International students' engagement with support in developing source use abilities: A longitudinal case study

Source use is an important yet challenging feature of academic writing. Students may receive academic literacy support in their universities, but little research has focused on the support available on source use. This study addressed this gap by investigating two Chinese students' engagement with a range of support on source use in one UK university over one-year taught Master's programmes, namely, the link between input, student perception and their source use performance in writing. Text analysis, discourse-based interviews and semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant at four stages over the year. It was found that different focuses of source use were addressed in different ways through add-on support courses, yearlong in-sessional EAP courses, subject lecturer's guidance and feedback. The two students varied in their ability to recall the input and the actions they took, resulting in differences in their source use practices in writing. Implications on providing international students with support on source use will be discussed. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.