Investigating Students’ Use of References in their Master Dissertations: The Case of the Department of English at MMUTO
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Date
2017-09
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University Mouloud Mammeri of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
students of English use references. It also attempts to unveil the referencing systems adopted, and
check whether the students are consistent in applying them. To achieve these goals, four distinctive
theoretical frameworks are employed which consist in the Harvard, the APA, the MLA, and the
Chicago author-date referencing systems. The nature of this study is descriptive. It is conducted in the
department of English at Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou. The corpus of this research is
composed of forty bibliographies of Dissertations from different specialties. These dissertations were
submitted from 2014 to 2016, apart from one dissertation that was discussed in 2007. The data consist
of a total of 1662 references. The results of this investigation are reported and described using the
mixed method. They show that the students use more print source materials than electronic sources,
and rather omit to update their sources. The findings also reveal that various referencing systems are
interchangeably used by students. The most used styles are the MLA style in Literature-Civilization
specialties, and the APA and Harvard styles are mostly used in Linguistics-ESP specialties. It ought to
be mentioned that the least used style is the Chicago author-date system. Furthermore, the students are
more or less consistent in applying the chosen styles. For instance, they often mix between the
Harvard and the APA, or between the Chicago and the MLA styles. The conclusion to be drawn from
the different findings is that the students have only partly respected the recommendations of the
chosen referencing systems.
Description
71p.:ill;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
Master Dissertations, bibliographies, references, referencing systems, The Harvard, APA, MLA, Chicago author-date.
Citation
Language and Communication