Citation behaviors of graduate students in grant proposal writing

Abstract

Although expert and student citation behaviors have been explored in different genres, doctoral students' citation behaviors in grant proposal writing have so far not been subject to investigation. This paper reports on an exploratory study involving six doctoral students in education at a research-intensive Canadian university. The participants commented on the citations they used in their grant proposals submitted to a federal funding agency. The qualitative data analysis yielded five citation functions (to claim knowledge, to seek support, to claim importance, to establish a territory, and to claim competence), which are akin to the rhetorical moves identified in previous research on scholars' grant writing. These five citation functions are predominantly accompanied with three strategies (to emulate other writers, to follow professors' suggestions, and to mask unfamiliarity with the topic), which are indices of a student identity underlying the above five rhetorical acts. We discuss how the doctoral students in the study deployed these rhetorical functions and strategies as gambits to project a scholarly identity in their grant proposal writing, and conclude with implications for teaching and further research.