Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Reading Academic Citations: How Professors And Graduate Students Read For Different Purposes, Grant Eckstein, Sarah Miner, Katie Watkins, Judy James, Mornie Sims, Allison Wallace Baker, Larissa Grahl

Faculty Publications

Citations provide truncated yet socially complex information about sources in academic texts which students are obliged to read, comprehend, and then ultimately produce as part of an academic discourse community. While researchers have observed a developmental process whereby students produce citations during source-based writing, little work has investigated the reading stage when students visually encounter citations. In this study, we explored academic reading behaviors by examining eye movements of 27 graduate students and 18 professors as they read 6 authentic research texts for various purposes (summary, analysis, synthesis). Results of factorial ANOVAs showed no differences between students and professors but …