THE USE OF CITATION IN ESTABLISHING THE RESEARCH TERRITORY BY WRITERS OF MALAY LANGUAGE JOURNALS

Citation has been reported as an important strategy in establishing the research topic in journal articles. Citation is necessary, even during the initial part of the introduction section for the reason that citing the previous work of others established the association and connection between the new article with the existing discussions of research group being pursued. While writers of English research articles showed advance accomplishments in this practice, little is known on how the Malay language article writers use citation in establishing the research territory in the journal articles. Studies on utilization of citations in the journal articles of other language than English such as in Thai and Indonesian language have indicated variances in the utilization of citation, therefore more study on the writings in Malay language journals is called for. This paper studies 30 research articles published in the Malay language journal. The findings from both qualitative and quantitative data are analyzed for patterns particularly on the presence or absence of citation in establishing the research territory, on the delay of using citation in establishing the research territory and on the critical use of citation. The critical use of citation has been described as evaluating the existing studies with a critical disposition rather than just reporting on what has been done. The findings of this study would be of use in describing the writing practice in the Malay academia as such provides insights for the Malay language teachers and research writers.