An investigation of source use in the results and the closing sections of empirical articles in Information Systems: In search of a functional-semantic citation typology for pedagogical purposes Becky Siu Chu Kwan a, * , Hang Chan b a Department of English, The City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Ave., Kowloon, Hong Kong b The University of Cambridge, The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, Cambridge CB2 1TN, UK Keywords: Citation roles Moves Results and Discussion sections Information Systems Research articles Citations abstract This paper presents an analysis of how behavioral science researchers from the soft domain of Information Systems (IS) engage prior knowledge of the field to construct research claims in journal articles. Data was drawn from the Results and the Discussion sections of 40 IS research articles published in one research journal (MIS Quarterly, N ¼ 20) and one applied-research journal (Information Management, N ¼ 20). To perform the analysis, the Results and the Discussion sections of the articles were first parsed into moves, and citations in each of the moves were classified according to their rhetorical functions and the types of knowledge cited (semantic content). Based on the classification, a functional-semantic citation typology was developed. Counts of the citations in each category represented in the typology were then subjected to a series of statistical analyses to examine their distribution across the two journals as well as the two target sections. The results reveal that while all the citation categories in the typology were present in both journals, they appeared only sparingly in the IM articles, and cross-sectional differences in their distribution were statistically significant in the MIS Quarterly corpus only. Peda- gogical implications will be presented. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction As a key persuasive tool of scientific discourse (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995; Gilbert, 1976, 1977; Myers, 1990; Prelli, 1989; Small, 1982), citation has been vigorously researched in various disciplinary domains. Within the field of Applied Linguistics, attention has been directed mostly to citations in texts produced by expert writers (e.g., Buckingham & Neville, 1997; Harwood, 2009; Hyland, 1999, 2000; Myers, 1990; Swales, 1986, 1990; Thompson & Ye, 1991). In recent years, there are increasing concerns in the field about ineffective source use by apprentice writers in different rhetorical parts of a research text. A classic problem which has received some attention is the inadequate control of source ideas in the literature review (Kamler & Thomson, 2006; Pecorari, 2008; Ridley, 2008). The problem stands in sharp contrast to the under-referencing in the other parts. Thesis supervisors interviewed in the study by Bitchener and Basturkmen (2006), for example, commented on writers’ failure to connect their findings to the existing literature in the Discussion section of their theses. Similar * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ852 3442 9781. E-mail addresses: enbkwan@cityu.edu.hk (B.S.C. Kwan), hc329@cam.ac.uk (H. Chan). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap 1475-1585/$ – see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.11.004 Journal of English for Academic Purposes 14 (2014) 29–47