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

Abstract

Appropriate use and acknowledgement of sources continues to be a central concern of academic integrity. A major challenge for research student in this is the development of a confident authorial voice which matches disciplinary expectations in language use, yet manages to do so without plagiarising through inappropriate text matching or recycling of language. This is a daunting challenge for all research writers, particularly for English as an Additional Language (EAL) researchers who are still grappling with English grammar and syntax. In order to develop novice research writers’ understanding of acceptable use of sources and mastery of disciplinary language, we have developed a process that uses concordancing software alongside Turnitin. Here we present textual analyses of two cases using this process: in one, the student’s percentage of matches decreased as he developed his authorial voice; in the second, the percentage of matches actually increased as the student’s language choices came to reflect more closely the expectations of the discipline.