Cite it Right

Cover via Amazon

by pat thomson, patter: http://patthomson.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/cite-it-right/

A couple of weeks ago I noticed on my twitter feed someone - let’s call them Tweeter A - being advised by Tweeter B to ‘check out the original’.

The original happened to be a writing strategy taken from Barbara’s and my recent book about publishing.

It turned out that Tweeter B had used our writing strategy and acknowledged the source in a presentation on academic writing.

However Tweeter A, a doctoral researcher, had attributed the strategy to Tweeter B, because that’s where they’d first heard it.

So Tweeter B steered the doctoral researcher to the source of the workshop material. At the same time, Tweeter B was also providing a lesson in ‘citing it right’.

And a while ago I also noticed that one blogger, let’s call them Blogger A, had written a post in which they referred to one of the metaphors Barbara and I use as a strategy to get to grips with literature work. It was acknowledged appropriately and the post linked to our first book.

That was great and we were duly pleased - that’s why we write the books, to get the stuff out there and used (heaven knows we don’t make any money out of writing them - if only).

But then I spotted only this week a post by Blogger B. Blogger B had referred to our metaphor and attributed it to Blogger A, and not to us.

In both instances the problem was the same. Tweeter A and Blogger B had committed what is known as a MISATTRIBUTION. A misattribution arises when you attribute something to the wrong person. It often occurs when you are CITING A CITATION.

Misattribution is often a problem in theses and journal articles. Let me give you a couple of examples.

A writer might attribute an idea like ‘emotional labour’ to a recent article that they’ve read on service workers. However the article’s author has actually read the primary material, and attributed the general ideas of ‘emotional labour’ and ‘greedy institutions’ to Hochschild (Hochschild, 1983) and Coser (Coser, 1974). The writer in question however only cited the citation, and not the original source.

Mis-citing citations is particularly obvious when the idea is really really well known - say when someone attributes the idea of ‘the Panopticon’ and the ‘surveillance’ of modern life to a recent text in which someone is citing and working with Foucault (Foucault, 1977) (of course Foucault was himself using the work of Bentham and if it is only the Panopticon that is discussed then the citation really ought to go back to that primary source).

Failing to recognize that panoptic surveillance is a very well known theory which emanates from Foucault actually says a lot about the writer who is misattributing. It suggests that they are not very well read.

Misattribution is actually pretty common, and it doesn’t do anyone any favours. The originator of the material misses out having their contribution recognized. In these times when citations count, this can be a serious issue. Misattribution can cost the scholar who isn’t cited.

So in an audit context, an omission via a misattribution could well constitute what Thesis Whisperer might suggest is academic asshole behaviour.

The person who cited correctly has been misread by the misattributor. They are credited with an idea that is not their’s and that it was not their intention to steal - which is what the misattribution could be seen to imply if the reader of the misattributor’s text doesn’t go back to the secondary source to see where the chain of misattribution starts.

However, the most serious consequences come to the person who doesn’t cite it right. Readers who know the correct attribution will assume that the misattributor is either just being lazy and can’t be bothered to go back to the primary source - or they haven’t actually read the material they are citing properly.

Whichever of these is assumed by their reader, the misattribution will be put down to sloppy scholarship, and that then throws the rest of the misattributor’s work into doubt.

Sometimes, of course, the misattribution is just a simple and unintended oversight, and a simple email to ask that it be fixed is sufficient. That’s what happened with me and Blogger B.

I emailed, pointed out the slip and they fixed it. So that’s the other thing about at least some misattributions, particularly in social media, they can be rectified without much trouble.

But there IS a lot at stake in attribution. The message therefore is - cite it right!! Attributing to the primary source is not just about doing the right thing as in the correct thing to do, it’s also about doing the ethical thing by acknowledging the contribution that was originally made.

References

Coser, L. A. (1974). Greedy institutions. Patterns of undivided commitment. New York: The Free Press.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish. The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans. 1991 ed.). London: Penguin.

Hochschild, A. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialisation of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.

AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month) is At Hand!

My office at CIDE Region Centro during and after writing a paper (Photo credit: Raul P)

by Rachel Cayley, Explorations of Style: http://explorationsofstyle.com/2013/10/30/acwrimo-is-at-hand/

November is Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo), an entire month devoted to the fostering of academic writing, brought to us by the great people at PhD2Published.

 If you’re bothering to read this blog, academic writing is already central to your life.

You may even feel a little sceptical about a month dedicated to academic writing. Academic Writing Year (or Decade) might seem more accurate.

Isn’t the creation of ‘days’ and ‘weeks’ and ‘months’ just about raising awareness or raising money? Most of us are all too aware of academic writing, since we think about it all the time. And we know it won’t make us any money. So what is the value of assigning a month to academic writing?

The value, in my opinion, comes from the way that AcWriMo leads to so much talking about writing.

Talking about how badly it’s going. Talking about how great it’s going. Talking about the reasons - the totally legitimate reasons and the slightly suspect ones - that we haven’t written enough. Talking about the new strategy that has made a difference to our writing.

All this talk means that academic writing isn’t hidden away. Instead, it is out in the open, and this openness makes it harder to believe that our writing struggles are a sign of our own uniquely deficient selves.

When you are exposed to a lot of chatter about academic writing, you quickly learn that most people think they are ‘bad at it’.

Over the course of the coming month, we will see evidence that most people are either struggling to write enough or else managing to write enough by employing some sort of strategic gambit such as software, time management approach, peer support, or unholy external pressure.

This evidence acts as a useful reminder that academic writing is consistently difficult; our weaknesses are not primarily the result of a lack of will power or ambition. In fact, most academic writers are trying extremely hard to do consistently challenging tasks.

Even leaving aside the tremendous time constraints that many academic writers face, the act of academic writing is inherently hard.

AcWriMo is a chance to prioritize writing and to do so in an instant community. On the road to becoming successful academic writers, I think we can all benefit from the honest company of our peers.

The people at PhD2Published explain AcWriMo in six simple rules: Decide on your goal. Declare it! Draft a strategy. Discuss your progress. Don’t slack off. Declare your results.

We can all do that, right? The key to making AcWriMo work, in my estimation, is to be sure that it is different than any other month. Here’s my take on the three adjustments that can help make AcWriMo valuable:

Set manageable goals

In real life, many of us have vague and/or unrealistic writing goals, leading us to write consistently less than we want to. AcWriMo is about facilitating your ability to write the amount that you need to write this month. It is essential that your goals fit your time and objectives.

I’ve already seen people on Twitter worrying that they’re not able to aim ‘high enough’. There is no high enough: the goal of this month doesn’t have to be spending more time on writing than makes sense in your life right now.

Make this the month that you get reasonably close to the smart and accurate goals that you set for yourself.

Tell everyone

This imperative is one of the best ways that AcWriMo is different than other times. We usually avoid complete honesty with total strangers about our writing goals and productivity.

But the single biggest academic writing problem - in my experience, anyway - is the way that it slips noiselessly down our to-do list, elbowed out by the clamour of the everyday.

The email, the marking, the student appointments, the meetings. Those things all make themselves heard, and we conscientiously attend to them while neglecting writing. Declaring our goals can help us to move writing into the must-do category.

Telling everyone also means telling everyone how we are managing as the month goes on. This decision to keep in touch with a community of academic writers online is also probably the most dicey part of AcWriMo.

For some of us, getting more writing done and spending more time on social media will feel like incompatible goals. Be aware of the line between finding community and squandering valuable writing time; the fruitfulness of the online writing community means that it is easy to spend too much time there without feeling like you are procrastinating.

Be strategic

Another important difference is that you can’t approach AcWriMo the same way you’ve always approached writing.

If writing is going to be better for you this month, what strategies will you employ to make that happen? A writing group? Timed writing sessions (à la Pomodoro)? Rearranging some aspect of your working schedule to make writing more prominent?

The strategies will be different for each person, but the key is making a change that will allow for more productivity.

Still interested? The accountability spreadsheet is the easiest way of getting started. If you are not sure how best to structure your goals, you can scroll through to see what other people - like me! - have planned.  

You can also declare your intentions on Twitter, using the hashtag #AcWriMo. Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or on Twitter. Good luck everyone - I look forward to writing with you!

My AcWriMo announcement post from 2012

My AcWriMo reflections post from 2012