The impact of source text referential cohesion on integrated writing performance: A focus on textual integration and source use overlap

This study explores the impact of source text referential cohesion on textual integration (integration style, integration purpose, and interpretation accuracy), source use features (keyword overlap, synonym overlap, and semantic overlap), and cohesion in the written responses. To this end, 31 undergraduate students summarized two versions of a reading passage, one with high referential cohesion and the other with low referential cohesion, and their summaries for the two source texts were analyzed in terms of textual integration, source use features, and cohesion. The participants also answered questionnaire items measuring perceived cognitive complexity after completing each task. The instances of implicit source use were higher in the summaries written for the low-referential cohesion task, while verbatim source use, correct interpretation of source ideas, and using source ideas to support ones’ arguments decreased in summarizing the low-referential text. Moreover, it was found that keyword overlap and synonym overlap significantly declined when summarizing the low-referential cohesion text. In addition, the referential cohesion of the source text had a negative impact on local cohesion (use of connectives) in the written responses, while positively affected text cohesion (lemmattr). The results are discussed and the implications for writing pedagogy and assessment are discussed.