To match or not to match ? Voice , concordancing and textmatching in doctoral writing

Appropriate use and acknowledgement of sources continues to be a central concern of academic integrity. A major challenge for research student in this is the development of a confident authorial voice which matches disciplinary expectations in language use, yet manages to do so without plagiarising through inappropriate text matching or recycling of language. This is a daunting challenge for all research writers, particularly for English as an Additional Language (EAL) researchers who are still grappling with English grammar and syntax. In order to develop novice research writers’ understanding of acceptable use of sources and mastery of disciplinary language, we have developed a process that uses concordancing software alongside Turnitin. Here we present textual analyses of two cases using this process: in one, the student’s percentage of matches decreased as he developed his authorial voice; in the second, the percentage of matches actually increased as the student’s language choices came to reflect more closely the expectations of the discipline. Introduction Appropriate use and acknowledgement of sources continues to be a central concern of academic integrity. However, this involves far more than avoiding plagiarism and patchwriting (Howard 1995; Pennycook 1996; Pecorari 2003; McGowan 2008); sources also contain the disciplinary and academic language that writers must necessarily use. Thus novice research writers are forced to navigate a complex set of contradictory expectations before achieving a confident authorial voice. On one hand, they must make an original contribution in their “own words” and their own voice (Stolley & Brizee 2010); on the other hand, they are required to acknowledge previous research using the standardized, highly formulaic language of their disciplinary discourse community. That is, they must “be original, but not too original” (Picard & Guerin 2011). Most novice research writers find this challenging, but it is particularly difficult for those English as an Additional Language (EAL) researchers who are not yet entirely confident or comfortable in manipulating English grammar and syntax. In order to develop novice research writers’ understanding of acceptable use of sources and mastery of disciplinary language, we have developed a process called “Try it on” that uses concordancing software alongside Turnitin. In this paper we present textual analyses of two cases where research students used Turnitin in conjunction with concordancers to develop an appropriate voice in academic writing. In the first case the student’s percentage of matches decreased as he developed his “authorial presence” (Zhao & Llosa 2008, p159) and disciplinary and “situational voice” (Ede in Hirvela & Belcher 2001, p89). In the second case, the percentage of matches actually increased as the student’s language choices came to reflect more closely the expectations of the discipline.