Every university student has to write many essays during the studies. Among unskilled and unexperieneed ones writing introduction is one of the most problematic tasks . Usually it seems to be only an unpleasant problem students introductions are often unfinished and just thrown together. They are full of clichés and mistakes. Secondary school foreign language education generally cannot help the development of the style of writing. Writing courses are necessary to give patterns and to polish the language. But writing introduction is a neglected area. That is why I have chosen to observe the introductions of a Janus Pannonius University student’s essays. My aim is to examine what are her typical mistakes and whether she had developed during her first semester at JPU.
These essays were written for the Writing and Research Skills course in the first semester of the 1997/98 term. The author is Szûcs Mariann, a first-year student majoring in English. I have chosen her pieces of work because she seems to be a good writer but certainly she is not free from mistakes. I will deal with her eight essays. My purpose is to observe typical grammatical and stylistical mistakes and their currency. But I would like to present not only the wrong characteristics to show what is less difficult in writing introduction.
The author’s first essay has not got a title. It is about the coffee. She tells the history of the plant and its spreading. She also presents the method of making drink from the beans and her personal habits of making and consuming coffee. The introduction contains thirty-one words and two sentences ; a short and a long one. It is ordinary although the topic is unusual. But it is relevant. There are not any grammatical mistakes but a comma error. The structure is clear and understandable.
Her second essay is ‘’A travel guide to my home town.” The first paragraph is only one long sentence : ‘’ Before I would show you around I would like to tell you about the history of the town which I heard so many times from my history teacher, just in a nutshell. ‘’Before a four -page excellent piece of writing it does not seem to be enough, the writer did not care about the introduction. It is cluttered and is not vivid. Therefore it does not move the reader. It cannot attract attention because there is not any particular thoughts or ideas. It includes an average school -type vocabulary.
The next essay entitled ‘’ How to Embarras a Know - all ‘’ has two variations. I will examine only the second , corrected version. It is a Proficiency - type essay about an unusual subject. It begins with a too general statement : ‘’ We all hate those who tend to be more clever than we are ... ‘’ There is one mistake :’’ know all ‘’ , but since the word is written two times correctly , it can be only a slip. The active voice and the short , simple verbs as ‘’ hate ‘’ ,
‘’ tend ‘’ , ‘’ swear ‘’ , ‘’meet ‘’ , ‘’ prove ‘’ , ‘’ find ‘’ , ‘’ take over ‘’ make the text dynamic. The vocabulary shows a rich knowledge of synonims.
I found the fourth essay brilliant. Its title is ‘’ Pros and cons of a manly sport ‘’ .It sprang up from personal experience. The introduction begins with an incident from the writer ‘s life then she continues with the defence of body building. But it could belong to a separate paragraph not to mix the thoughts. The tenses also show that it was redundant to splice the two ideas. The author used simple past in the first part and simple present in the second one. The style is subjective but the thoughts are not partial. The beginning ‘’ Last time when I hitch-hiked.... ‘’ entices the reader , it promises an engaging story. Details prove that the content is not only waste of words : ‘’ Professional body builder women who train to win body building races are only about 0 , 1 % of women practising this sport. ‘’ The weakest point is repetition of the words body building and body builder. For instance the ‘’body building races ‘’ in the above example is redundant , it would be better to use only races since the meaning is obvious.
The next piece of writing is ‘’ A Graduation Speech ‘’ . The student starts with a short introduction. It is only one too long sentence : ‘’ It seems to be yesterday when you first entered the gates of the school , and now you are standing here in the possession of your certificate of final examination as mature young people. ‘’ The first mistake is using when instead of that. The comma is redundant. It could be easily divided into two sentences to avoid the clutter. The long possessive structure could be replaced with gerund to reach a clear , comprehensible sentence. It contains many clichés. Most of the readers heard them so many times that they expect for a boring rigmarole which does not worth much care.
The sixth essay is a reaction on a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Its title is ‘’ Afterward to the novel The Scarlet Letter ‘’. A spelling slip ( ‘’wether’’ ) occurs two times in the introduction. The content is relevant , the author gives some details about Hawthorne ‘s descent to facilitate the comprehension of the novel. It contains two long sentences full of passive structures and nouns. It is difficult to follow the train of thoughts. The style is rather formal.
The seventh work, without title, is about the history, the technology and the art of bookbinding. The introduction is grammatically impeccable and the style is excellent. But on the basis of content it only looks like an introduction, it is just the first paragraph. The writer immediately starts writing about the historical data without introducing the subject to the reader. The other problem is that the text seems to be taken from a technical book but the writer did not gives the source.
The last writing is entitled ‘’ My Summer Holiday at Lake Balaton ‘’ . The title does not promise a thrilling essay and the introduction cannot attract the attention : ‘’In January my mother informed me that they (my father and her ) laid claim for my presence during the summer vacation in August at Lake Balaton. My mother was rather foreseeing, she made me know their decision in advance so that I wouldn’t have a chance to organize some other program for that time. ‘’ The weak point of this piece is a typical stylistic problem among students. The author mixes informal and formal style. The topic is personal but she uses formal expressions such as ‘’informed’’ , ‘’ laid claim for my presence ‘’ and so on. The second sentence could be divided into two separate ones so that the reader would not lose the track.
The author of these essays has good abilities and safety in writing. Her knowledge of grammar is sufficient ;only few mistakes and spelling slips occur in the texts. She was getting careful about that during the course. She started finding an individual style , but it is more difficult for a foreign language learner than for a native speaker. The punctuation also causes problem sometimes, the using of comma is different in Hungarian and in English. It hampers the development because it is hard to learn. The writer gradually became conscious of how to get rid of clichés . It means that her vocabulary became wider. To sum it up , the writing course reached its aim in her case.
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