SLO 5: Attribution

Discussion Prompts

• Who we choose to cite in our work has political and social implications. Read the Citation Practices Challenge, followed by The Racial Politics of Citation and Making Feminist Points. In this post, Ahmed describes citation as a “reproductive technology, a way of reproducing the world around certain bodies.” What does she mean by this? Encourage students to interrogate the reference lists in articles that are considered essential/important to your field or discipline.

Class Activities

• In order to understand that attribution allows us to trace ideas to their origins, ask for four student volunteers. Each will read a short scenario that represents one of the following points of view: Charles Darwin, a Social Darwinist, a eugenicist, and a CSUSB student. Prompt students to write a response reflecting on how the CSUSB student would locate Darwin’s original ideas. What if the student wanted to trace how Darwin’s ideas have been debated and used over time? Why is having a historical record of the way ideas have been used or debated a good thing?

• After reading a scholarly article or book, have students identify one of the author’s claims or arguments. Ask that students locate at least three in-text citations the author uses to support his or her claim. Students first follow the in-text citations to the reference or works cited list, then they locate these three or more sources (see our databases by subject list or Find a Book in the Library Catalog). In order to understand that scholarship is akin to a conversation among thinkers, students create a dialog that puts these sources in conversation with one another. Include claims, arguments, agreements, etc. This could be an annotated bibliography, literature review, or even a comic strip. Encourage students to conduct background research on these scholars and give them some personality!