W 030 F

Introduction
Every university student might know the feeling of being overwhelmed with the task of essay writing. Students may consider it to be a real drag; an annoying task that after causes a restless night.

According to Horváth József, essay writing courses were first introduced at Janus Pannonius University (JPU), Pécs, in 1986 by Steve Starkey (Horváth 1996). As of that year, English majors at JPU have to take a formal writing course: a ‘Writing and Research Skills’ course as it is called at present. Being an obligatory assignment, essay writing has become unpopular among JPU students.

My aim, therefore, is to examine how English majors at JPU reflect on the task of essay writing; the present paper intends to give a survey of their essay writing attitudes. In this paper I look at some of the ways English majors at JPU respond to questions related to the task of essay writing.

The crucial question is whether antipathy against essay writing exists among every English major at JPU or is it unpopular only among first-year students.

Methods
In order to find answer to my questions, I designed a questionnaire; it consisted of eight questions in English. I will present these together with responses one by one. In order to be able to report valid information, I handed twenty questionnaires out. Students were asked to tick the best possible answers for the questions. I chose this way of assessment because the questionnaire is fast to fill in, and the process gives numerical information that is easy to evaluate.

Aside from questions 1.a and 1.b that were related to sex and year each column of the possible answers contained a choice that was open. So that the persons asked they were able to write their own opinions and thoughts. I had to pay attention to such kind of liberty of the students in order to make the research more objective.

For the sake of varied information I aimed to gather answers from fifth-year English majors just as well as from first-, second-, third- and fourth-year ones. It was easy to contact other first-year students, but it was much harder to find upper-year English majors at the English Department of JPU. This might have happened because I handed the questionnaires out close to the end of the term; upper-year students, especially fifth-year ones, were hard to find because their complex exams took place around those days.

Therefore, the research is based on the information coming from first-year and upper-year English majors, and on the differences and similarities of their essay writing attitudes.

Results and Discussion
The questionnaire was answered by twenty students. The first question in the questionnaire was related to the sex of the students asked. According to the answers, six males and fourteen females filled the questionnaire in.

Question 1. b was affiliated with the year of the English majors asked. As Figure 1/b shows, the number of first-year students participating in the survey was nine, the number of second-year students was four, the number of third-year English majors was three and the number of fourth-year ones was four.

Figure 1/b
The most striking result derives from the answers to the second question: ‘What is your first impression or thought when you hear these two words: essay writing?’ Although there was a chance to write any other opinion or thought if one did not like the given choices, ten students ticked answer #4: ‘You say to yourself: ”Gee, I hate it”.’(see Figure 2). The ones who chose this answer, were -except for three upper-year students- all first-year English majors. From the point of view of comparing results, it is also considerable that these students were all but one female English majors. I interpret this as a general antipathy against essay writing first among female English majors, especially among first-year ones.

Three students considered essay writing to be challenging and only one English major thought it was exciting. The ones who decided not to choose any of the given choices mostly thought ‘emotions depend on the topic of the essay.’ It was also pointed out by a fourth-year English major that ‘it is difficult to choose because impressions and thoughts can hardly fit into the scheme required, there are things that cannot be said in such a rigid form.’ I interpret this as a reminder; as an evidence of the need of a liberty: a need of a choice that is open.

Figure 2
The third question was: ‘What do you usually think when your teacher says: ”your task is to write an essay on...”.’ According to the answers, eleven English majors -males as well as females, first-year students as well as upper-year ones- believed that ‘essay writing is still better than an oral exam’.(see Figure 3). I interpret this as a kind of general acceptance of essay writing, as opposed to oral exams.

Only two first-year English majors answered the same question with ‘Forget it...’. The comments of those three students who did not like any of the four given choices were: ‘My Gosh, another one again!’ or ‘No, not again!’. Other three students pointed out that it also depends on the topic of the essay. A second-year student relates the task of essay writing to ‘another restless night’. This indicates that these nine students kept their dislike of essay writing, as opposed to those who thought it was ‘still better than an oral exam’.

Figure 3
The fourth question in the questionnaire was: ‘How do you feel just before you start writing an essay?’ According to the answers, six first-year English majors felt ‘hopeless’ right before writing the essay. Seven students wanted to ‘get it over as soon as possible’.(see Figure 4). It was also notable that mostly females chose these answers. Another remarkable result is that males who considered essay writing to be challenging (see question #2) tended to tick the box of ‘You say to yourself: ”Go for it”.’

Three upper-year students who did not choose any of the given choices felt confused, anxious or even depressed before writing an essay. According to a fourth-year English majors’ comment, the answer ‘depends on the topic of the essay or rather on its subject’. There was one first-year girl who wrote: ‘Before I start writing an essay, I can come up with ideas that make me interested, then I enthuse and I can’t wait to do the actual writing bit’. This indicates that there were English majors - though only three out of twenty - who did not start writing an essay with dislike, confusion or without hope.

Figure 4
The answers to the fifth question ‘Is it true that if you have once started writing, you can’t stop it until finishing your essay?’ indicates that only five upper-year students who filled the questionnaire in could not stop writing if they had once started; as opposed to seven first-year and upper-year students who did not agree at all. (see Figure 5). As a first-year female writes: ‘It takes me more time to write than I can bear sitting on the same place’. Those seven students who chose to write ‘any other comment’ shared similar opinions such as ‘I can stop writing but if I do, I can’t start it again.’ It indicates that few writer can work productively for more than four hours without a break (Heffernan and Lincoln 1986) but others simply cannot. As the authors go on, ”If you try to exceed your limit, you may find yourself slowing down or running dry or going around in circles, stuck in the groove because you’re too weary to think straight.” (Heffernan and Lincoln 1986)

Figure 5
Seventeen students out of twenty - both first-year and upper-year English majors- answered the question ‘How do you usually feel or what do you think when you have finished the essay?’ with choices ‘You are glad to have it done’ or ‘You say: ”Thanks God”.’ (see Figure 6). Only one fourth-year female was never satisfied with her essay at all. A first-year student considered her work to be rubbish. Another first-year female wrote that she could feel satisfaction and she often liked what she wrote, but she was always uncertain about the evaluation. The answers indicate that the majority of the students asked was glad to have the essay done.

Figure 6
The answers to the seventh question ‘Do your opinion and the teachers’ comments often coincide?’ are unanimous. As Figure 7 shows, the teachers’ comments and the students’ opinions sometimes coincide ; there was no one who chose ‘Yes, always.’ or ‘Unfortunately, never.’

Figure 7
According to the answers to the eighth question: ”‘Practice makes perfect.’- do you agree?”, thirteen English majors agreed with the statement. Only two students believed that it was only generally true, but not in the case of essay writing. (see Figure 8) Five other students, especially upper-year ones, were more critical; one of them wrote: ‘It is an impossible title, it may only make your patience perfect - generally, of course it needs practice to make good essay writer -if it exists at all- as no one can write the same quality all the time, as well as in high or low sense.’ I interpret her comment as a protest against essay writing as an obligatory and a perpetual assignment.

A second-year English major thought that ‘Practice can improve essay writing, but not in all cases.’ She believed essay writing was an ability that can be developed at an early age. A fourth-year female wrote: ‘However, I believe that essay writing is a talent which can be practiced in order to reach a certain level; beyond this level it is just a waste of time.’ It indicates that she was not in favor with practicing essay writing beyond a reached level if one does not have talent for writing.

Figure 8

Conclusion
The results are valid only for those who filled the questionnaires in; they could not be representative of every English major at Janus Pannonius University.

Students participating in the survey seemed to welcome the idea of such a research, however they represented rather negative attitudes towards essay writing; as the result of the research, I consider first-year English majors to be more likely to have antipathy against essay writing, as opposed to upper-year students who might have got used to it.

All first-year English majors at JPU has to take the Proficiency Test as part of their Language Practice courses in the Spring Semester (Horváth 1996). The test is made up by four individual components; one of them is the Essay Writing Test. Such an essay test might be a torture for those students who dislike essay writing, but it ”continues to serve as a challenge for a number of students who have shown excellence in writing.”- reports Horváth József (Horváth 1996).