L2 undergraduate students learning to write using sources

This chapter proposes the propose a trajectory of skill development in source text use for undergraduate second language (L2) writers, and make a number of suggestions for course content and instructional tasks that would be appropriate at each stage of skill learning. In the 1980s and 90s, it was believed that cultural differences in attitudes towards individual ownership and the importance of originality in academic content were the most influential sources of difficulty for L2 novice writers, especially students from Confucian heritage cultures of learning coming to in Anglo-Western academic cultures. Writing using sources is a complex, multi-faceted, academic literacy skill set with a number of technical, linguistic, rhetorical, disciplinary and cultural elements. The majority of empirical studies to date have been concerned with identifying specific difficulties and shortcomings in the attitudes and practices of inexperienced L2 writers, following D. Pecorari's observation that “recognizing the existence of the problem is the beginning of the solution”.