A Scholar of… How I Got to Here

When I think about what it means to be a scholar within a discipline, I have to think about what discipline that actually is for me. I started to think about this last fall in my first ODU class and as a burgeoning scholar in English Studies and find I am thinking of myself as someone with research interests and a professional presence both in the library and the classroom.

In Paper #5, I looked at the final draft for the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, the main epistemological basis for library instruction. Information Literacy: what it is, its place in the curriculum, higher education, and how it guides what I do is fundamental to who I am as a professional librarian. Yet, where do I place myself within English Studies, Composition & Rhetoric and Second-Language Writing that I have spent this term investigating? How do librarianship and information literacy fit in this paradigm?

From Janice Lauer’s exploration of the discipline in “Rhetoric and Composition” and her article “Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline” to Paul K. Matsuda’s scholarship in second-language writing, there is a wide range of possible focus areas available to me as a scholar within Rhetoric and Writing Studies.  Looking a bit broader to Writing across the Curriculum (WAC), Transfer Theory- how first-year skills transfer into subsequent courses and knowledge, Social-Constructivism (Bizzell, Bartholomae, Berlin, Harris) – the “social turn” in writing, or Swales’ work in Discourse Communities and Genre Theory — I keep adding to the “these too are needed” part of my future scholarship. But can all of these be combined into being “a” single scholar? I hope so.

Paul K. Matsuda writes on the “disciplinary division of labor” within composition studies and second-language learning [PAB #1 and PAB #2], while Janice Lauer echoes similar concerns of “disciplinary status” and long-standing labor issues within English departments over the teaching of composition and writing in “Rhetoric and Composition.” Throughout the library profession, librarians too often see themselves and write about straddling similar “whose job is it” or “where do we fit within the curriculum” scenarios (Badke, Bewick, Elmborg, Fister, Elmborg, Weiner).

There are also similar questions within librarianship, much as in the early years of composition’s service and disciplinary status questions, as to whether librarianship can be considered a theoretical discipline. A recent chapter in Theories of Information, Communication and Knowledge looks at “Information Science and its Core Concepts: Levels of Disagreements” as author Birger Hjorland poses the question as to whether Library and Information Science can be considered an academic discipline – citing challenges that “it is not a monodiscipline, but rather an interdisciplinary field…as well as not being scholarly or scientific.  Rather it is a ‘professional’ field based on the teaching of some practical skills such as searching electronic databases and cataloging books according to certain norms” (208).

Hjorland also points to the necessity of a set of theories and “body of relatively accepted knowledge” that is considered part of a common “reference point” in being a discipline – but yet in all of his discussion, no mention is made to the instruction or pedagogy aspects of librarianship.

While libraries become more digital and students are exposed to technology at a younger age, many question what the future will hold for librarians and libraries.  As an academic librarian, I have faculty status, but not faculty rank.  I teach both credit and non-credit classes, but am not “really” considered teaching faculty. I am involved in research and concerned with pedagogy initiatives, but my involvement with student learning is most often only achieved through collaboration with individual classroom faculty.

On a broader scale, while some are unaware of the services that librarians offer to help students and faculty with their research and library needs, others do not see any benefit to librarian collaboration in courses or with individual students. What “is” an academic research librarian…what do I “do”?

There is often little acknowledgement for how much students do not know about research.  Yet, students do not inherently know how to research – how to think like a researcher or how to write using research and sources.  Where do they learn these abilities? As I work with students, I have fundamental questions about what students are doing with resources or how they are using the research they find?  Whose job is it to teach research skills, critical thinking, critical reading, evaluation of resources, “the” literacies: technology, digital, information? We saw how long the list could be in our Internet searches.

We hear all the time that students’ research abilities are not at the level that faculty expect and as librarians, we are often frustrated and question how to move beyond providing students with just a surface understanding of resources and the research process—often in one class session or a single assignment where we may be asked to help.  It is often as if we take students to the edge of the information cliff and then push them over without continued guidance.  But, whose role is it to provide continuing guidance:  Librarians, English Faculty, FYS Faculty?

Wardle and Downs remind us that writing tasks given to students are “flexible genres that serve various purposes in various contexts,” and change based on the discourse communities the students are writing in.  They suggest that we “give students the same frameworks for analysis and the same access to research about how texts work” that we use. There is a need to prepare students for different rhetorical situations by providing them with different rhetorical contexts for writing and research. There are no one or two composition classes that can “teach students to write” (as cited in Wittig, “Final Paper”).

We can teach “about” research as a process, focus on information literacy as part of the rhetorical canon and encourage critical thinking, exploration and growth. But we cannot expect that students at the end of a term will be versed to take part in specific discourse communities. Students are not able to join in the conversation; because they have difficulty understanding what the conversation is or that there even is a conversation. (Wittig 9)

How do I see myself contributing to the Major Debates?

One specific moment — a kairotic experience of sorts – that pointed me to the scholarship in areas aligned with my professional interests came when I met Rebecca Moore Howard and Sandra Jamieson at the Georgia Information Literacy (GIL) Conference in 2010 and they detailed the nationally scoped Citation Project. The Citation Project was responding to “educators’ concerns about plagiarism and the teaching of writing,” and addressing concerns that “little empirical data is available to describe what students are actually doing with their sources.”  They were English professors, speaking at an Information Literacy conference to both librarians and faculty, one of the few anomaly conferences that draws in a “mixed” audience.

Plagiarism, writing from sources, connections to English classes – what seemed like totally logical collaborations to me surprised disciplinary faculty when I expressed interest in collaboration: librarians “do” that? When I attended CCCC in 2012, I went to every session about research and writing – and asked questions in the sessions about collaborative efforts as so much of what was being said involved resources and libraries; but yet, no mention of librarians — kind of like the missing link. We found two other librarians there – out of all those attendees. I realized I had found my place and where I could make a difference within my profession.

As librarians refer to a writing assignment called a “research paper,” it often wrongly implies a one-size fits all, generic form. When scholars refer to their own writing, they rarely use that label. Excessively rules-based, the research “paper” is too often still taught as a “product,” what Jennie Nelson referred to as a “rhetoric of the finished word” rather than a “rhetoric of doing.” The result is that students are often “passive spectators,” outside of any academic discourse community (66). The benefits of research assignments are overshadowed by a focus on concerns about grammar, punctuation and appropriate types or numbers of sources.

“It is critical to dispel the ‘schoolmarmish’ (Nelson, ‘Scandalous’) and trivialized views associated with IL often found when library instruction is referred to in the literature, moving toward a ‘situated, process-oriented literacy relevant to a broad range of rhetorical and intellectual activities’ (Norgaard 125). Placed within a first-year writing curriculum which purports to teach students how to think critically, develop a sense of inquiry and write informative, well-researched academic prose, the research paper assignment often fails to teach, or even to assess, any of those skills” (Wittig and Ludovico 2).

From this first meeting at the GIL Conference and during subsequent follow-up workshops, I have initiated, with the librarians at Boatwright Library, a longitudinal study with our entering 2013 class, looking at student research papers and how IL instruction translates into the ways information is used.  Using the Citation Project as our inspiration, we have an opportunity to study the ways that students apply rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and writing abilities.  What we plan to address and a core area of my planned scholarship, is what was noted as absent in the Citation Project, that of “the entire discipline of library science and the sub-discipline of information literacy” (Veach 105).

Yet, there are philosophical questions that both faculty and librarians ask: whose role is it to teach students about appropriate citing and instill good research practices?  This represents a step beyond what some librarians are used to teaching and what classroom instructors recognize as “what librarians do” — as it moves into what to do “with” the resources, rather than just finding or evaluating the resources.

My moment at the GIL Conference eventually led me to my current PhD program at ODU. During my first ODU class in Fall 2013, Composition as Applied Rhetoric, I researched and wrote on the history of the research paper in first-year writing. This was my prelude to thinking about first-year writing and how librarians are/are not involved in student learning and writing from sources. More importantly, it points out the vast opportunities available for combined scholarship and collaboration in these areas. In my paper, “The History and Relationship of Information Literacy to the First-Year Research Paper,” I found that “[t]here have been calls over the last 20 years to improve librarians’ understanding of rhetoric and to better connect with a theory-based curriculum within the academy” (Wittig 10).

Only in the last few years have connections begun to show up in scholarship that join rhetoric, research and writing.  One of these is the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework, mentioned earlier and now in its final draft. It was previously known as the IL Standards; but the language change has the potential to align the scholarship in the fields of library instruction, rhetoric and writing studies more clearly. I outlined the framework and the “threshold concepts” that are being defined in Paper #5.

But what can my scholarship and study add to the field?  I see possibilities every time I search for library, librarians, information literacy + composition, second-language writing, writing across the curriculum, etc…there are very few crossovers in scholarship or in the literature.  IL is written about by librarians –writing is written about in the disciplines.  Theory is embedded in the disciplines — “how to” articles and practices illustrating how librarians teach the skills appear in library journals.

“Reading in the literature of composition and library science, I am struck by the fact that there have been very different assumptions and expectations for writing and research from librarians and faculty in the disciplines.  With little mention of rhetoric or composition theory in most library literature and even less of information literacy discussed in composition scholarship, it is critical for librarians and faculty to agree on a common praxis related to student research and writing practices (Townsend, 2011; Brent, 2012; Detmering, 2012; Veach, 2012; Walker, 2012; Donovan & O’Donnell, 2013; Zepke, 2013)” (Wittig 4).

What types of genre, theoretical, and professional knowledge does it take for me to be a scholar?

I looked through a very narrow lens this term as I surveyed second-language writing.  With a growing, diverse student population at UR, this is a necessary part of my scholarly identity. In Paper #5, I identified the theories within second-language writing as important to my entrance in the field.   Seeing not only second-language students, but all first-year students as my main Objects of Study, I look to Composition & Rhetoric theories and pedagogies, as well as Literacy Studies (critical, information, digital…the list is long, but the focus is all on student learning). There is also great interdisciplinarity within this knowledge base: English Studies, Education, Library Science, Psychology, and Philosophy.  While I joke that Foucault is mentioned in almost everything I read, the truth of it is that current literacy and writing studies are based on broad theoretical foundations, ones not included in library science education or studies.  These are areas of knowledge I need to acquire as a scholar.

During my fall reading, I discovered the scholarship of Rolf Norgaard  and Grace Veach.  Both wrote of the disconnects often found between librarians, information literacy efforts and theoretical knowledge within writing studies. Rolf Norgaard in companion articles called for improved connections between the writing classroom and information literacy (IL). He focused on composition classrooms and libraries “shared impulse for reform” as he examined what rhetoric and composition could provide to information literacy from theory; while in his second article, he explained how theory could be reflected in a pedagogy of practice for information literacy (220).

Norgaard expressed concern, writing “…it is nothing short of surprising how little that field [rhetoric/composition] has written about information literacy and library collaboration” (125), but he also stressed that it is not just a one-sided problem, as information literacy has paid “little attention to the theoretical foundations and pedagogical frameworks that inform rhetoric and composition”(125).

Norgaard placed the blame on both fields — due in part to libraries often representing nothing more than “images of the quick field trip, the scavenger hunt, the generic stand-alone tutorial, or the dreary research paper” to writing teachers and students (124). Norgaard’s articles were written in 2003 and 2004 in Reference Services Review. All cited references since have been in library or information literacy publications, except for Doug Brent’s in 2013, writing in Writing Program Administration. He is a visiting professor at ODU this year and will be teaching our 840 class next term; so I look forward to continuing the conversations and my research focus with him.

In his article, “The Research Paper and Why We Should Still Care,” he makes connections between information literacy as written about by librarians and the research paper as written about in composition scholarship. In his article, he draws from Activity, Genre and Transfer Theories, as well as Composition pedagogy and research. But, he is writing in a writing journal. How many librarians saw this?

“An important, and frequently overlooked, source of information on writing from sources can be found in the literature of our colleagues, the academic librarians who often must help our students navigate the tasks which we have assigned them. While much of the literature on information literacy concentrates on the narrow problem of how to help students locate and evaluate sources, other variants locate this problem in terms of how students approach the entire activity of writing from sources. In fact, much of the literature on information literacy calls explicitly for more rapprochement between the library and the disciplines, particularly the discipline of writing studies . . .

On the other hand, most of the writing studies literature seems blissfully unaware of this important source of cognate studies. Since the librarians frequently are the ones to clean up our messes when we create ill conceived research assignments, we would do well to listen more closely to what they are saying” (Brent 42-43).

Grace Veach, Dean of Library Services at Southeastern University, wrote her dissertation in 2013 on “Tracing Boundaries, Effacing Boundaries: Information Literacy as an Academic Discipline,” arguing that IL needs to have a disciplinary home. She puts forth that much like writing studies, it has often “been pushed to the outskirts of academia.”  Expanding on this, she expresses how “blissfully unaware” librarians have been of a great majority of the research paper criticism, as ‘a good part of their disciplinary identity derives from teaching information literacy as it relates to the research paper in composition classes.” Veach adds that “if the skills involved in information fluency represent both art and science, librarians tend to concern themselves more with the science, while compositionists try to teach the art” (110). Compositionists tend to see librarians and instruction as problematic, creating “at least part of the divide “when they teach research and citation techniques divorced from disciplinary (i.e. rhetorical) theory” (Veach 112). She goes so far as to argue, that when it comes to composition theory and rhetoric, “librarians have shown a tendency to be rhetorically tone-deaf” (113).

“Instructors may envision their students engrossed in the masters of the discipline while synthesizing their own new thesis, but this rarely matches the reality of the undergraduate research process, especially in general education courses. While graduate students do often allow their writing process to influence their topic choice, undergraduates rarely leave themselves enough breathing room to do this kind of exploration. When they start the paper twenty-four hours or less before its due date, reading, summarizing, and learning will be sacrificed to efficacy and word-count inflation” (Veach 114).

Hjorland’s earlier comments echo some of the same concerns as to where an appropriate disciplinary home might be for LIS; while Veach draws in potential connections to be made if only each knew of the other’s discussions. Those are just a few scholars, writing just a few articles; but they provide such great potential for future scholarship and work in the fields. What does it mean to be a scholar in these areas?  In some respects, it will be about creating new alliances and paths as evidenced from what is not found or written about in the literature.

Where does all this leave me as I finish my exploration this term and will eventually need to stop collecting research and actually begin articulating who I am and where I plan to place myself within the research fields? What does a scholar look like in the blended fields of Writing, Rhetoric, Literacy, and Librarianship? My lingering questions from Paper #5 deal with where I align myself . . . but I do not feel at all ready to answer those yet as with every text I read, I find more rabbit holes to explore.

My bibliography and reading list have grown all term and I have begun to align them into focus areas: Information Literacy, Libraries and Research; English Studies: Rhetoric, Writing and Literacy; and Second-Language Writing. Across each of these areas, I can make connections and see ways to draw from writing studies, first-year composition, transfer theory, writing across the disciplines, second-language writing, literacy studies and research/writing from sources. I look forward to establishing my voice within the field.

~The End~

My reminders – the definitions:

Epistemology:  the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.

Methodology: a set of methods, rules, or ideas that are important in a science or art; a particular procedure or set of procedures.

Axiology: the study of value, or goodness, in its widest sense. The distinction is commonly made between intrinsic and extrinsic value—i.e., between that which is valuable for its own sake and that which is valuable only as a means to something else, which itself may be extrinsically or intrinsically valuable.

Theories:  an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events; an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true; the general principles or ideas that relate to a particular subject.

Works Cited & Further Reading

 The articles listed below, many of which I have cited in previous posts, provide the intersections in scholarship that I am interesting in pursuing next. 

Information Literacy, Libraries and Research

Accardi, Maria T.  Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2013.

Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Accessed: November 18, 2014.

Badke, William. “Why Information Literacy Is Invisible.” Communications in Information Literacy 4.2 (2010): 129-41.

Bewick, Laura, and Sheila Corrall. “Developing Librarians as Teachers: A Study of Their Pedagogical Knowledge.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 42.2 (2010): 97-110.

Bivens-Tatum, Wayne. Academic Librarian|On Libraries, Rhetoric, Poetry, History, & Moral Philosophy [blog]. Accessed December 5, 2014.

D’angelo, Barbara J., and Barry M. Maid. “Moving Beyond Definitions: Implementing Information Literacy across the Curriculum.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 30.3 (2004): 212-17.

Delaney, Geraldine and Jessica Bates. “Envisioning the Academic Library: A Reflection on Roles, Relevancy and Relationships.” New Review of Academic Librarianship (2014). [pre-pub online]. DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2014.911194

Drabinski, Emily. “Toward a Kairos of Library Instruction.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 40.5 (2014): 480-85.

Elmborg, James. “Critical Information Literacy: Implications for Instructional Practice.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 32.2 (2006): 192-199.

Fister, Barbara. “Teaching the Rhetorical Dimensions of Research.” Research Strategies 11.4 (Fall 1993): 211-219.

—. “The Library’s Role in Learning: Information Literacy Revisited.” Library Issues 33.4 (2013).

Georgas, Helen. “Google vs. The Library (Part Ii): Student Search Patterns and Behaviors When Using Google and a Federated Search Tool.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 14.4 (2014): 503-32.

Hattwig, Denise, Kaila Bussert, Ann Medaille, and Joanna Burgess. “Visual Literacy Standards in Higher Education: New Opportunities for Libraries and Student Learning.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 13.1 (2013): 61-89.

Head, Allison J. et al. “What Information Competencies Matter in Today’s Workplace?” Library & Information Research 37.114 (2013): 74-104.

Hicks, Allison. “Cultural Shifts: Putting Critical Information Literacy into Practice.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.1 (2013): 50-65.

Hjorland, Birger. “Information Science and its Core Concepts: Levels of Disagreement.” Theories of Information Communication and Knowledge: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Eds. Fidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan and Thomas M. Dousa. London: Springer, 2014. 205-235.

Hofer, Amy R., Lori Townsend, and Korey Brunetti. “Troublesome Concepts and Information Literacy: Investigating Threshold Concepts for Il Instruction.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 12.4 (2012): 387-405.

Hofer, Amy R., Korey Brunetti and Lori Townsend. “A Thresholds Concepts Approach to the Standards Revision.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 108-113.

Holliday, Wendy and Rogers, Jim. “Talking about Information Literacy: The Mediating Role of Discourse in a College Writing Classroom.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 13.3 (2013): 257-271.

“Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” 2000. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). Accessed: December 1, 2014.

Jacobs, Heidi L. M. “Information Literacy and Reflective Pedagogical Praxis.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 34.3 (2008): 256-62.

Jacobson, Trudi E., and Thomas P. Mackey. “Proposing a Metaliteracy Model to Redefine Information Literacy.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 84–91.

Koltay, Tibor, Sonja Špiranec, and László Z. Karvalics. “The Shift of Information Literacy towards Research 2.0.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship (2014). [prepub]

Leckie, Gloria J. “Desperately Seeking Citations: Uncovering Faculty Assumptions about the Undergraduate Research Process.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 22.3 (1996): 201-08.

Lloyd, Annemaree, Mary Anne Kennan, Kim M. Thompson, and Asim Qayyum. “Connecting with New Information Landscapes: Information Literacy Practices of Refugees.” Journal of Documentation 69.1 (2013): 121-44.

Lloyd, Annemaree. “Information Literacy as a Socially Enacted Practice: Sensitising Themes for an Emerging Perspective of People-in-practice.” Journal of Documentation 68.6 (2012): 772-83.

—. “Framing Information Literacy as Information Practice: Site Ontology and Practice Theory.” Journal of Documentation 66.2 (2010): 245-58.

Ludovico, Carrie and Carol Wittig. “A Universe of Information, One Citation at a Time: How Students Engage with Scholarly Sources.” Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning (2015): [pending – http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1533290X.2014.946343

Mackey, Thomas P., and Trudi E. Jacobson. Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2014.

Marcum, James W. “Rethinking Information Literacy.” The Library Quarterly 72.1 (2002): 1-26.

Martin, Justine. “Refreshing Information Literacy.” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 114–27.

McClure, Randall, and Kellian Clink. “How Do You Know That? An Investigation of Student Research Practices in the Digital Age.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 9.1 (2009): 115-132.

McCluskey, Clare. “Being an Embedded Research Librarian: Supporting Research by Being a Researcher.” Journal of Information Literacy, 7.2 (2013): 4-14. DOI: 10.11645/7.2.1815

Meulemans, Yvonne Nalani and Allison Carr. “Not at Your Service: Building Genuine Faculty‐Librarian Partnerships.” Reference Services Review 41.1: 80 – 90. DOI: 10.1108/00907321311300893

Meyer, Jan H.F., and Ray Land. Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. New York: Routledge. 2006.

Mills, Kathy Ann. “A Review of the “Digital Turn” in the New Literacy Studies.” Review of Educational Research 80.2 (2010): 246-71.

Morgan, Patrick K. “Pausing at the Threshold.” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 15.1 (2015): prepub, n.p.

—. “Information Literacy Learning as Epistemological Process.” Reference Services Review 42.3 (2014): 403-413. DOI: 10.1108/RSR-04-2014-0005

Nazari, M., and S. Webber. “Loss of Faith in the Origins of Information Literacy in E-environments: Proposal of a Holistic Approach.” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 44.2 (2012): 97-107.

Nelson, Jennie. “The Research Paper: A ‘Rhetoric of Doing’ or a ‘Rhetoric of the Finished Word?’” Composition Studies/Freshman English News 22.2 (1994): 65–75.

Ng, Wan. “Can We Teach Digital Natives Digital Literacy?” Computers & Education 59.3 (2012): 1065-078.

Norgaard, Rolf. “Writing Information Literacy: Contributions to a Concept.” Reference Services Review 43.2 (2003): 124–130.

—. “Writing Information Literacy in the Classroom: Pedagogical Enactments and Implications.” Reference Services Review 43.3 (2004): 220–226.

Nutefall, Jennifer E, and Phyllis Mentzell Ryder. “The Timing of the Research Question: First-Year Writing Faculty and Instruction Librarians’ Differing Perspectives.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 10.4 (2010): 437–449.

Oakleaf, Megan. “A Roadmap for Assessing Student Learning Using the New Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Journal of Academic Librarianship 40.5 (September 2014): 510–4.

O’Connor, Lisa, Melissa Bowles-Terry, Erin Davis, and Wendy Holliday. ““Writing Information Literacy” Revisited.” Reference & User Services Quarterly 49.3 (2010): 225-230.

Otto, Peter. “Librarians, Libraries, and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 2014.139 (2014): 77-93.

Rabinowitz, Celia. “Working in a Vacuum: A Study of the Literature of Student Research and Writing.” Research Strategies 17.4 (2000): 337-46.

Rosenblatt, Stephanie. “They Can Find It, But They Don’t Know What to Do With It: Describing the Use of Scholarly Literature by Undergraduate Students.” Journal of Information Literacy 4.2 (2010), 50-61.

Saunders, Laura. “Culture and Collaboration: Fostering Integration of Information Literacy by Speaking the Language of Faculty.” Association of College and Research Libraries National Conference. 2013.

Simmons, Michelle Holschuh. “Librarians as Disciplinary Discourse Mediators.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5.3 (2005): 297-311.

Spiranec, Sonja, and Banek Zorica Mihaela. “Information Literacy 2.0: Hype or Discourse Refinement?” Journal of Documentation 66.1 (2010): 140-53.

Swanson, Troy. “A Radical Step: Implementing a Critical Information Literacy Model.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 4.2 (2004), 259-273.

Townsend, Lori, Korey Brunetti, and Amy R. Hofer. “Threshold Concepts and Information Literacy.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 11.3 (2011): 853-69.

Tucker, Virginia, Christine Bruce, Sylvia Edwards, and Judith Weedman. “Learning Portals: Analyzing Threshold Concept Theory for LIS Education.” Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 55.2 (2014): 150–65.

Weiner, Sharon A. “Who Teaches Information Literacy Competencies? Report of a Study of Faculty.” College Teaching 62.1 (2014): 5-12.

Wittig, Carol. “The History and Relationship of Information Literacy to the First-Year Research Paper.” Final Paper. ENGL 721/821 Composition as Applied Rhetoric (Fall 2013). [Available in Google Shared Class Folder]

Veach, Grace L. “At the Intersection: Librarianship, Writing Studies, and Sources as Topoi.” Journal of Literacy and Technology 13.1 (2012): 102-129.

 English Studies: Rhetoric, Writing and Literacy

Adams, Katherine H., and John L. Adams. “The Paradox Within: Origins of the Current-Traditional Paradigm.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 17.4 (1987): 421-31.

Alexander, Jonathan, and Susan C. Jarratt. “Rhetorical Education and Student Activism.” College English 76.6 (2014): 525-44.

Baca, Damián. “Rethinking Composition, Five Hundred Years Later.” JAC 29.1/2 (2009): 229-42.

Baer, Andrea. “Why Do I Have to Write That?: Compositionists Identify Disconnects between Student and Instructor Conceptions of Research Writing that Can Inform Teaching.” Evidence Based Library and Information Practice 9.2 (2014): 37-44.

Bartholomae, David, and John Schlib. “Reconsiderations: ‘Inventing the University’ at 25: An Interview with David Bartholomae.” College English 73.3 (2011): 260-82.

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” When a Writer Can’t Write: Research on Writer’s Block and other Writing Problems. Ed. Mike Rose. New York: Guilford, 1986. 134-166.

Beam, Joseph. “BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing.” Rhetoric Review 27.1 (2008): 72-86.

Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass, 2011.

Berlin, James. “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class.” College English 50.5 (1988): 477-94.

Brent, Doug. “The Research Paper, and Why We Should Still Care.” Writing Program Administration 37.1 (Fall 2013): 33-53.

—.“Transfer, Transformation, and Rhetorical Knowledge: Insights from Transfer Theory.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25.4 (2011): 396-420. DOI: 10.1177/1050651911410951

—. “Reinventing WAC (Again): The First-Year Seminar and Academic Literacy.” College Composition and Communication 57.2 (2005): 253-276.

—. “Keeping the ‘Literacy’ in ‘Information Literacy.’” Inkshed: Newsletter of the Canadian Association for the Study of Language and Learning 17.3-4 (Autumn 1999).

Carr, Jean F. “Composition, English, and the University.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 435-41.

The Citation Project: Preventing Plagiarism, Teaching Writing. Accessed:  November 18, 2014.

Dean, Deborah. “Shifting Perspectives about Grammar: Changing What and How We Teach.” English Journal 100.4 (2011): 20-26.

Dirk, Kerry. “‘The “Research Paper” Prompt: A Dialogic Opportunity for Transfer.’” Composition Forum 25 (2012).

Downs, Douglas and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching About Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.'” College Composition and Communication 58.4 (2007): 552–84.

Elbow, Peter. “Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond ‘Mistakes,’ ‘Bad English,’ and ‘Wrong Language.’” JAC 19.3 (1999): 359-88.

Faigley, Lester. “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal.” College English 48.6 (1986): 527-42.

Flower, Linda. “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.” College Composition and Communication 32.4 (1981): 365-87.

Howard, Rebecca Moore, Tricia Serviss, and Tanya K. Rodrigue. “Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences.” Writing & Pedagogy 2.2 (2010): 177-92.

Howard, Rebecca Moore. “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty.” College English 57.7 (1995): 788-806.

Johns, Ann M. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Johnson, J. Paul, and Ethan Krase. “Coming to Learn: From First-Year Composition to Writing in the Disciplines.” Across the Disciplines 8 (2011): 1-30.

Kaiser Lee, Karen A. From Telling to Transforming: Rhetorical Invention and the Genre of the Research Paper. PhD Dissertation, Purdue University, 2011.

Kell, Catherine. “Ariadne’s Thread: Literacy, Scale and Meaning Making across Space and Time.” Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 81 (2013): 1-24.

Kolb, Kenneth H., Kyle C. Longest, and Mollie J. Jensen. “Assessing the Writing Process: Do Writing-Intensive First-Year Seminars Change How Students Write?” Teaching Sociology 41.1 (2012): 20-31.

Krashen, Stephen. “The Composing Process.” Research Journal: Ecolint Institute of Teaching and Learning. International School of Geneva 2 (2014): 20-30.

Lauer, Janice M. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline(s). Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2006. 106-52.

Löfström, Erika and Pauliina Kupila. “The Instructional Challenges of Student Plagiarism.” Journal of Academic Ethics 11 (2013): 231-242.

McClure, Randall. “WritingResearchWriting: The Semantic Web and the Future of the Research Project.” Computers and Composition 28.4 (2011): 315–326.

Mendenhall, Annie S. “The Composition Specialist as Flexible Expert: Identity and Labor in the History of Composition.” College English 77.1 (2014): 11-31.

Murray, Donald M. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” Ed. Victor Villanueva. Cross-talk in Comp Theory: A Reader. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1997.

Panetta, Clayann Gilliam, ed. Contrastive Rhetoric Revisited and Redefined. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., 2000.

Pierstorff, Don K. “Response to Linda Flower and John R. Hayes, ‘A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing.’” College Composition and Communication 34.2 (1983): 217.

Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review 5.1 (1986): 34-47.

Purdy, James P., and Joyce R. Walker. “Liminal Spaces and Research Identity: The Construction of Introductory Composition Students as Researchers.” Pedagogy 13.1 (2013): 9–41.

Romova, Zina, and Martin Andrew. “Teaching and Assessing Academic Writing via the Portfolio: Benefits for Learners of English as an Additional Language.” Assessing Writing 16.2 (2011): 111-22.

Royster, Jacqueline Jones, and Gesa E. Kirsch. Feminist Rhetorical Practices: New Horizons for Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy Studies. Carbondale, IL: SIU Press, 2012.

Schneider, Barbara. “Ethical Research and Pedagogical Gaps.” College Composition and Communication 58.1 (2006): 70–88.

Schwegler, Robert A., and Kinda K. Shamoon. “The Aims and Process of the Research Paper.” College English 44.8 (1982): 817–824.

Swales, John M. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.

Tate, Gary, Amy Rupiper Taggart, Kurt Schick, and H. Brooke Hessler, eds. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2014.

Wardle, Elizabeth, and Doug Downs. “Reflecting Back and Looking Forward: Revisiting  Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions Five Years On.” Composition Forum 27 (Spring 2013).

Welch, Barbara. “A Comment on “Plagiarisms, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty”” College English 58.7 (1996): 855-58.

“WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition.” Council of Writing Program Administrators. 2014. Accessed: December 1, 2014.

Zwagerman, Sean. “The Scarlet P: Plagiarism, Panopticism, and the Rhetoric of Academic Integrity.” College Composition and Communication 59.4 (2008): 676–710.

Second-Language Writing

Atkinson, Dwight. “Between Theory with a Big T and Practice with a Small p: Why Theory Matters.” Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing. Eds. Tony Silva and Paul K. Matsuda. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2013. 5-18.

Belcher, Diane. “The Scope of L2 Writing: Why We Need a Wider Lens.” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 438-39.

—. “Considering What We Know and Need to Know About Second Language Writing.” Applied Linguistics Review 3.1 (2012): 131-150.

Canagarajah, A. Suresh. “Negotiating Translingual Literacy: An Enactment.” Research in the Teaching of English 48.1 (2013): 40-67.

—. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Costino, Kimberly A., and Sunny Hyon. “Sidestepping Our ‘Scare Words’: Genre as a Possible Bridge between L1 and L2 Compositionists.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 24-44.

Ferris, Dana and John S. Hedgcock. Teaching L2 Composition. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Gunderson, Lee. ESL (ELI) Literacy Instruction: A Guidebook to Theory and Practice. Routledge, 2008.

Hirvela, Alen. ““Why Am I Paraphrasing?”: Undergraduate ESL Writers’ Engagement with Source-Based Academic Writing and Reading.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013): 87-98.

Horner, Bruce, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, and John Trimbur. “Opinion: Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach.” College English 73.3 (2011): 303-321.

Huang, Kun and Diane Kelly. “The Daily Image Information Needs and Seeking Behavior of Chinese Undergraduate Students.” College & Research Libraries 74.3 (2013): 243-61.

Hyland, Ken. “Genre Pedagogy: Language, Literacy and L2 Writing Instruction.” Journal of Second Language Writing 16.3 (2007): 148-164.

—. “Genre-based Pedagogies: A Social Response to Process.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.1 (2003): 17-29.

Iannuzzi, Patricia A. “Info Lit 2.0 or Deja Vu?” Communications in Information Literacy 7.2 (2013): 1-17.

Imai, Junko. “Review: Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing.” TESOL Quarterly 46.2 (2012): 430-33.

Ishimura, Yusuke and Joan C. Bartlett. “Uncovering the Research Process of International Students in North America: Are They Different from Domestic Students?” Information Research, 18.1 (2013): paper 564.

Johns, Ann  M.  “The Future of Genre in L2 Writing: Fundamental, but Contested, Instructional Decisions.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 56-68.

–. “Genre Awareness for the Novice Academic Student: An Ongoing Quest.” Language Teaching 41.2 (2008): 237-252.

Journal of Second Language Writing 22 (2013). “Disciplinary Dialogues.” and “Selected Bibliography of Recent Scholarship in Second Language Writing.” 425-459.

Keck, Casey. “Copying, Paraphrasing, and Academic Writing Development: A Re-Examination of L1 and L2 Summarization Practices.” Journal of Second Language Writing 25 (2014): 4-22.

Kubota,Ryuko. “Critical Approaches to Theory in Second Language Writing: A Case of Critical Contrastive Rhetoric.” Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing. Eds. Tony Silva and Paul K. Matsuda. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2013. 191-208.

Li, Yongyan and Christine Pearson Casanave. “Two First-Year Students’ Strategies for Writing from Sources: Patchwriting or Plagiarism?” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 165-80.

Li, Yongyan. “Undergraduate Students Searching and Reading Web Sources for Writing.” Educational Media International 49.3 (2012): 201-15.

–. “Academic Staff’s Perspective upon Student Plagiarism: A Case Study at a University in Hong Kong.” Asia Pacific Journal of Education (2013): 1-14.

–. “First Year ESL Students Developing Critical Thinking: Challenging the Stereotypes.” Journal of Education and Training Studies 1.2 (2013): 186-96.

Liu, Pei-Hsun Emma, and Dan J. Tannacito. “Resistance by L2 Writers: The Role of Racial and Language Ideology in Imagined Community and Identity Investment.” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 355-73.

Matsuda, Paul K. “The Lure of Translingual Writing.” PMLA 129.3 (2014): 478-483.

—. “Response: What Is Second Language Writing—and Why Does It Matter?” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 448-50.

McCulloch, Sharon. “Citations in Search of a Purpose: Source Use and Authorial Voice in L2 Student Writing.” International Journal of Educational Integrity 8.1 (2012): 55-69.

Matalene, Carolyn. “Contrastive Rhetoric: An American Writing Teacher in China.” College English 47.8 (1985): 789-808.

Pecorari, Diane, and Bojana Petric. “Plagiarism in Second-Language Writing.” Language Teaching 47.3 (2014): 269-302. Web.

Pecorari, Diane. “Good and Original: Plagiarism and Patchwriting in Academic Second-Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 12.4 (2003): 317-45.

Petrić, Bojana. “Legitimate Textual Borrowing: Direct Quotation in L2 Student Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 102-17.

Plakans, Lia, and Atta Gebril. “A Close Investigation into Source Use in Integrated Second Language Writing Tasks.” Assessing Writing 17.1 (2012): 18-34.

Polio, Charlene, and Ling Shi. “Perceptions and Beliefs about Textual Appropriation and Source Use in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 95-101.

Racelis, Juval V., and Paul Kei Matsuda. “Integrating Process and Genre into the Second Language Writing Classroom: Research into Practice.” Language Teaching 46.03 (2013): 382-393.

Ray, Brian. “ESL Droids: Teacher Training and the Americanization Movement, 1919-1924.” Composition Studies 41.2 (2013): 15-39.

Ruecker, Todd. “Challenging the Native and Nonnative English Speaker Hierarchy in ELT: New Directions from Race Theory.” Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 8.4 (2011): 400-22.

Schneer, David. “Rethinking the Argumentative Essay.” TESOL Journal  (2013): online prepub, n.p.

Shi, Ling. “Rewriting and Paraphrasing Source Texts in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 21.2 (2012): 134-48.

Tardy, Christine M. “The History and Future of Genre in Second Language Writing.” Journal of Second Language Writing 20.1 (2011): 1-5.

Thompson, Celia, Janne Morton, and Neomy Storch. “Where From, Who, Why and How? A Study of the Use of Sources by First Year L2 University Students.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12.2 (2013): 99-109.

Thonus, Terese. “Tutoring Multilingual Students: Shattering the Myths.” Journal of College Reading and Learning 44.2 (2014): 200-13.

Van Beuningen, Catherine G, Nivja H De Jong, and Folkert Kuiken. “Evidence on the Effectiveness of Comprehensive Error Correction in Second Language Writing.” Language Learning 62.1 (2012): 1-41.

Yamagata-Lynch, Lisa C. “Chapter 2: Understanding Cultural Historical Activity Theory.” Activity Systems Analysis Methods: Understanding Complex Learning Environments. New York: Springer, 2010. 13-26.

Zhang, Jie. “Learner Agency, Motive, and Self-Regulated Learning in an Online ESL Writing Class.” IALLT Journal 43.2 (2013): 57-81.

Zhang, Lawrence Jun. “Second Language Writing as and for Second Language Learning.” Journal of Second Language Writing 22.4 (2013): 446-47.