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The writers construct a coherent discourse by presenting their stance based on previous research in academic contexts. Citation forms, being an essential part of discursive practices, have always been of interest to academics and researchers to explore their structural and functional significance. Since the issue regarding these discursive aspects of citation practices has not been explored in Pakistan. The objective of the study is to differentiate the referring patterns of the theses writers at the doctoral level in Pakistan. To explore differences in discursive practices regarding citations by theses’ writers in L2 academic context. To this end, a corpus of the literature review chapters of Ph.D. theses of Biological Sciences, thirtyin number, was constructed and later on analyzed through AntConc. Swales (1990) and Thompson and Tribble’s (2001) studies were taken as the theoretical framework for the analysis and further interpretation of data. The study was delimited to integrated and non-integrated citations, including the subcategories. It was found that majority of the writers preferred to use Source as sub pattern of non-integrated citations. Similarly, the structural and semantic analysis of these forms makes up a significant part of the study, which obviously reflects the indigenous practices of the writers in putting their voices into different forms of citation.

Verb-Control citations signify purposeful communication between the theses writers and readers. The earlier researches on references or citations used in theses and research articles focused on showing differences in general, lesser data, and partial analysis (Jalilifar, 2012). Furthermore, the research on Verb-Control citations/reporting verbs (Factives, Non-Factives, Counter-Factives) needs to be explored in Pakistan's academic context. This research explores the Ph.D. theses, deliberating over the choice of reporting verbs employed as Verb-Control citations. The study was conducted across Ph.D. dissertations namely, English (Linguistics, Literature), English Language Teaching (ELT), Biological Studies (Bio-Technology, Botany, Zoology), and Social Sciences (Education, Psychology, Political Science) in a non-English academic environment. AntConc was employed to analyze the data. Thompson &Ye's (1991) study, “Evaluation in the reporting verbs used in academic papers”, was used as a theoretical model. Hence, the writers of the Ph.D. theses were found more inclined to use Non-Factives as against other forms of reporting verbs. Besides others, the basic reason behind these variations is the predominance of the verbs related to tests, experimentations along with the words referring to scientific procedures in Biological Sciences.