Citation, as a defining feature of academic discourse, plays a multifaceted role in graduate-level scientific writing. The present study, thus, was a citation analysis of Iraqi TEFL MA and PhD theses to quantify the use of integral as well as non-integral citations and categorize them by function in the literature review chapters of theses. To this aim, a corpus consisting of 24 MA and PhD theses in TEFL authored in English by Iraqi postgraduate students from 2015 to 2025 was compiled. The second chapter of these theses, i.e., the literature review, was analyzed in terms of the citations used. The citations were categorized into structural types adopted from Thompson and Tribble (2001), namely integral and non-integral. Regarding their functions, Petrić's (2007) model was adopted, and citations were coded into three broad rhetorical functions: attributive, rhetorical/argumentative, and textual. The results showed that non-integral citations occur slightly more frequently than integral citations in the literature review chapters, although both structural types are extensively used. This pattern suggests that writers demonstrate a balanced use of author- and information-prominent citation styles, with a marginal preference for information over authorship. Concerning rhetorical functions, the findings revealed that attributive citation is the most dominant function, followed by rhetorical/argumentative citation, while textual citation occurs least frequently. This pattern indicates that citations are primarily used to attribute ideas, definitions, and claims to previous scholars rather than to critically evaluate or synthesize sources. The findings have implications for academic writing instruction.
