss. 5, Art. 3

recommend free writing as a learning strategy but to incorporate learning activities which ask
students to ‘respond’ to texts. ‘Responding’ to texts will give student opportunities to practice
(and more importantly value) writing their own ‘new’ writing which is informed by — but not
shaped by — their reading. This approach has the additional benefit of giving students
opportunities to practice interpreting complex texts. Others have found that students sometimes
have difficulty understanding texts (e.g. Howard et al. 2010, Wette 2010). We will also focus
more on commenting specifically on students’ ‘own’ writing to reinforce that their own ideas
and arguments are equally important to others’ texts.
• We will continue to use pre-writing, drafting, peer feedback and feedforward strategies, as these
are known to support the development of knowledge-transforming writing skills (Hyland 2016).
However, we recommend placing greater emphasis on reading, interpreting and arguing a point
using, for example, debate, class discussion and freewriting. Wette (2010, p.170) describes
asking students to verbally summarise a point as a helpful ‘inbetween stage’ to their successfully
transforming source text into paraphrase and summary citations i.e. the student is asked to
paraphrase or summarise from the semi-transformed text rather than the original text.
• We found the group writing project a powerful method for honing students’ writing and wider
skills, particularly because group projects give students opportunities to learn from one another,
experience different writing styles and approaches. However it is important that students are
clear that the product of the group writing projects must be planned, structured and edited so
that they do not produce a collage of individual writings, which derive no benefit from each
other.
• An assessment strategy comprising of frequent writing activities with relatively few words and
relatively few marks (as opposed to the 100% terminal assignment) was particularly helpful in
giving students opportunities to practice but also to receive frequent feedback on their progress.
In summary, learning to write using sources is an incremental process. Overall students’ writing
showed clear improvement, however none are yet proficient at writing from sources. This is to be
expected as students are at an early stage in their university career (first year), and we are confident
that they will develop their skills as they advance through their programmes; the skills we hope to
inculcate need time and repetition to become embedded in practice. Based on our findings we
believe that the lesson has helped students to begin the transition from knowledge-telling to
knowledge-transforming. Our findings echo those of Cumming, Lai and Cho (2016), who
concluded from a synthesis of the research on writing from sources, that students need instruction
on: (1) how to analyse sources, (2) how to construct arguments from or about sources, (3)
opportunities to practice these skills, and we would add a fourth requirement: feedback on their
efforts. Focusing on these key elements will help students to attain this difficult skill, and we offer
our lesson to other instructors grappling with helping students meet these challenges.

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[Link] 12
 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

Appendix 1: Lesson plan

Learning outcome; Skill taught Learning activity Practice Feedback

the student will be opportunities
able to:
Find, read and Key word searching Students were asked to In class activity: The Instructor shared
competently interpret think about past Students were his/her search strategy
source material. searches and how subdivided into and ran the search so
successful their search groups and planned a students could follow the
strategies were. search on an assigned steps.
Note: The ability to Students were then topic. They then ran
interpret sources invited to complete an their planned search The admit slips were
accurately was anonymous “admit on different search analysed and
evaluated by students’ slip”, admitting engines. Students individualised resources
ability to accurately something they “do not compared the were provided for each
paraphrase and understand or do not outcome and analysed group. The resources
summarise sources. know how to do” when the strengths and included “how to” videos
searching the literature. weaknesses of their in which the instructors
The Instructor planned search demonstrated step-by-step
explained the steps strategies. The how to complete the task.
involved in conducting groups gave feedback
a search, focusing on on their findings and
the areas students identified any deficits
admitted they had in their planned
difficulty with. search strategy.

Students’ searching
skills were further
tested when
completing the
assessed group paper.
Students were
required to write a
White Paper on a
topic of their choice.
Paraphrasing source Learning Activity 1* In class activity: Peer feedback: The class
material The Instructor reviewed Students were was subdivided into
what paraphrasing allocated one of three groups of 4-5 students
means and why paragraphs to who had paraphrased the
paraphrase. A worked paraphrase. same paragraph. They
example was used to were asked to share and
support the explanation. compare their responses.
Model examples were
then shared with the
groups. The groups were
asked to identify any
common errors.

Instructor feedback:
The instructor facilitated a
discussion on

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 Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, Vol. 15 [2018], Iss. 5, Art. 3

misunderstandings,
examples etc.
Learning Activity 2 In class activity: Peer feedback: Students
The above learning Students were swopped attempts. Each
activity was repeated. allocated the same student gave written
brief paragraph to feedback to his/her peer,
paraphrase. explaining their
comments and giving
concrete examples where
appropriate. Students
were given three headings
to structure their
feedback: (1) Is the
paraphrased version true
to the original meaning?
(2) Is the wording of the
paraphrased version new
i.e. is it in the writer’s
own words? (3) Is the
source acknowledged?
Student feedback was
returned to the original
writer. Each writer was
asked to “Rate how you
did … do you need to
practice more?”

Instructor feedback:
The instructor gave
written individual
feedback on each attempt
Critically reading Learning Activity 3 Students were asked
Students were asked to to read the article in
read a short research depth for the next
study prior to class. class and make notes
The instructor used the on the key points.
example study to They were provided
explain how to read a with a set of key
research study. The questions to assist
explanation included them in completing
showing students how this task
to break down a
research paper using the
IMRaD format
(Introduction, Methods,
Results and Discussion)
and the key information
to note under each
section.
Summarising source Learning Activity 4 In class activity: Peer feedback: Students
material The instructor explained Students were asked swopped attempts. Each
summarising and to use their notes to student gave written
differentiated between write a short summary feedback to his/her peer
summarising and of an article provided explaining their
paraphrasing. (approx.150 words). comments and giving

[Link] 14
 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

They were advised to concrete examples where

use the IMRaD format appropriate. Student
to help structure their feedback was returned to
summary and to the original writer. Each
ensure they did not writer was asked to “Rate
omit key content. how you did … do you
Students were asked need to practice more?”
to add a critical The Instructor facilitated
comment on the a brief discussion on
article. students’ critique of the
article.

Instructor feedback:
The instructor shared
his/her summary of the
study, allowing students
to compare this with their
own summary and ask
questions around
differences. The
summary included critical
comments on the study.
In addition, the instructor
gave written individual
feedback on each attempt.
Evaluate the authority, Evaluating sources. This content was Students practised this Instructor feedback:
credibility and integrated across classes skill each time they Students’ ability to
relevance of the source. (see above). Students summarised or critique (or lack of critical
were introduced to presented a research comment) was
different evaluation and or other papers. This commented on when
critiquing frameworks included online giving feedback on their
e.g. how to apply the sources. summaries of research
CRAAP test. Students papers (see below).
were encouraged to
include critical
comments when
discussing or
summarising research
studies and other
papers. The Instructor
commented on and role
modelled critiquing as
the opportunity arose.
Appropriately apply Acknowledging Learning Activity 1! In class activity: Peer feedback: The class
core academic writing sources by applying Students completed a Example questions: was subdivided into
techniques: direct academic worksheet in class groups of 3-4 students
quotation, citing and conventions comprised of a series of Look at the following and asked to compare
referencing. correctly. questions focused on five brief extracts their answers and debate
why and when to from assignments and any differences in
reference. decide if a citation is understanding. Students
necessary, and, if so, were asked to compile a
where it should go. list of ‘muddy points’.
Mark the relevant
point in the text with
an X. Instructor feedback:

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 Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, Vol. 15 [2018], Iss. 5, Art. 3

The instructor went

A number of the through the correct
sources listed below answers and answered
contain one or more any outstanding
errors. Identify and questions.
summarise any errors
that you spot e.g. Students completed an
author missing. MCQ on referencing and
citation later in the
module. They were
provided with key
readings to help them
prepare for this
examination.
Learning Activity 2! In class activity: Peer feedback: Students
Students were asked to Example activities: reviewed the first page of
bring a paper copy of Students were asked their essay and flagged
their assignment to (1) highlight all any errors. Students were
(submitted in Semester direct quotations and then asked to swap their
1) to class. Students check if they had (a) essay with a peer and do
were provided with a used quotation marks the same for their peer’s
list of activities to or indented quotes essay. Students swapped
complete. Examples of correctly? (b) back their essays and
correct citation and included the author(s) compared results. Dyads
referencing were name(s), the date and were combined into larger
incorporated into the page number(s) for groups of 4-6 students.
worksheet under each each quotation? (c) They were asked to
activity. These integrated the identify any consistent
examples allowed quotation into their errors across the group.
students to cross-check writing e.g. the Instructor feedback:
and correct their own grammar around each The instructor moved
work. quote flowed from group to group and
naturally. (2) reviewed their findings.
highlight all other S/he helped students to
references and check develop an action plan to
if they had (a) used remedy any consistent
the correct style errors/misunderstandings.
consistently (note Students were provided
commas etc.)? (b) with resources on citing,
included every cited referencing etc. They
source in the were also referred to
reference list (3) electronic resources e.g.
check the reference RefWorks.
list (a) is the list
ordered by author
surname and in
alphabetical order?
(b) are the references
formatted consistently
and correctly?
Synthesise material Synthesising The Instructor The class was divided Instructor feedback:
across multiple texts. multiple texts. explained what is meant into subgroups of 4-5 The instructor provided
by synthesis. An students. Each group (1) written feedback to
example synthesis agreed a White Paper each student on his/her
matrix was presented to topic (this was part of summary of a paper and

[Link] 16
 Cooney et al.: Writing from sources

help students visualise the module (2) verbal feedback to the

how to identify patterns assessment). The group on emerging
across texts. group were asked to themes, gaps and
plan a search strategy progress. This was
and each member was supported by in-class
asked to find, read discussion.
and write a summary
of one relevant source
prior to the next class.
In class activity:
Students presented
their summary to the
group. The group was
asked to: (1) decide
whether the source
was relevant to the
topic (2) begin to
develop a synthesis
matrix to identify
patterns (connections,
similarities,
differences) across the
texts (3) identify any
gaps.
Note: Students were
asked to repeat this
exercise in another
class.
Create new text through Using source texts Students’ overall ability Prior to final Peer and Instructor
integrating their to create new to achieve this aim was submission students feedback:
understanding of the meaning. assessed in the final gave a verbal The group were given
source texts but giving submission of their presentation on their feedback on the
primacy to their own paper. White Paper topic. presentation i.e. strengths
voice in their writing. They were expected and areas to develop.
to provide an This feedback was
overview of the provided prior to final
themes they identified submission of their White
from their reading of Paper (i.e. feedforward).
the literature. In
addition, they were Instructor feedback: was
expected to apply provided on the final
citing and referencing essay. This work was
conventions correctly graded.
in their slides.

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 Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, Vol. 15 [2018], Iss. 5, Art. 3

# This activity was based on the learning resources developed by Purdue University Online Writing Lab
[Link]
! These activities were based on the learning resources developed by LearnHigher [Link]

[Link] 18