BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER: NARRATIVE AND STRUCTURE 137
students believe themselves to be'—we can see that students probably fail to
reference effectively because they are not motivated by genuine self-interest as
writers, but instead by the dubious and failure-prone motivation of obedience.
The problem with which I began this paper, namely the need to ensure that
students learn, quickly, the methods and skills of correct referencing, is often
addressed at university simply in a technical fashion. But, in light of the very
brief analysis of the student-as-student (rather than student-as-writer) that I
have just proposed, the real solution lies in a combination of effective technical
help and, at least as importantly, a conscious and supportive effort to encourage
students to think in new ways about themselves and the relationship they have
to their teachers. Unless a relationship can develop between teachers and
students that emphasises a shared (but still, by differences in experience and
training, unequal) responsibility for production of knowledge, then referencing
will continue to be a confusing and potentially antagonistic battleground for all
concerned.Casting and notes on each paragraph
One of the problems that confronts teachers of first-year university units
each semester is the need to ensure that students learn, quickly, the
methods and skills of correct referencing.^3 [In some courses, students are
very much left to fend for themselves, relying on, perhaps, the services of
the university library, advice offered by individual staff members, or simply
muddling through on the basis of critical feedback on their first assign-
ments.]1 [The Department of Media and Information (DMI), along with
some other areas of the university," takes a different approach.]2 [DMI, in
its first-year unit MCI 101: Research and Presentation Project, directly
addresses the need that students have to learn correct referencing
techniques, devoting some weeks and an assignment to that task.c]3
[Students can also practise these techniques in the assignments required
in other first-year units.]4This first paragraph establishes that it is reasonable to claim that DMI takes a
different approach. It does so, in the premises, by claiming what other departments
do, and then claims that what DMI does differs from this. Here are three inter-
esting features of the paragraph:
a The first sentence is not part of the argument directly. However, this
sentence does contribute. When claim 2 says 'takes a different approach', the
question that needs to be answered is 'a different approach to what?'. The
first sentence provides the answer... 'a different approach to the
problem... [etc].'
b The phrase 'along with some other areas of the university' is not properly