This study investigated citation features of Chinese English-major master’s theses and doctoral dissertations and compared the citations in the literature reviews and discussions. Xu’s (2016) framework based on systemic functional linguistics was expanded to incorporate content, function, writer’s stance and types of citations into the ideational, interpersonal and textual dimensions. The literature review and discussion chapters in 30 master’s theses and 30 doctoral dissertations were randomly collected for analysis. Results show that doctoral students fulfilled two functions of citations – application and agreement – significantly more than master’s students. Doctoral students are better able to evaluate and apply previous models in their research and start to establish their academic identity by presenting direct support. Further analysis indicates that the functions of literature reviews and discussions influence the distribution of citation features. Both groups used one citation function – topic-relevance – more in discussions than in literature reviews to interpret their findings and compare them against previous scholars’ claims. This study provides implications for theorizing L2 research writing and offers advice for students to improve their citation competence.