Challenges faced by EFL students in making citations in the background section of the thesis introduction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v15i1.11Keywords:
Challenges, citations, background section, thesis proposals, EFL studentsAbstract
Citations play an essential role in academic writing as tools for acknowledging sources and building arguments. However, many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students still struggle to apply citations appropriately in their thesis writing. Using a descriptive qualitative research design, this study collected thesis proposals from three undergraduate students of the English Education Study Program at Universitas Negeri Padang to identify the challenges, types, functions, and mistakes in making citations. The findings show that students mainly used integral citation forms (57.14%) and utilized substantiation and attribution functions (38.77%). Regarding accuracy, the most frequent errors were technical (32.65%), although 57.14% of the analyzed citations contained no mistakes. Interview results revealed significant difficulties in assessing source credibility, limited instructional guidance, a lack of vocabulary, and paraphrasing challenges. Overall, this study demonstrates that EFL students’ citation practices are predominantly technical rather than rhetorical, shaped by linguistic, instructional, and cultural constraints.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Zelfi Okti Fianefa, M. Affandi Arianto (Author)
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