Teaching Citation Justice
I spent my first year as an Early Career Librarian Fellow attempting to develop online information literacy modules. My goal was to help the library reach more undergraduate students while also lessening the synchronous instruction load for librarians. The first module I decided to work on was about citations since most of the librarians I talked to dreaded teaching how to cite during their one-shot sessions. While developing the citation module, I found myself searching for ways to discuss citing through a critical lens while also familiarizing students with citation guidelines.
When teaching undergraduate students about citations, emphasis is often placed on the mechanics of citation styles, which makes the act of citing seem neutral. We rarely talk about citing beyond saying, “give credit, or you will be punished.” Students are expected to conform to the citation practices in their discipline and the expectations of their professors with little consideration of how citations uphold white supremacy and marginalize the intellectual contributions of BIPOC and women.
The Cite Black Women Collective calls on “scholars in all disciplines to reimagine hegemonic citational politics by critically and actively reflecting on how gender, race, nationality, and class shape the possibilities of knowledge production” (Smith et al., 2021, p.14). Inspired by their statement, I started to integrate citation justice into my teaching by framing citing as an ethical practice that uplifts and preserves the work of marginalized people.
I start my instructional sessions by having students discuss what they already know about citations as well as feelings that come up as they work on their bibliographies. Many students express anxiety about citing correctly because they fear punishment. I share my struggles with citing during undergrad as well to show that anxiety and frustration is normal and reflects a larger problem with current methods for teaching citations or the lack thereof.
I also use this discussion to talk about the role of citations in granting authority and shaping disciplinary knowledge. Then, I get into problematic practices in research and scholarly publishing to explain why citation justice is necessary. This process includes issues with citation metrics, peer review, and the canon. My objective is to help students understand that while they are citing to protect themselves, they are also helping authors.
Once they understand the many roles of citations, I talk about ways to practice citation justice. In “Citational desires: On Black feminism’s institutional longings,” Jennifer Nash (2020) discusses a Black feminist citational practice that focuses on undoing epistemic violence, unforgetting Black women’s intellectual labor, and treating Black feminist work with care. I decided to incorporate this Black feminist approach to citations to shift how students think about citations. Now, I talk about citations as a form of preservation, visibility, and redress instead of just focusing on plagiarism and giving credit.
Lastly, I provide three small ways that students can integrate citation justice in their research. The first way is to actively seek out diverse voices and thoughtfully engage with their work. It can be difficult to find BIPOC and women who are doing research in your area because library databases and traditional scholarship often prioritize whiteness, so I give search tips and share resources like Cite Black Authors (https://citeblackauthors.com/). I also emphasize that they should not cite people just to check a box. They should learn about the authors and think critically about why they are choosing to integrate a source in their writing.
The second way to practice citation justice is to cite a variety of sources. Faculty often expect students to reference peer reviewed sources, but there are many barriers that prevent marginalized people from accessing traditional scholarly publishing venues. With so many perspectives being absent from scholarly literature, it is useful to consult non-scholarly sources and challenge the notion that academic journals are inherently better.
My final tip for practicing citation justice is to use a citation manager. Citation managers are a great way to stay organized during the research process and ease some of the stress around citation styles. They can also help with keeping track of who you are citing and imagining what a room filled with your authors would look like.
Incorporating citation justice in my teaching has allowed me to have meaningful conversations with students and celebrate the intellectual contributions of underrepresented people. My hope is that students walk away from my sessions and citation module with a deeper understanding of citations and feel empowered to use their bibliography as a site for resistance.
References
Nash, J. C. (2020). Citational desires: On Black feminism’s institutional longings.
Diacritics, 48(3), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.1353/dia.2020.0020.
Smith, C. A., Williams, E. L., Wadud, I. A., Pirtle, W. N. L., & The Cite Black Women
Collective. (2021). Cite Black women: A critical praxis (a statement). Feminist Anthropology, 2(1), 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/fea2.12040.
Jasmine Thomas (she/her)
is an Early Career Librarian Fellow/ Research & Instruction Librarian at Towson University’s Albert S. Cook Library. She serves as an English liaison and supports student and faculty research. Her research interests include citation justice and Black feminist librarianship.
As the library liaison to the English department, Jasmine provides information literacy instruction and supports student and faculty research.
She has a bachelor’s degree in History from TU and earned her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2022.