scholarship | The Journal of Creative Library Practice

By Rachel A. Knapp, Applied Sciences Librarian, University of Colorado Boulder,
Paulina Borrego, Science & Engineering Librarian, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Thea Atwood, Data Services Librarian, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Introduction

The authors of this article focus on the best practices we learned through our experiences in scholarly writing, with a specific focus on the collaborative writing process. For the sake of this paper, we define collaborative writing as a collective process of creating a scholarly work for distribution, either through formal (e.g., peer-review) or informal (e.g., white paper) venues. This article is, in part, in response to our lack of formal training and addresses a situation in which we felt other researchers might find themselves. We hope to provide starting points for others interested in writing collaboratively and help empower those wishing to have a broader conversation about writing. Our scope here is limited to collaborative writing, and as such, we exclude other components of collaborative scholarly work, such as generating an idea, pursuing a grant, or analyzing data. Nevertheless, we do endeavor to provide resources and advice broadly applicable and relevant to all disciplines.

Continue reading Yours, Mine, Ours: Some Best Practices for Authors Writing Collaboratively →

Alexander J. Carroll and Robin Dasler
University of Maryland College Park

Introduction: Information Literacy & Scholarly Communication Instruction

When addressing scholarly attribution, citation, and plagiarism in one-shot instruction sessions, librarians often fail to present these issues in a manner that has relevance for students. Librarians often focus on intellectual honesty and the potential ramifications of plagiarism, both individual pursuits, rather than explaining that by creating an academic work, students are participating in academic discourse. Within Pluralizing Plagiarism, Anson argues that scholarly attribution instruction that emphasizes “policy, detection, and punishment” is antithetical to the mission of institutions of higher learning – the education of students (Anson, 2008). One of the major deficiencies of this compliance-based instruction is that it presents students with a false dichotomy that does not align with their authentic life experiences; plagiarism is demonstrated as a black and white issue, rather than existing in shades of gray. Students who have come of age within a twenty-first century information ecosystem rife with remix and parody culture will likely find teaching that presents the re-use of source material as a non-nuanced issue unconvincing. Because students respond positively to instruction that aligns with their authentic experiences, this suggests that librarians need to develop new methods for teaching attribution and scholarly discourse that not only recognize the nuance inherent to these topics, but also presents these concepts within a familiar framework (Klipfel, 2014). As a familiar platform for social interaction with multiple avenues for giving credit and a shorter timescale, Twitter presents an opportunity to place attribution, plagiarism, and integrity into a humanizing, real world context that models how discourse unfolds in an authentic manner for learners. By embedding attribution instruction into a meaningful context, librarians and other educators can make substantial and much needed improvements to traditional compliance-based instruction, which is often built upon the slow, rigid, and unfamiliar patterns of how to cite scholarly works.

Continue reading “Scholarship is a Conversation”: Discourse, Attribution, and Twitter’s Role in Information Literacy Instruction →