Luận văn mistakes in integrating information from articles into essay writing of sophomores at felte ulis vnu

ABSTRACT ‘The research aims at investing the second year students’ mistakes when they integrale information from articles imo their essay writing from Lwo aspecls: 1 the students’ perce

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIÁ HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHIẠM TIẾNG ANH

KIIÓA LUẬN TÓT NGIIẸP

MỘT SÓ LỖI THƯỜNG GẶP KHI ĐBƯA THÔNG TIN TỪ

BẢO CHÍ VÀO BÀI VIẾT CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM HAI TẠI KHOA SU PHAM TIENG ANH, TRUONG DAI HOC

NGOAI NGU, DA] HOC QUOC GIA HA NOL

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: TS Vũ Hãi Hà Sinh viên: Trần Nguyễn Thục Trang Anh Khóa: QII2012.F1.EL

HÀ NỌI—2016

ĐECLERATION

J hereby state that I: Tran Nguyễn Thục Trang Anh, QH2012.F1E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (LVL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor's Graduation Paper deposited in the library

Jn terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions estabhshed by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date: June 3th 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEME:

As ä traineo researcher, this study is not only a long, chaHenging but also rewarding and fantastic experience for me Referring back, | am extremely grateful for the plentiful assistance and support that I have received, without which

this paper would have never been completed

First and foremost, T would like lo express my deepest gratitude to my dedicated

supervisor, Dr Vu Hai Ha In the position of the teacher and a supervisor, he has delivered precious instructions and guides to help me in every stage of doing this research Also, his allentive care and sharing slories from his own experience arc the tremendous sources of motivation and encouragement that push me through

the difficulties I encounter to complete the research,

Secondly, I would also like to thank all the participants inchiding 154 sophomores

from eight classes at, University of Languages and Tnlernalional Studies in Hanoi

for their cooperation, their time and pationce in my research, With thor

contribution in the questionnaires, the interview, and, especially, their willingness

lo submit the essays, T can gather the essential data for my rescarch T do

appreciate their warm wishes for my research

Last but not least, I want to send my most sincere thanks to my family and friends for their love and support in the whole process of doing the research Without them, the past couples of months would have been more stressful and challenging

ABSTRACT

‘The research aims at investing the second year students’ mistakes when they

integrale information from articles imo their essay writing from Lwo aspecls: (1)

the students’ perception; (2) the judgment of their essays

In order to achieve the established targets, a combination of quantitative and

qualitative methods was adopted for data collection and analysis Specifically researchers utilized three data collections instruments including questionnaire,

interview and writing collecion Then the dala from each tool was analyzed with

different methods what were suitable with the type of data

After all, conclusions drawn from the research were (hat ihe students still

struggled with their integration rom the students’ viewpoints, their biggest problem was the ineffective paraphrasing of the information from the original sources, which belonged to the language aspect hey also claimed to provide inadequate explanation for the information they used in their writing From their

essays, format appeared Lo be the trouble of the majonty of the studenls because of their carelessness and the unclear instruction from the teachers Referring to

students’ belief, the students’ awareness about their mistakes was quite good in

tens of the content but, on the corfrary, the students were sGll ignorant of the

required format of integrated information.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF THE RESEARCH

1 Rationale of the research

k2 ‘Aims of the research and research questions

i Research goals and objectives

Signilicance of the study

wok Scope of the study

a Organization of Ibe study

CIIAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1

kỳ

Connection between Reading and Writing

1.1 Historical background about the comnection between Reading

and Writing

1.2 Studies on the connection between Reading and Writing in L2

The integration of information from articles into essay writing

2.1 Information from articles

2.2 Essay writing of sophomore al FELTE, ULIS

2.3 Studies about the integration of information from articles into

esaay writing

Common mistakes in integrating information from articles reading

into essay writing

4 Previous research and research gap

4.1 Previous research

4.2 Research gap

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

WD

Participants and the selection of participants:

A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods

Data collection instruments

Data analysis instrument

5.1, Quantitative method — Survey

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 Findings from data analysis

1.1 Second — year students’ perception towards their mistakes

when integrating information from articles into essay writing

1.1.1 Content mistakes

1.1.2 Language mistakes,

11.3 Format mistakes

1.2 Second — year students’ mistakes when they integrated

information from articles into essay writing judging from their

essays,

1.2.1, Content mistakes

12.2 Language mistakes

1.2.3 Formal mistakes

2 Major findings and Discussions

3, Sug gestions for limiting the mistakes when the students integrate

information from articles into essay wriling

Contribution of the study

Limitations of the study

Suggestions for further studies

LIST OF FIGURES:

ure 1- Mistakes related to content that students think they have made when integrating information from articles in their essay wo 2S

Figure 2 - Mistakes related to language that students think they have made when

integrating information from articles in their essay 7

Figure 3- Mistakes related to format that students think they have made when

integrating information from articles in their exsay 2 RB

Figure 4 - Mistakes related to content that students made when integrating

information from articles in judging from theù! essay 3

Figure §- Mistakes relaied to language that students made when integrating

information from articles in judging from their exsay _— Bt

Figure 6 - Mistakes related lo format that students made when mlegrating

information from articles in essay writing judging from their essay ss 33

ULIS: University of Languages and Tntcrnational Studies

VNU: Vietnam National University

L1: First language

CUAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION OF THLE RESEARCIL

‘This chapter presents an introduction about the study including the

research questions, the goal, the scope of the study and the significance of the

study

L Rationale of the research

Nowadays, it is casy [or us lo gel access Lo a huge souree of information

related to any field with a click of mouse, thanks to the Internet Ilowever, at the

same time, plagiarism is an increasingly considerable phenomenon in the

academic settings, ospecially in writing Visiting the webpage of almost every university, typing the key word “plagiarism”, thousands of results can be reached

Tn Vietnam, the problem has been quite serious According lo Nguyen (2015), in

his article, he stated that 84% of the students cited the whole documents without

citations and considered it as normal Giang (2015) reported that the more the Intemot developed, the more trequently plagiarism occurred He also put omphasis

on the fact that the ratio of plagiarism in Vietnamese universities was even higher

than that in other universities in the world From these opinions, it can be notified

that plagiarism has been more and more severe in Vietnam

Realizing the issue, universities have included the knowledge about cilalion, mlegraling information in their curriculum Universily of Languages and

Intemational Studies is one of them The students are taught and given the

opportunities to practice this unit in their second — year of studying The students

can get familiar with the writing in the academic style, which is definitely beneficial when they conduct a research Also, besides from getting the

background data, the students can use the information to consolidate their ideas in

a proper manner However, during the practicing, the students are prone to making

mistakes as they are inexperience in this field Teachers, school authorities should notice these problems to support their students If the integration skill is improved,

the outcomes of students’ writing will surely be advanced, avoiding plagiarism

Understanding the importance of recognizing the mistakes that the students might make when combining the iwWormation inlo their essays, the rescarcher decided to enquire into the common mistakes that second year students made in

learning Line The students inight see the mistakes from their point of view but it

might contain the subjectivity Therefore, the rescarcher came te a decision that

the common mistakes would be looked into from both views: the subjective view

from the students and the objective one from their writing essays With this research, the researcher hope to figure out the current situation of students’ understanding related to integrating information as well as to propose some

methods that might pul the mistakes under control aril boost the persuasiveness of the students” writing in general

2 Aims of the research and research questions

The research aims at exploring the integration of information from articles into essay writing in of the second — year students in Faoulty of English Language

Teacher Education (FELTE) al University of Laryuages aud Inernalional Studies,

‘Vietnam National University (ULIS-VNU), focusing, on their mistakes Moreover,

the pedagogical implications for teaching writing and reading in an integrated

manner can be drawn from this research To achieve these goals, the research

attempts to answer these following questions:

1} What are the common mistakes the sophomores make when

integrating information from articles into essay wriling as perceived by the

students themselves?

2} What are the common mistakes they make when integrating

information from articles into essay writing judging from their work?

3 Research goals and objectives

The research is conducted wilh the purpose lo invesligate the current

situation and common errors in the integration of information from articles into essay writing of sophomores at ULIS Therefore, through this research,

can raisc the awareness about the difficultics when combining the information

2

from other sources, specifically articles, with writing Moreover, from the results, the effectiveness of the current (aching about the inlegraling process is reflected From that, pedagogical conclusion can also be drawn from the knowledge that the

research provides Lo conlrol the circumslance

To mest the goal, three objectives of the study are sot, including: (1) reporting on the integration of information from reading articles into essay writing

4 Significance of the study

‘To the researcher's knowledge, this study gives a general report on the

current situation of integration information from articles in writing and a reflection

on the common mislakes thal students make when exploiling the input From what they read into their writing, based on their empirical experiences in learning and

their writing products

The research is probably the first formal research on other mistakes, apart from citation errors, that students make during the writing process with the source of

information [rơm articles As the research imyesligales one of the issues thal

directly affects students’ academic writing at university in Vietnam, the researcher hopes to make certain contributions to the development of Vietnamese academic settings At the same time, the research is expected to benefit the students, the

teachers, the educationists and other related studies To be specific:

For the students, the research provides them with a full scale review about

their writing work with the citations and references It is likely to open a chance

for students te sclf — correct their mistakes m their next assignments and their future research

« For the teachers, especially writing ones, the research can be used as the

source of reference to review the teaching process and to evaluate the usefulness

of their instruction 10 Ihe students about, the integration between reading articles

3

and writing essays Consequently, they can make changes in their teaching approach to help the students improve their wriling

For the educationists, the results can be considered as the grounds to make

any necessary adjustments in the curriculum, facilities related to English subject, especially writing skill, to limit the misconduct and improve the Vietnamese

academic environment

For other related research, this sludy acts as the foundation Other researchers may consider the strengths and weaknesses of the research to better

theirs

5 Scope of the study

As the research focuses on the integrating information from articles in essay writing, the participants are the second — year students in FRLTE at ULTS,

VNU as in their 3C course for Fast-track classes and 3B course for other classes, they have a writing assiprnneml which requires them to wrile and synthesize the

information trom other sources to support their own ideas in writing

6 Organization of the study

This research paper consists of three major sections: introduction, development and conclusion respectively Though cach part plays a distinctive role, they all server the research objectives on the whole

The first scction is the introductory part In this part, the rationale, the research questions the objectives, the scope and the organization of the research are presented orderly As resull, the audience can gain an overview look about the research,

The most essential part is the development This seclion is divided into

three chapters: literature review, methodology and results and discussion ‘The

literature review provides the theoretical grounds for the research with the

thorough explanation of key terms The methodology inchides the data collection

instruments, data analysis instruments and the procedure (hal, {he researcher

follows to gather and analyze the information ‘Lhe results and the discussion cover two parts Tnilially, ihe resulis for each research questions are presented with charts and table for better illustration Then, the implications from the findings are discussed and collated ‘he readers can understand about the basis for what the researcher does and gain detailed knowledge about the research

The last main part of the research is called conclusion Were, the researcher delivers a brief summary of major findings and discussions and draws oul conclusions Also, the researcher reports the limitations of the paper in general and proposes some suggestions for further research This part helps the audience to

recognize the significance of lhe study

CUAPTER 2; LITERATURE REVIEW

‘This chapter provides the literature review as the grounds for the research All the background information and the key terms are explained in this chapler Also, from the literature review, the research gap is presented, which helps the audience understand the reasons pushing the researcher to conduct this study

1 Connection between Reading and Writing

1.1 Historical background about the connection between Reading and Writing

Reading and writing have been proved to be iterrelated for a long time This connection roots trom the L1 context, which is the mother tongue of the

students Back to the early history, there is an old saying that supports this point:

“Be careful what you read, for that how you will write” (as cited in Olness, 2005,

p.) In the study about learning L1, ‘Tierney and Pearson (as cited in Tsai, 2006,

para 3) stated that “at the heart of understanding the reading/writing, connection

one must begin lo view reading and wrilmg as essentially similar processes of

meaning construction”, In the same vein, Petrosky’s work (as cited in ‘Tsai, 2006,

para 3) emphasized that “reading, responding, and composing are aspects of

understanding, and theories that allempl lo account for them ouside of their

interactions with each other run the serious risk of building reductive modules of

onlinuonusly supported by other researchers in the

human reading” The point w

late 1980s Flower (as cited in Jeng-yih, n.d, p.4) considered reading and writing

as the means to develop “a newer concept of critical literacy”, which assists studenls to achieve the meaningful skills such as analysis, synthesis and crcalive expression .As a result, it is easily recognized that the link among these two skills has been drawn with huge attention from researchers and educators all over the world, The development of reading skill is walurally based on thal of writing skill and via versa in the acquisition of students’ first language

1.2 Studies on the connection between Reading and Writing in L2

Turning to L2 ability development, reading and writing have also be confimed to be conmected by various authors First and foremost, Pearson and Ticrney (as cited in Jong — yih, n.d., p 13) noted that “reading and writing are both

constructive” because in the end, students are supposed to construct hus or her own

meaning Krashen (as cited in Tsai, 2006) made a claim that from reading, students may build the knowledge based on these written texts, giving them a chance to acquire the language constructs, for example, grammatical structures and discourse rules for writing in her research in 1984 (p22) Qualley (1993) agreed with this viewpoint by saying that “when students experience active

reading in conjunction with their own writing, transference from one process to

the other is more likely to occur” (p.122) Furthermore, students’ decisions about

the selection, organization and connection of ideas, which occur during the

reading phase, may become the blueprint for whal the student will write (Flower,

1990} Adegbija and Ofuya (1997) and Olajide (1999) added the contributions of the punctuation to effective writing, which students leam from their reading Tsai (2006) proposed that “reading supporls and shapes L2 loarners’ wriling through acquisition of language input when students are performing reading task” (para 7), He explained that through reading the knowledge of vocabulary, grammatical

struclures, or rhetorical [features of texts are provided for students to learn and

therefore, they can use them in their writing In short, reading plays the role of

providiry: students wilh inpul for their writing int 7.2 because hey can learn from

the structures, the language of the given texts

2 The integration of information from articles into essay writing

2.1 Information from articles

To begin with, “article” is defined in the Oxford Advanced Leamers’

Dictionaries (2016) as “a piece of writing about a particular subject in a newspaper

or magazine” People read articles to get the knowledge about any field such as

polilies, education, arls and sơ on Nevertheless, in this study only, the research

only care about the online articles With the boom of technology, online articles

are available and accessible lo the majority of the citizens all aver the world The

information in the articles is supposed to be authentic and updated with the

continuous development of the world Thanks to the Internet, this source of

information is casily accessed wilh a click of mouse When applied in educational

context, the information from articles is a useful source for students to broaden their knowledge As the articles are written by various authors from different countries, religions, races, students have the opporlumily Lo open their mind with a

variety of viewpoints on a particular issue According to Princeton University

(2011), students are often required to cite quotation, fact and data from other

sourves This view is agrocd by Pormstate, College of Farth and Mineral Sciences

(nd) They established in their school website the instruction for students about writing, inchiding the part “When sources must be cited” mdicaling the types of information that students can withdraw from articles and use in their writing,

including quotations, opinions, predictions, statistios, visuals, case studies, theories, experimental specialized research procedures or findings Combining the Imowledge from the articles in the students’ writing helps to increase the

persuasiveness of their product with authentic evidences

2.2 Essay writing of sophomore at FELTE, ULLS

Tn the first tenn of the second year at ULIS, there are two different types of

writing assignment for Fast track students and normal students I'he former are

required 1o study and practice wriling a research proposal in their English 3C course and the latter have to write their essays with cited information from other

sources in their Inglish 3B course Although the format of writing is diverse, all the students have to practice using the information from outside sourees in their

some shorts interviews with the monitors of 2 classes (L4EI — East — track class

and 1453 — nortnal class) aboul the courses and collected the syllabuses of both

courses, Based on these two syllabuses, students were required to write a number

of essays However, before their writing, no malter im class or al home, students

were asked to do some rescarch on the topic together with the articles given by teachers ‘I'hen they collected their own materials and chose the supporting ideas

or the opinions thal might help la strengthen their ideas Students were also divided into pairs to work throughout the semester Students were instructed by

the teacher and were given the chance to write two drafts with peers’ and teacher’s comments before handing in the (ial version All the pisces were subrnitted to the

teacher in a portfolio so that teachers could assess student’ progress throughout the

course In the assessment section in the syllabus, there is a criterion indicating that

sludenls would inchide others’ idea in their writing with an appropriate format of in-text citation and reference following APA style This assures that the

information from articles used im Iheir essay wriling was assessed and accounted

for a certain portion of the total score

2.3 Studies about the integration af information from articles into essay writing

In the previous part, the researcher has discussed about the close link between reading and wriling in general This Ieads to the idea that reading and writing should be taught together because “students achieve better in bath area”, said Tierney & Shanahan (4s cited in Glenn, 2007, p.10) Langer and Applebee (as cited in Yun Dai, 2012, p.80) agreed by announcing that this integration makes students better “critical thinkers” ‘hey discovered that “reading - writing aclivilios appear (o lead to improved critical thinking are those thal promote individual, personal responses to literature” Hao (2002) conducted a research named “Integrating Reading and Writing in DLF Composition in China” Ile showed that with the text available, as “background sources” (p.4), along with the instruction from teachers, students feel more confident about finding something to

9

say He also emphasized that providing students with reading matenals in writing class and guiding them on how lo make use of these materials will support students’ learning in “gathering information to support, develop and generate new

ideas, al the same time, they may extent their lexical and syntactical repertoire by

imitation or copying” (p.4), The lexical and syntactical units may very from

words, phrases to sentence structure, organization or even style Lis research asserted that, the authenticily of reading maicrials made the wriling activity

become more contextualized and applicable to real life situations, thus, it satisfied

the “need for gemuine communication” From the research, it is realized that the integralion information from articles mio essay writing is worlh considering and students gain numerous benefits from that combination, both in terms of ideas and

language However, they can only do so with the closely careful guidance from the

teacher

3 Common mistakes in integrating information from articles reading into essay writing

Fven though the approach has received huge support from various authors,

the students still cannot get all the advantages ‘They make mistakes in the process

of using information from the authentic articles in their writing quite often

According lo Hao (2002), through his inlerview with some students in China and

Canada, it was reported from the students that they could comprehend the content

only Students participated in the interview were only capable of including isolated

words and expressions from their reading text in their writing, As a result, the reading activity tumed out to be “ineffective” lrom the study, the issue was that sludenls might read and understand the loxt bul they could nol use the lexl meaningfully in their writing Newton (1995) also identified a serious mistake in students’ writing — plagiarism Ile claimed that student actually did the research to have the knowledge about their topic and used other authors’ ideas but they forgot

website (2016), nine common mistakes of their students in writing with sources

from articles are listed: “too much description, not enough analysis; poor structure,

wrong register, ineffective paragraphing, too many quotes, poor choice of quotes,

insufficient or inadequate sources, incorrect referencing and plagiarism”, The

Center of Applied Linguistics in Hong Kong adjoined some other mistakes: “too

much details about the sources, double subject, punctuation, inappropriate

introductory verbs, opening paragraphs with quotations” Whether the students

might or might not realize their mistakes during the process for various reasons,

the most prominent one is their lack of the knowledge about citation and reference

skills This may root from the students’ carelessness or the inappropriate

instruction from their teachers

The researcher categories the mentioned mistakes above into three

categories: content, language and format as presented in the following table:

Poor choice of Irrelevant to the topic

information Outdated

‘Too much description of the information, not analyzing

Only listing the quotations/ information without analyzing or explaining

Unreliable source

Limited number of sources

Inappropriate introductory verbs

Realizing the mistakes from students, many researchers conducted their

work to investigate in the mistakes that student makes, Among those, “In Other

(People’s) Words: plagiarism by university students—literature and lessons” by

Chris Park (2003) is a significant research He pointed out the types of plagiarism

that students often made when they used information from different sources such

as printer, from the Internet and so on He gave out the method that students use to

“cheat” and also explained the reasons why students did that in their writing His

research is quite thorough with explanation and examples from his real surveys

and interviews with students Another author paying attention to this issue is Wayne Schices, a Legal Writing Tnstruefor al the University Of Texas School OF Law in Austin In his book named “Perspectives: ‘teaching Legal Research and Wriling”, published in 2002, he also identified the “Common student citation mistakes” based on his rescarch on first — year students He proposed the reasons and the way that made students’ citation wrong, then, compared the incorrect cilation from students with the correct one This showed readers, especially students, the formal writing style and somehow this chapter in his book acted as a guideline for students to check on their own citation writing and correct it by

themselves

4.2 Research gap

Llowever, the common mistakes have only been looked into from separated aspecls, not in geroral Also the area of the subject is quite broad, which is between reading, and writing ‘this pushes the researcher to make investigation into the common mistakes in other aspects such as the content, language What's more,

there are few researches concerning the issue in Vietnamese comilext, specifically

in University of Languages and International Studies ‘the mistakes when

integrating information from articles in essay writing should be categorized in

three scelions: content, bmguage ønd fonnat, combining these two lists [rom

Monash University (2016) and The Center of Applied Linguisties in IIong Kong

(n.d) with the adaptation from the researcher

From the gaps mentioned above, the researcher is highly motivated to

conduct ihe research on “Mistakes in integrating information from articles into

essay writing of sophomores at FELTE, ULIS, VNU.”

13

CUAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents the methads employed in the research it includes

choice of participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedure,

data analysis instruments and data analysis procedure

1 Participants and the selection of participants

In order to find the answer for two research questions, the researcher chooses to invesligate the second-ycar sturlents al Universily of Languages and International Studies (LIS), Vietnam National University of Hanoi

Thore arc 154 students including 15 boys and 139 girls from eight classes

voluntarily taking part in the research including 141, 142, 14⁄3, 14124,

14ES, 14E6, 14H? and 14E8 The reason the researcher chooses these

participants is that they are all majored in Hnelish Language Teaching Education Besides, according to the curriculum at ULIS, the participants are

all supposed lo have achieved B2 level (according to Common Furopean

Framework Reference) for their Unglish language proficiency ‘fhe majority of

the participants often get the score for writing ranging from 6 to 8, according to

Ihe study record provided by the class mortitors Tn the [hird semester at ULIS, they have to lear how to integrate information in their writing in their English

course Specifically shown in the syllabus, the integration is included in the course 3C with writing a proposal for class 14H] and 14K2 and the course 3B

with essay writing for other classes This is the first time the participants have ihe opportunity (o reference other people’s ideas and combine them with their

own writing,

2, Research approaches: A combination of quantitative and qualitative

methods

In this study, the researcher chose to put together two research methods:

quantilative and qualilalive This means that the quantitative and qualialive

approaches are integrated in theory, data collection, data analysis and interpretation (Bamberger 2012, p 1) As many methods are combined in the research, Todd (1979) stated that “the weaknesses of cach single method will

be compensated by the counter balancing, strengths of another” (p 604), In his study, the researcher decided lo adopl this type of rescarch considering the advantages that cannot be offered when utilizing either the quantitative or the qualitative method separately

‘To start with, the mixed method brings about the validity and the oredibility

of the findings from various data collection instruments Through the

quantilalive methods, the researcher was able 1o gather the information from a large number of participants As a result, the generalization about the issue

could be made to a cerlain degree Additionally, the analyst could bring the

number of variables under control to reduce the complex problem Meanwhile,

the qualitative methods tend to provide in — depth and detailed data for analysis Unlike the quantitative methods, the qualitalive ones only focus on a particular limited number of participants ‘Ihe researcher, consequently, could discover further ideas from the participants, especially unusual responses, aside

from the fixed set of questions, which led to a more meticulous understanding

about the participants Combining these two methods, the results from each can complement the other, thus, euhancing the validily of the research Resides, the credibility is ensured as two methods could “minimize criticism that you may receive about sample sizes, applicability across the general population or depth

of responses” (Dahlberg & McCaig, 2010, p.117) Another benefit of the

muxed method is that it increases the comprehensiveness of the research as

many tools are employed in the process

15

According to USAID (2013), to integrate the quantitative and qualitative methods, there arc three common ways: “parallel combination” (p.4),

“sequential combination” (p.4) and “multilevel combination” (p.5) Yet, considering the requirements of the research, the researcher decided to follow the last one as the rescarch necds the information from different cases and sources, then the conclusion can be drawn from the combination of the analysis

from each level

To sum up, the combination of the quantitative and qualitative can provide both the numenc and narrative date for ihe research As the resull, the validity,

the reliability and the objectivity an be ensured as much as possible

3 Data collection instruments

As aforeanentioned, boih the qualitative and quanlilalive methods were utilized in this study Therefore, the researcher proposed three instruments to collect data: questionnaire, interview and writing collection AH the information and walerials will only be publicized with the participants’

allowance

2.4, Questionnaire

This daia collection tool was employed to find out the students’

perspectives towards their mistakes when they combine the information from articles into their writing

‘The questionnaire covered some basic persona! information of the students

and a chart indicating the mistakes students make during integrating

infomation, which were categorized im three main parts: content, language and

format ‘Ihe items in the questionnaires are all multiple choice Participants

were allowed to choose more than one option for each question However, the

rescarclicr anticipated that the provided options might not cover all the possible

answers from the participants This resulted in the “Others” option in each part,

im which students could add their own responses to the questions

This instrumenl was chosen for ts effectiveness ju collecting data Tk was

proved to be not only ccouomical but also casily distributed to numerous participants Participants fill in the questionnaire voluntarily without the

researcher’s presence This helps to ensure the objectivity of the work

On the other hand, the questionnaire has been reported to have various

disadvantages The most prominent drawback is that the parlicipants may copy from others, which seriously affects the outcome of the study on the whole

Additionally, as the researcher did not show up when the participants filled in

ihe questionnaire, they might misunderstand the questions as well as the options ‘hese reasons pushed the researcher to gather the information from

another tool: interview

3.2 Writing collection

‘This instrument was utilized to provide the researcher the opportunity to

investigate the mistakes that students actually made when they integrated

information inlo (heir essay writing

The researcher collected the writing {rom four classes: 14E], 14E2, 1453

and 145 The students submitted their product voluntarily via email for the

researcher The researcher decided to ask for soft version of the essays to save more time and make iL more convenient for (he parlicipants To be specific, the number of essays collected from each class was illustrated in the following table:

Table 2: The essuys collected from sophomores

1

The biggest advantage of this instrument is that it guaranteed the objectivity since the researcher could independently carry onl the detailed investigation into the stadent’s writing to identify their mistakes Besides, all the writings

were wrilen for the sludying purposes, nol for research ones so they were authentic đata for the rescarcli

3.3 Interview

With a view to have an in — depth look inta the students’ responses in the

quesliomane and galher further explanation about the students’ mislakes in their writing, the researcher decided to conduct a number of interviews with the students According to Marshall and Rossman (2006), the most prominent

‘beret of in — depth interview is that “Immediate follow — up and clarification

are possible” (p 102) ‘hus, interviews can consolidate the reasons behind the

choices the sludents made in both the quesliormairs and in their writing Based

on the two purposes, the interview process was divided into two stages

For the first siages, the tlerview was camed oul io inlerrogate the students” answers in the questionnaire ‘he interview was conducted after the

survey had been analyzed thoroughly There were 10 semi — structured

nilerviews with the sludenls who had the significant choices fram the

questionnaire The interviews were conducted in person so that the researcher

could ask further questions based on their questionnaire answer or on any issue

that happened during the interview

For the x ond slage, the inlerview was conduc d with the focus on the

students’ writing, After analyzing the collected essays, the researcher made contact with the authors of the essays to make an appointment for the

mlerview The researcher’s inlenlion was to review the mistakes direclly with

the students who made them to clarify any confusion about the types of the

mistakes and the questions for these interviews were constructed based on the

18

researcher’s notes during the writing analysis process There were 8 interviews

in lotal However, wilh the aina to look deeper in their writing, mostly checking the source of information and the format of referencing the students used, the researcher decided to conduct the interview online via Skype and Facebook The rescarcher sont back the imterviowees their writing with the highlight and notes and led the interviews with prepared as well as some follow up questions This gave the students a chance lo track back the sources they used via the Internet and also the researcher could point the questioning part for the interviewees easily

4 Data collection procedure

4.1 Questionnaire

Step 1: Designing the questionnaire

The researcher adapted from the checklists from Monash University and The Center of Applied Linguistics in Hong Kong to design the questionnaire with three main sections: Content, Language and Format

Step 2: Piloting the questionnaire

The researcher gave the soft version of the questionnaire to 10 second — year students and asked them to fill in it Then, any aroused confusion was taken into consideration and made adjustments

Step 3: Administrating

The researcher allicially delivered the questionnaire to vight classes 1471, 14H2, 14E3, 144, 14E5, 14H6, 14E7 and 14H8 Thủs siep lasted in three weeks from the end of January to the end of February, 2015 because of the national holidays ‘The participants did the surveys without the researcher’s presence, All the completed questionnaires were gathered afterwards

19

4.2 Writing collection

Step 1: Contacting with participants

The researcher contacted the students, mostly the monitors and asked the writing pieces in 3C course (for 1421 and 142) and 3b (for other classes)

Participants gave the writing to the researcher voluntarily

Step 2: Collecting the products

‘The researcher received the soft version of essays from participants through emails The process lasted in the whole February

43 Interview

Stage 1: About the questionnaire

Slep t: Designing the questions for the interview

Based on the results from the survey, the research posed the questions

related to the prominent features As the scmi — structure interview was

selected, the researcher only had 2 to 4 prepared questions for each student and other follow — up questions were posed during the interview

Step 2: Making appointments with students

‘The researcher contacted 10 interviewees to ask for an appointment ‘Time

and place of the interview were discussed and apreed between both sides Step 3: Carrying the interview

The interviews were conducted following the fixed schedule The

interviews took place in a week at the beginning of March, 2015 All the

information were noied dawn by the researcher and stored ina secure file Stage 2: About the writing analysis

Step 1: Designing the questions for the interview

Based on the detected mistakes in the essays, the research posed the questions to find further clarification from the students

Step 2: Making appointments with students

‘The researcher contacted 8 selected interviewees to ask for an appointment

The time and the means of media were discussed and agreed by both sides Step 3: Carrying the interview

The interviews were conducted online following the tixed schedule The interviews took place in the last of March, 2015 All the information were noted down by the researcher and stored in a secure file

5 Data analysis instrument

‘The researcher proposes two data analysis methods: Quantitative and Qualitative methods with three mentioned data collection tools: questionnaire, interview and writing collection For cach instrument, the researcher proposed the specific data analysis methods to uncover the results

5.1 Quantitative method — Survey

Aller collecting the data, the researcher numbered the papers from 1 10 154

‘Then, all the results were imported into a Microsoft Excel file due to two reasons Firstly, Microsoft Fxcel is the basic office program available in almost every computer, which gives the rescarcher an casy avecss Secoudly, this program is able to store the huge data from the questionnaire orderly so that the researcher could refer back to the information easily when needed

Next, the researcher used the available formulas in Microsoft Excel to

counl the ralion of each answer The results of the questionmaire were drawn

+

with the detailed figures Finally, the researcher presented results in charts for betler Wustration

5.2 Qualitative method

321 Interview

‘The information from the interview underwent three stages: Documentation {transcribing the recorded data), Coding and Interpretation First and foremost,

the information about interview was transcribed and slored in a secured file

Afterwards, as the interviews were semi structure, the researcher highlighted the related answers from students, coded and categorized them into suitable sections This step provided grounds for interpretation As stated, the data was interpreted by giving comments as well as drawing major findings ‘The data was added (o the findings fram the questionnaires and Ihe writing analysis to

create anin depth research

5.22 Writing analysis

With 30 essays collected from the students, the researcher numbered all the papers fiom 1 to 30 and created a Microsolt Word file Lo store the personal information from the essays It helped the researcher to keep the documents well — organized and to refer back easily

Then the researcher designed the checklist with all the mistakes that the studenls might make m thew writing, calegorized into Lee separate seclions:

content, language and format ‘the checklist was developed from the literature

review, which included the mistakes mentioned in the Monash University

websile, The Cenler of Applied Linguistics in Hong Kong, and the adaptation

from the researcher It was in the form of a table with the name of the mistakes and the evidence from students’ wriling thal the researcher spolted oul There

was also space for the researcher to note down any questions regarding the

essays, Rach cssay was allached with a scparate checklist paper

As the focus of the analysis was on (he imlegralion section, the researcher

highlighted all the quotations and paraphrased sentences in the essay Then the essay was checked by the online plagiarism checker Plag Scan to identify any

problem related to plagiarism The researcher revisited all the sources provided

in the reference page ‘This step allowed the researcher to review the reliability, the updating, the relevance between the source and the accessibility of the

source Then the format of the reference, both in — text and im the reference section was examined ‘The researcher followed the instruction on APA style

presented in Purdue Online Writing Lab website, which belongs to Purdue

Universily — a major research university in Indiana, USA All the elements

included in the reference were compared to the rules in APA and the researcher

marked down alf ihe mismatches After that, the allention was paid on Lhe

language used in the integrating section, both words and structures

With the notes from the essay exanmning process, the researcher compared

them to the questionnaire answer of every student who wrote the essays It

allowed the researcher to evaluate whether the students realized exactly about

their inistakes or nol

6 Data analysis procedure

G.I Questionnaire

Step 1: Checking the questionnaires

The researcher carefully checked all the forms lo make sure participants gave answers to all the questions and the given answers must be valid and understandable Any paper that did not meet the requirement is eliminated Step 2: Gathering statistic

23

The researcher imported the answers into an Excel sheet and calculated the pereentages in cach option Al (he same lime, the researcher noled down any pronuinent features or special pattemns in the questionnaire to select interviewees for the interview

Step 3: Presenting the results

The researcher created charts to present the collected data with clear explanation for better illustration

62 Interview

Step 1: Transcribing the data

All the information from the interview was transcribed from oral to written

form

Slep 2: Verifying the data

The researcher checked the information thoroughly to ensure the reliability

of the mterview findings:

Step 3: Categorizing and coding the data

Al the information was categorized according to the types of mistakes and

the personal information of the parlicipants was coded

Step 4: Reporting the data

‘The researcher added the information from the interviews to the results

from questionnaire and writing analysis

63 Writing analysis

Step 1: Coding the data

All the personal information in the writing was coded to ensure the abjeclivity The wriling cssays wore numbered for laler reference

Step 2: Analyzing the data

The collected essays were analyzed with the checklist from the researcher and online tools All the evidence of each mistakes were noted on the form

‘Then the researcher posed the question for the interviews based on the

notes

Step 3: Comparing the data with questionnaire

Each student’ questionnaire answer was compared with the result from theiz

essay

Step 4: Polishing with information from interviews

The resulls from writing analysis will be compared to the surveys and

interviews to identify if there is a mismatch

Step 5: Presenting the result

The researcher visualized the findings in charts and graphs

25

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the findings from the analysis The results are

separated into two sections to answer each research question to make it easy for

the audience to follow Charts are included for better illustration Discussion is

presented with the implication from the findings and suggestions are proposed

1 Findings from data analysis

1.1 Second — year students’ perception towards their mistakes when

integrating information from articles into essay writing

Based on the analyzed data, the research was able to comment on the

students’ viewpoint towards their own mistakes when including information from

articles into their writing output, This analysis will answer the first research

question: What are the common mistakes the sophomores make when integrating

information from articles into essay writing as perceived by the students

fToo much description of the

MMOutdated quotes or information

information without analyzing or

26

Figure 1: Mistakes retated to content that students think they have made when integrating information from articles in their essay

As described in the chart, among 154 second — year students filling in the

questionnaire, 95 poople (62%) reported that they only listed the quotations or information without analyzing or explanation ‘his mistake became the most

common content error as perceived by the students themselves “Limited number

of sources” took the second place with 52%, closely followed by “Lureliable source” with 19% of the participants Next, the students thought that when quoting

the information, they might have chosen the both the ielevant and the outdated

information with 12% and 4.1% of the total responses respectively inally, only

nearly one —fifth of the research population agreed that when integrating

information, they described the mformation instoad of analyzing it

During the interview, when being asked aboul how they chose the suitable arueles for their writing, the majority of the students stated they often used key words from the topic and searched online via google.com; scholar google.com and researchgale.nel They were given instruction on how fo check the reliability of the sources such as checking the domain of the website, doing some research on the authors and they followed the instruction However, they did not examine all the clements (rom the sources 6 oul of 10 interviewees responded that they onily check the domain of the website address Besides, a student from 1413 said that “I

only choose the materials thal T can understand aller my first glance”

27

tz Wrong register (informal/ spoken

Figure 2: Mistakes related to language that students think they have made when

integrating information from articles in their essay

As depicted in the chart above, 82%, which was equivalent to 125 students,

considered “Ineffective paraphrasing” as the most frequent error they made

Meanwhile, only 43% of the participants recognized that they might have used

inappropriate introductory verbs when they cited information from outside

sources They also claimed to make grammatical and spelling mistakes with 39%

for the former and 36% for the latter “Wrong register” and “Poor structure” were

closely behind, accounting for 32% and 34% respectively The percentage of

students thought they reduplicated the subject in the sentence when writing in —

text citation was just 22%, which was the least selected option

The researcher continued with the interview to investigate in the reason

why paraphrasing appeared to be the most troublesome issue according to the

responses from the questionnaire The majority of the respondents (8 students)

declared that paraphrasing was the new skill that they only acknowledged since

28

they started university, which meant only one year Therefore, they felt

unconfident doing this task, Besides, a student from class 14E1 added that she

found it challenging to express the idea with her own vocabulary because she did

not know the synonyms of the words Next, the interviewees believed that they

were confident with their grammar as they had learnt grammar throughout

schooling time, especially when they prepared for the university entrance exam,

As a result, the grammatical and spelling mistakes were limited

fa Mismatch (references in text and on Reference page)

®Not following the alphabetical order (in the Reference page)

saSpacing

§iPunctuation Formatting

Order of information lack of required information

Figure 3: Mistakes related to format that students think they have made when

integrating information from articles in their essay

The chart represented 12 mistakes related to format as perceived by the

students and both in — text citation and reference page are taken into consideration

As illustrated in the chart, the first place was taken by “Introducing author with no

reference” and “Lack of required information” in the reference with 59%,

29

equivalent to 91 students Around 55% of the sophomores claimed to write the rolerence page in no alphabolical order and in gach reference they ordered the information incorrectly Next, formatting mistakes received 43% with 66 students

A litle above 40% of the students Giought that (hey included a quote without any

explanation (dropped quotes) or they used quotations to open the paragraph Subsequently, one third of the research population stated to have used too many quoles in [heir writing as well as have mistakes with punctuation i the reference Contrary to the researcher’s expectation, spacing error was selected by 28%,

which was 3% higher than the number of students with mismatch error Plagiarism slood in the last spol with only 23% of the sluderts clanming Lo have thal mistake

in their writing

From the imlerview, all 10 studenis admilted that (hey made mistakes with

the reference at the end of their writing more frequently than with in text

cilation They supplemented that the rules of reforeneitys following APA slylc were so difficult with numerous of genres, elements ‘{heir teachers did instruct

them about APA stvle with handouts but they could not thoroughly understand and romomiber the rules to wrile the cilalion part appropriately Spocifically, the

student who chose all the mistakes in the format section complained that the

information from articles appeared in various forms, which made her confused

when she needed lo choose the proper formal for the mlonmation she wanled to

include

1.2, Second — year students’ mistakes when they integrated information from

articles into essay writing judging from their essays

With the collected writing file from the second year students, the researcher analyzed the data by identifying the mistakes in the writing and comparing the results to the questionaire individually This analysis is served to answer the second research questions: What are the common mistakes they make