Rhetorical Intertextuality (2020- )
Date of Data Analysis: 2020-2026
Principal Investigators: Sandra Jamieson & Rebecca Moore Howard
Description: Our initial analysis of the 2011-2013 Citation Project data focused on ways students select, incorporate, and cite sources; we were not looking for an underlying methodology that guided their decisions, but when we did look, we did not find one. An analysis of the rhetorical moves in the student papers suggested the need to focus beyond originality rather than on it (Howard & Jamieson 2021), to focus on practices and methods that would help writers engage with sources and write with curiosity, authority, engagement, and reflection, creating connections and conversations between ideas and sources. As we look at writing produced with the aid of LLMs (Generative Artificial Intelligence) we see a similar need for these six practices, which we call Rhetorical Intertextuality.
Findings & Discussion:
Howard, Rebecca Moore & Sandra Jamieson. (2021). “The Ethics of Teaching Rhetorical Intertextuality” Journal of Academic Ethics, 19. June 2021. 385-405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-021-09424-2
Three approaches to intertextual writing are available to college instructors: mechanical, ethical, and rhetorical. The mechanical approach, a staple of writing instruction, teaches the use of citation styles such as MLA or APA; methods of citing sources; and the conventions of quotation. The ethical approach is primarily concerned with the character of individual writers and their adherence to community standards categorized as “academic integrity.” The great majority of source-based writing instruction attends to one or both of these approaches. A third approach, rhetorical intertextuality, is overshadowed by the ethical concerns that currently permeate educational institutions. Rhetorical intertextuality does promote textual ethics, but in a positive way, through instruction in building meaning in a target text through collaboration with source texts.
Forthcoming: A Methodology for Teaching Rhetorical Intertextuality (title under revision)
Drawing on Citation Project data, we advocate instruction in intertextual writing that hails students as authors, not transgressors. Rhetorical intertextuality can provide a positive frame for college instruction in intertextual writing, a methodology that facilitates deep engagement with texts; intellectual approaches to paraphrasing and summarizing; and an emphasis on the rhetorical choices that writers make as they encounter and respond to the ideas of others. The objective of such instruction is a dialogic interface between writer, audience, and sources—a conversation.