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Plagiarism, Intellectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing
Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 148–152
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap
Book reviews Plagiarism, Intellectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing, Joel Bloch. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, New York, Ontario (2012). p. 188, US $ 39.95 /UK £24.95., Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-84769-651-9, US $ 176.96 /UK £79.95, Hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-84769-652-6
Joel Bloch is an experienced teacher and researcher in writing for L2 students whose experiences of teaching abroad undoubtedly give him a wide perspective on the teaching of writing across cultures. I think that his book, although titled for L2 teachers/writers, would be equally relevant to those working with L1 students as the problems of plagiarism and authorship are certainly not restricted to L2 classrooms. Throughout the book, Bloch urges us to consider how to deal with change as literacy itself changes and develops, and to consider new ways of framing the debate around plagiarism. In the first chapter ‘The Problem of Plagiarism’ Bloch suggests that the lack of a universally accepted definition or even understanding of what constitutes plagiarism is a key issue for teachers. He attempts to establish plagiarism as a global problem with a look at surveys of its incidence and celebrated cases across the world. I was little surprised to see what I understood to be the UK Royal College of Nursing described as the Royal School of Nursing. In declaring that plagiarism is the misappropriation of intellectual property, Bloch immediately links these two issues and opens up the discussion on some very controversial concepts. He reminds us that discussion of plagiarism can generate a heated and often emotional debate that often occurs within a moral framework given its perceived impact on the credibility of institutions. In this introductory chapter, Bloch also asks us to consider why students cheat, and indeed whether cheating or stealing is the most appropriate metaphor to use, which is a theme to which later chapters return. His suggestion that students may not set out to cheat but plagiarise because of inexperience with writing from sources or lack of understanding of assessment tasks will be familiar, of course, to teachers across a range of disciplines. Bloch attempts to dispel the myth of a cultural predilection to plagiarism with illustrations stemming from his own experience of teaching overseas, and he challenges the view that cultural practices are monolithic and unchanging. He suggests that western cultures do not have a monopoly on valuing originality but that cultural perspectives on imitation, creativity and originality may vary. This chapter concludes by introducing the topic of plagiarism and technology to which later chapters also return and which will, therefore, be considered later. Chapter 2 ‘Intellectual property issues and plagiarism: what the debate means for first and second language writers’ offers a fascinating history of the development of intellectual property as a concept as Bloch introduces his core theme that plagiarism cannot be understood without also considering intellectual property law and conventions. An obvious but interesting distinction is made between intellectual property which may be borrowed or stolen without the owner realising and that of physical property whose loss would be noticed and could be measured or replaced. Bloch suggests that these blurred understandings are at the centre of the confusion over plagiarism. Bloch returns to the theme of alternative metaphors for intellectual property, such as Litman’s (2008) ‘fence’ which is a flexible not rigid boundary and ‘creative commons’ which decentralizes control over how intellectual property might be used. Bloch also offers a powerful alternative in the US notion of ‘fair use’ which derives from a Jeffersonian principle of balancing the rights of any one author or creator against the need to spread ideas to promote further creativity. Bloch reminds us that the notion of intellectual property is relatively new, and that before the 18th century explosion in publishing in the West, authorship was seen as divinely inspired and so not belonging to any individual. Again through cultures and ages, Bloch suggests there exists a changing balance between the rights of the individual and the societal imperative for a wider spread of ideas. Bloch discusses the Internet again in this chapter and highlights some of the inconsistencies that it creates. One such example is the apparently unusual situation in intellectual property law that allows an employer to read an employee’s emails on a company network but would not allow an employer to read a letter posted to the employee at the company address. Bloch highlights that conflicts over creation and ownership are even more likely with internet based literacies given that the internet can be seen as an open access space, and urges greater understanding of the rules relating to these newer and developing genres. Bloch believes that the principle of ‘transformation’ that has been in traditional use to determine
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 148–152
149
ownership is both ambiguous and subjective. The cathedral-bazaar metaphor (p. 43) for the internet would be useful in highlighting the conflicts to students. This asks us to consider if the internet is a cathedral with one entrance or a bazaar where anyone can enter and follow a route of choice. This chapter then concludes with a discussion of intent as a determinant of how plagiarism amongst students should be viewed, although I think that this might have been better placed in the first introductory chapter. ‘Connecting intellectual property law and plagiarism in the writing classroom’, the title of Chapter 3, again examines the role of intellectual property law and reminds us that it does serve a purpose in promoting creativity and idea development but that these purposes can be contradictory, which reflects the discussion in the previous chapter on the needs of society and the individual. This is a succinct and well structured chapter that encourages the writing teacher to reflect on issues relating to intellectual property law, especially those pertinent to newer forms of literacy spawned by the internet. This chapter also includes a concluding summary in bullet points that does not appear in other chapters but might have been equally useful elsewhere. Chapter 4, ‘A pedagogical approach towards plagiarism’, begins with a historical overview of plagiarism which might also have been better placed in the introductory material, but is nonetheless interesting as it highlights the increasing prominence of plagiarism as universities began to cater for professional rather than gentleman students. Bloch offers what could be a fairly definitive statement that “plagiarism is about the rules for textual borrowing” (p. 75) which links to the pedagogical problem of ensuring that students understand the rules for borrowing in particular genres. In chapter 5,’Searching for a metaphor for thinking about plagiarism’, Bloch returns to the search for a metaphor to capture plagiarism and reminds us that traditionally ‘stealing’ or ‘cheating’ are used, or in the case of definite intellectual property violations, we might find ‘piracy’ or ‘fraud.’ Bloch stresses that copying can be coping, particularly for L2 students and suggests that ‘dancing’ is a more useful way of considering the challenge of negotiating the complex rules. One practical suggestion is for students to produce multiple drafts of work to show provenance and development but one wonders how that would be received by hard pressed faculty. Bloch gives some prominence to his ‘game’ metaphor and to the role of students as game players in this and the following chapter. I do not think that the notion of ‘game’ is new: readers might be familiar with Newman’s (2001) view that students see college work as a game whose aim is to display content knowledge and develop strategies to play the game and achieve the grades that are the perceived prize. Bloch develops this further by exploring how understanding the complex academic and social conventions around plagiarism can enable students to become successful game players and find their voice. The final chapter ‘Rethinking pedagogical strategies for thinking about plagiarism’ is, in many ways, the most interesting as it calls directly on Bloch’s experience and that of his students and colleagues. Following on from his plea in chapter 5 to discuss plagiarism in a contextualised sense rather than as an absolute, Bloch suggests that teachers ensure that plagiarism is addressed as part of the writing process and not just as part of the mechanical or functional skill of preparing citations. We might all agree that there is certainly no point in students being able to compose a citation and a perfect reference list if they are not also learning how to engage with their reading and construct knowledge from it as they seek disciplinary expertise. Bloch reports from his own research that there were low levels of agreement between students on issues such as how much copying constitutes plagiarism and how to define ‘common knowledge’. Students agreed on other questions such as deciding that buying a research paper was clearly plagiarism. Of even more interest is the student confusion around intellectual property law which was illustrated by substantial numbers of students believing that professors could adopt ideas from student papers without attribution and that plagiarism only refers to texts and not other types of vehicles for ideas such as images. Students expressed the view that intention should be the key to determining punishment, whilst there were more conflicting views about plagiarism amongst staff, which Bloch highlights as an added problem for students in understanding the rules and sanctions. Bloch discusses a course about plagiarism that encourages students to explore authorship and learn how to produce texts and images that transform rather than derive from sources, in short, to find their voice. This finds echoes in the work of Pittam et al. (2009) and Elander et al. (2010) in the UK who also designed successful interventions intended to help students see themselves as authors and this avoid unintentional plagiarism. The ‘Conclusion’ draws together the themes introduced with a reminder that change is constant. Universities therefore need to revisit their attitude and response to plagiarism and teachers need to be sure that students are included in the dialogue. I think “Plagiarism, Intellectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing” contains many interesting insights that will help inform the debate around plagiarism and encourage teachers of writing, whether with L1 or L2 students, to put promoting authorship and thus academic integrity at the heart of their work. My reservations are around the chapter sequencing and organisation which I found a little repetitive and confusing and the fact that not all chapters were of similar length or similarly structured. I would also have valued an index to the text. This useful and thought-provoking book should be required reading for teachers who are interested in exploring how a wider understanding of the complexities of plagiarism and intellectual property might help them support students developing their writing skills on academic programmes. References Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, H. (2010). Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(2), 157–171.
150
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 148–152
Litman, J. (2008). Choosing metaphors. In C. Eisner, & M. Vicinius (Eds.), Originality, imitation and plagiarism : Teaching writing in the digital age). Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press Newman, M. (2001). The academic achievement game: designs of undergraduates to get grades. Written Communication, 18(4), 470–505. Pittam, G., Elander, J., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, H. (2009). Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing. Studies in Higher Education, 34(2), 153–170.
Jackie Hulse University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, United Kingdom
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2012.10.005
Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis, Diane Pecorari. London: Continuum (2008), 213 pp., £75.00/ $US150.00, Hardback, ISBN: 978 0 8264 9166 4, £24.99/$US 44.95, Paperback, ISBN: 978 1 4411 3953 5 Cite them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide, Richard Pears and Graham Shields, 8th ed., Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan (2010). 112 pp., £9.99/$US22.00, Paperback, ISBN: 978 0230272316 Referencing and Understanding Plagiarism, Kate Williams and Jude Carroll Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2009), 128 pp., £5.99/$US10.00, Paperback, ISBN: 978 0230574793
University students writing for assessment face a dizzying number of hurdles to get over on the way to the successful completion of their studies. One such hurdle involves becoming accustomed to creating “texts out of the sea of former texts that surround us” (Bazerman, 2004: 83). As an EAP instructor responsible for the delivery of courses that explain how to use sources within academic writing I am constantly, somewhat ironically, looking for texts (to give to and use with students) that help to elucidate the often confusing ‘social rules’ (Barton, 2000; Baynham, 1995; Street, 1995) of how (and how not) to draw on and present others in academic writing. In this short review paper I review three very different books that have citation as a central focus and that perhaps represent a possible spectrum on which citation may be approached – as topic to be researched (Pecorari, 2008a), instructional (Williams and Carroll, 2009), and reference material/style guide (Pears and Shields, 2010). I believe that all three books represent a valuable resource for EAP practitioners and review these books from a pragmatic perspective – their use (or potential use) with students in EAP classes and EAP provision in higher education. I draw on my own personal use of these books in class when possible. Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis by Diane Pecorari is informed by empirical research (a PhD thesis whose original title is “Original Reproductions: An investigation of the source use of postgraduate second language writers”). This publication “examines the implications of [the] gap between the institutions’ expectations of the students, student performance and institutional awareness, and suggests pedagogic solutions to be implemented at student, classroom and institutional levels” (Pecorari, 2008a: back cover). In the move from assessment to publication, sections have been removed (e.g. literature review), information has been reorganised (e.g. methods moved to an appendix), and the target audience has been broadened (see Caro, 2009; Johnson, 2011). It has been previously reviewed in academic journals (e.g. Bloch, 2009; Charles, 2008), internet publications (e.g. The Linguist List, see Bain Butler, 2011), and magazines that look at topics within education (e.g. Walden, 2009). All of the reviewers have unanimously praised the book highly and I would agree with such praise. Diane Pecorari is a well respected scholar within the EAP community and has also written on the topic of source use from a pedagogic perspective (e.g. Pecorari, 2008b) as well as from the perspective of second language writers (e.g. Pecorari, 2006). Although Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis has not been written explicitly as an instructional text (unlike e.g. Williams and Carroll, 2009), nor a style guide (see Pears and Shields, 2010) I have found sections of the book to be extremely useful to provide background reading for EAP classes. For example, chapter 5 ‘My position, it is impossible’: The Writers’ Perspectives, allows (especially second language) students to empathise with the plight of Graciela, Maria, Erden, Roula, Kwan et al. as they struggle to use sources in their writing. This chapter begins with the notion of intentionality (‘Was it intentional?’, Pecorari, 2008a: 98 – a theme not only in chapter 5 but throughout this book) which in my experience plays a central part of shaping institutional policy related to the use of sources in academic writing (see e.g. Institute of Education, 2011). In my classes on using sources I often encounter incidences of patchwriting in students’ use of paraphrase (mostly from internet sources, see chapter 7 pp. 154–158) and have found that having students read on this issue from the writers’ perspective (chapter 5), as well as from the reader’s (chapter 6) leads to productive discussion on, and an understanding of this issue as a developmental step for writers in higher education (see Howard, 1995; 1999). A book that has pedagogy as its focus is Referencing & Understanding Plagiarism, by Kate Williams and Jude Carroll and is an addition to Palgrave Macmillian’s pocket study skills titles. Titles in this popular series aim to provide ‘time pushed’ (inside cover) students with targeted information in an accessible format. Kate Williams has authored and co-authored several of the
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap
Book reviews Plagiarism, Intellectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing, Joel Bloch. Multilingual Matters, Bristol, New York, Ontario (2012). p. 188, US $ 39.95 /UK £24.95., Paperback, ISBN: 978-1-84769-651-9, US $ 176.96 /UK £79.95, Hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-84769-652-6
Joel Bloch is an experienced teacher and researcher in writing for L2 students whose experiences of teaching abroad undoubtedly give him a wide perspective on the teaching of writing across cultures. I think that his book, although titled for L2 teachers/writers, would be equally relevant to those working with L1 students as the problems of plagiarism and authorship are certainly not restricted to L2 classrooms. Throughout the book, Bloch urges us to consider how to deal with change as literacy itself changes and develops, and to consider new ways of framing the debate around plagiarism. In the first chapter ‘The Problem of Plagiarism’ Bloch suggests that the lack of a universally accepted definition or even understanding of what constitutes plagiarism is a key issue for teachers. He attempts to establish plagiarism as a global problem with a look at surveys of its incidence and celebrated cases across the world. I was little surprised to see what I understood to be the UK Royal College of Nursing described as the Royal School of Nursing. In declaring that plagiarism is the misappropriation of intellectual property, Bloch immediately links these two issues and opens up the discussion on some very controversial concepts. He reminds us that discussion of plagiarism can generate a heated and often emotional debate that often occurs within a moral framework given its perceived impact on the credibility of institutions. In this introductory chapter, Bloch also asks us to consider why students cheat, and indeed whether cheating or stealing is the most appropriate metaphor to use, which is a theme to which later chapters return. His suggestion that students may not set out to cheat but plagiarise because of inexperience with writing from sources or lack of understanding of assessment tasks will be familiar, of course, to teachers across a range of disciplines. Bloch attempts to dispel the myth of a cultural predilection to plagiarism with illustrations stemming from his own experience of teaching overseas, and he challenges the view that cultural practices are monolithic and unchanging. He suggests that western cultures do not have a monopoly on valuing originality but that cultural perspectives on imitation, creativity and originality may vary. This chapter concludes by introducing the topic of plagiarism and technology to which later chapters also return and which will, therefore, be considered later. Chapter 2 ‘Intellectual property issues and plagiarism: what the debate means for first and second language writers’ offers a fascinating history of the development of intellectual property as a concept as Bloch introduces his core theme that plagiarism cannot be understood without also considering intellectual property law and conventions. An obvious but interesting distinction is made between intellectual property which may be borrowed or stolen without the owner realising and that of physical property whose loss would be noticed and could be measured or replaced. Bloch suggests that these blurred understandings are at the centre of the confusion over plagiarism. Bloch returns to the theme of alternative metaphors for intellectual property, such as Litman’s (2008) ‘fence’ which is a flexible not rigid boundary and ‘creative commons’ which decentralizes control over how intellectual property might be used. Bloch also offers a powerful alternative in the US notion of ‘fair use’ which derives from a Jeffersonian principle of balancing the rights of any one author or creator against the need to spread ideas to promote further creativity. Bloch reminds us that the notion of intellectual property is relatively new, and that before the 18th century explosion in publishing in the West, authorship was seen as divinely inspired and so not belonging to any individual. Again through cultures and ages, Bloch suggests there exists a changing balance between the rights of the individual and the societal imperative for a wider spread of ideas. Bloch discusses the Internet again in this chapter and highlights some of the inconsistencies that it creates. One such example is the apparently unusual situation in intellectual property law that allows an employer to read an employee’s emails on a company network but would not allow an employer to read a letter posted to the employee at the company address. Bloch highlights that conflicts over creation and ownership are even more likely with internet based literacies given that the internet can be seen as an open access space, and urges greater understanding of the rules relating to these newer and developing genres. Bloch believes that the principle of ‘transformation’ that has been in traditional use to determine
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 148–152
149
ownership is both ambiguous and subjective. The cathedral-bazaar metaphor (p. 43) for the internet would be useful in highlighting the conflicts to students. This asks us to consider if the internet is a cathedral with one entrance or a bazaar where anyone can enter and follow a route of choice. This chapter then concludes with a discussion of intent as a determinant of how plagiarism amongst students should be viewed, although I think that this might have been better placed in the first introductory chapter. ‘Connecting intellectual property law and plagiarism in the writing classroom’, the title of Chapter 3, again examines the role of intellectual property law and reminds us that it does serve a purpose in promoting creativity and idea development but that these purposes can be contradictory, which reflects the discussion in the previous chapter on the needs of society and the individual. This is a succinct and well structured chapter that encourages the writing teacher to reflect on issues relating to intellectual property law, especially those pertinent to newer forms of literacy spawned by the internet. This chapter also includes a concluding summary in bullet points that does not appear in other chapters but might have been equally useful elsewhere. Chapter 4, ‘A pedagogical approach towards plagiarism’, begins with a historical overview of plagiarism which might also have been better placed in the introductory material, but is nonetheless interesting as it highlights the increasing prominence of plagiarism as universities began to cater for professional rather than gentleman students. Bloch offers what could be a fairly definitive statement that “plagiarism is about the rules for textual borrowing” (p. 75) which links to the pedagogical problem of ensuring that students understand the rules for borrowing in particular genres. In chapter 5,’Searching for a metaphor for thinking about plagiarism’, Bloch returns to the search for a metaphor to capture plagiarism and reminds us that traditionally ‘stealing’ or ‘cheating’ are used, or in the case of definite intellectual property violations, we might find ‘piracy’ or ‘fraud.’ Bloch stresses that copying can be coping, particularly for L2 students and suggests that ‘dancing’ is a more useful way of considering the challenge of negotiating the complex rules. One practical suggestion is for students to produce multiple drafts of work to show provenance and development but one wonders how that would be received by hard pressed faculty. Bloch gives some prominence to his ‘game’ metaphor and to the role of students as game players in this and the following chapter. I do not think that the notion of ‘game’ is new: readers might be familiar with Newman’s (2001) view that students see college work as a game whose aim is to display content knowledge and develop strategies to play the game and achieve the grades that are the perceived prize. Bloch develops this further by exploring how understanding the complex academic and social conventions around plagiarism can enable students to become successful game players and find their voice. The final chapter ‘Rethinking pedagogical strategies for thinking about plagiarism’ is, in many ways, the most interesting as it calls directly on Bloch’s experience and that of his students and colleagues. Following on from his plea in chapter 5 to discuss plagiarism in a contextualised sense rather than as an absolute, Bloch suggests that teachers ensure that plagiarism is addressed as part of the writing process and not just as part of the mechanical or functional skill of preparing citations. We might all agree that there is certainly no point in students being able to compose a citation and a perfect reference list if they are not also learning how to engage with their reading and construct knowledge from it as they seek disciplinary expertise. Bloch reports from his own research that there were low levels of agreement between students on issues such as how much copying constitutes plagiarism and how to define ‘common knowledge’. Students agreed on other questions such as deciding that buying a research paper was clearly plagiarism. Of even more interest is the student confusion around intellectual property law which was illustrated by substantial numbers of students believing that professors could adopt ideas from student papers without attribution and that plagiarism only refers to texts and not other types of vehicles for ideas such as images. Students expressed the view that intention should be the key to determining punishment, whilst there were more conflicting views about plagiarism amongst staff, which Bloch highlights as an added problem for students in understanding the rules and sanctions. Bloch discusses a course about plagiarism that encourages students to explore authorship and learn how to produce texts and images that transform rather than derive from sources, in short, to find their voice. This finds echoes in the work of Pittam et al. (2009) and Elander et al. (2010) in the UK who also designed successful interventions intended to help students see themselves as authors and this avoid unintentional plagiarism. The ‘Conclusion’ draws together the themes introduced with a reminder that change is constant. Universities therefore need to revisit their attitude and response to plagiarism and teachers need to be sure that students are included in the dialogue. I think “Plagiarism, Intellectual Property and the Teaching of L2 Writing” contains many interesting insights that will help inform the debate around plagiarism and encourage teachers of writing, whether with L1 or L2 students, to put promoting authorship and thus academic integrity at the heart of their work. My reservations are around the chapter sequencing and organisation which I found a little repetitive and confusing and the fact that not all chapters were of similar length or similarly structured. I would also have valued an index to the text. This useful and thought-provoking book should be required reading for teachers who are interested in exploring how a wider understanding of the complexities of plagiarism and intellectual property might help them support students developing their writing skills on academic programmes. References Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, H. (2010). Evaluation of an intervention to help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(2), 157–171.
150
Book reviews / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 12 (2013) 148–152
Litman, J. (2008). Choosing metaphors. In C. Eisner, & M. Vicinius (Eds.), Originality, imitation and plagiarism : Teaching writing in the digital age). Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press Newman, M. (2001). The academic achievement game: designs of undergraduates to get grades. Written Communication, 18(4), 470–505. Pittam, G., Elander, J., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, H. (2009). Student beliefs and attitudes about authorial identity in academic writing. Studies in Higher Education, 34(2), 153–170.
Jackie Hulse University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB, United Kingdom
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2012.10.005
Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis, Diane Pecorari. London: Continuum (2008), 213 pp., £75.00/ $US150.00, Hardback, ISBN: 978 0 8264 9166 4, £24.99/$US 44.95, Paperback, ISBN: 978 1 4411 3953 5 Cite them Right: The Essential Referencing Guide, Richard Pears and Graham Shields, 8th ed., Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan (2010). 112 pp., £9.99/$US22.00, Paperback, ISBN: 978 0230272316 Referencing and Understanding Plagiarism, Kate Williams and Jude Carroll Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (2009), 128 pp., £5.99/$US10.00, Paperback, ISBN: 978 0230574793
University students writing for assessment face a dizzying number of hurdles to get over on the way to the successful completion of their studies. One such hurdle involves becoming accustomed to creating “texts out of the sea of former texts that surround us” (Bazerman, 2004: 83). As an EAP instructor responsible for the delivery of courses that explain how to use sources within academic writing I am constantly, somewhat ironically, looking for texts (to give to and use with students) that help to elucidate the often confusing ‘social rules’ (Barton, 2000; Baynham, 1995; Street, 1995) of how (and how not) to draw on and present others in academic writing. In this short review paper I review three very different books that have citation as a central focus and that perhaps represent a possible spectrum on which citation may be approached – as topic to be researched (Pecorari, 2008a), instructional (Williams and Carroll, 2009), and reference material/style guide (Pears and Shields, 2010). I believe that all three books represent a valuable resource for EAP practitioners and review these books from a pragmatic perspective – their use (or potential use) with students in EAP classes and EAP provision in higher education. I draw on my own personal use of these books in class when possible. Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis by Diane Pecorari is informed by empirical research (a PhD thesis whose original title is “Original Reproductions: An investigation of the source use of postgraduate second language writers”). This publication “examines the implications of [the] gap between the institutions’ expectations of the students, student performance and institutional awareness, and suggests pedagogic solutions to be implemented at student, classroom and institutional levels” (Pecorari, 2008a: back cover). In the move from assessment to publication, sections have been removed (e.g. literature review), information has been reorganised (e.g. methods moved to an appendix), and the target audience has been broadened (see Caro, 2009; Johnson, 2011). It has been previously reviewed in academic journals (e.g. Bloch, 2009; Charles, 2008), internet publications (e.g. The Linguist List, see Bain Butler, 2011), and magazines that look at topics within education (e.g. Walden, 2009). All of the reviewers have unanimously praised the book highly and I would agree with such praise. Diane Pecorari is a well respected scholar within the EAP community and has also written on the topic of source use from a pedagogic perspective (e.g. Pecorari, 2008b) as well as from the perspective of second language writers (e.g. Pecorari, 2006). Although Academic Writing and Plagiarism: A Linguistic Analysis has not been written explicitly as an instructional text (unlike e.g. Williams and Carroll, 2009), nor a style guide (see Pears and Shields, 2010) I have found sections of the book to be extremely useful to provide background reading for EAP classes. For example, chapter 5 ‘My position, it is impossible’: The Writers’ Perspectives, allows (especially second language) students to empathise with the plight of Graciela, Maria, Erden, Roula, Kwan et al. as they struggle to use sources in their writing. This chapter begins with the notion of intentionality (‘Was it intentional?’, Pecorari, 2008a: 98 – a theme not only in chapter 5 but throughout this book) which in my experience plays a central part of shaping institutional policy related to the use of sources in academic writing (see e.g. Institute of Education, 2011). In my classes on using sources I often encounter incidences of patchwriting in students’ use of paraphrase (mostly from internet sources, see chapter 7 pp. 154–158) and have found that having students read on this issue from the writers’ perspective (chapter 5), as well as from the reader’s (chapter 6) leads to productive discussion on, and an understanding of this issue as a developmental step for writers in higher education (see Howard, 1995; 1999). A book that has pedagogy as its focus is Referencing & Understanding Plagiarism, by Kate Williams and Jude Carroll and is an addition to Palgrave Macmillian’s pocket study skills titles. Titles in this popular series aim to provide ‘time pushed’ (inside cover) students with targeted information in an accessible format. Kate Williams has authored and co-authored several of the