Essay-writing is an everyday duty in the English Department of the Janus Pannonius University. Students have to write essays in every seminar. These could be academic research papers or short assignments. Students often meet some difficulties when they need to write their essays, but each of them has their own methods to overcome the obstacles of these tasks. I have asked twenty-six students about their processes to be able to write this paper. My aim with this work is to show the different attitudes of essay-writing and the reason of them among English majors in order to make the task easier for the new freshers.
The most important thing about essay-writing is that students have to be able to decide when they should start working so as to finish it in time. "Well before the writing stage, all theses will involve research and gathering of materials.” ( Nikolov Turner, 1997). So, before students begin to write they have to go to the library and seek accessible material for their works. Everybody must take their own pace into consideration, and they have to decide the exact date of the first step of their essay-writing. The vast majority of the asked English majors ( seventeen out of twenty-six ) says that they plan the activity well in advance but only eight of them write it continuously. The rest of them lend the needed books and other materials but they put them into the corner. Approximately three days before the deadline they begin to hurry and they usually manage to finish it by the given time. Nine students out of the twenty-six leave the task until the last moment then they begin to worry about because they cannot find available books in the libraries. Because of the lack of these books they cannot do a great work. The reasons of their behaviours are different. Some of them do not have time to start the essay in advance. Sometimes they are not interested in the given topics.
A new problem can emerge in connection with the previous question. This is the problem of the choice of themes within a given limit. Often it is very difficult to choose a suitable topic for the essay. There are some topics about which is entirely impossible to write more than 200 words. So, students must be careful with their chosen themes. There are great variety of reasons of selecting the actual theme. Some students want to write an essay about which they can easily find books. The cause of it can be the demand on a quick essay or on the contrary the claim to a thorough work with lots of notes. Most of the asked English majors say that they usually write about themes in which they are interested. The reasons of their decisions are the following: they want to know more about the topics, so, they begin to do research on the chosen subject; or they are already well-informed. Only few of the asked students say that they usually write essay about themes which were left because of uninterest.
Students can decide how to begin the essay-writing: they may start with brain-storming or they may go ahead immediately. If somebody begins with the first possibility they can first write the sketch of their works. It is just the skeleton of the essay but it can do students a good service. It can be an ordinary draft or a tree-diagram. In this case writers put down the title of their work in the middle of a piece of paper and then they begin brain-storming. Then they write different headwords around the title. They can make these headwords complete and give some more words. In the end the paper will be fully written and then students will be able to write their essay. Nobody can determine the exact length of brain-storming: it can last for days or just for moments in case of having finished ideas. This kind of activities are very effective if students want to write good essays because they make the work clearly arranged and systematic. Students sometimes leave out brain-storming and go ahead immediately. It often ensue when writers do not have time because they start working in the last work. The result of it is frequently disappointing since their works are usually without plan which appears in the evaluation, too.
What may destroy the appraisal of the work is the word limit. Almost every instictor says that they expect essays consisting of about how many words. Some students ( eleven out of twenty-six ) assert that it is useful to give the word limit since this will show the nature of the writing and because they can easily decide the amount of time worth spending on it. The world limit also helps students to arrange the message. Rest of the asked students say that the given word limit is unnecessary. They think if they like the theme they will write about it as many as they can and if they do not like it they want to do a short and quick essay. Some other students say if they can write the message in a short form then why is it necessary for them to use fat English just because of the word limit. There is one more reason against it. If students write shorter essay they can easily eliminate the realization of it by using larger letters by typing.
I have already written about how to start the essay but there is one more thing in connection with it. This is the problem of the parts of the work. I mean the introductory part, the title, the discussion and the conclusions. Most of the asked English majors claim that they begin with the introductions. It is very surprising since they have already learnt how to write their works. It suggest me that they have already decided what to write when they sit down to work. Five students out of twenty-six say they start with the discussion. and after it they begin to write the introductory section. Nobody among the asked students claims that they begin with the conclusion. Fifteen out of the asked English majors assert that they prefer to write the essay and then give the title.
My last question was about revisioning. Twenty-five students say that they revision their work. The remainder claim that he usually does not have time for it because he has to submit it shortly. Revisioning a university essay is very useful for writers because then they can easily check what they have written. Students need to use the technique of revisioning if they want to avoid annoying little mistakes. There are stylistic and grammatical ones as well. Here come some examples: punctuation, spelling, generalisations, stating the obvious, repetitions, informal language, conversational gap-fillers. "Many of these mistakes are likely made by accident, due to the too fast flow of thoughts, or the knowledge that the time for the task is limited.” (Group Writer Report, 1997). So the aim of revisioning is to correct mistakes and to exchange expressions or words in order to make the essay more effective or to make the ideas clear for readers.
There are different methods for writing a university essay: students may start it well in advance or in the last minute. Students can choose topics about which they find books or in which they are interested in. They can start with brain-storming or they may go ahead immediately. They can begin their writing activities with putting down the introduction, the title or the discussion part of the essay. They may use the effective revisioning technique or they can leave it out. The aim of this essay was not to give a summary of every possibilities but to show some different approach to this fairly difficult problem. Everybody has to work out his own method in order to be able to write effective academic works.
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