The English Department of the Janus Pannonius University in Pecs organizes a Proficiency Exam for the first-year English majors. A part of the Exam is writing an essay. In my paper I will attempt to classify the main types of the markers’ written feedback.
My analysis is based upon four anonymous proficiency essays submitted in the l996-exam, and a summary of the markers’ comments collected and classified by Horvath Jozsef ( I received this summary from the author as a class handout ).
The Proficiency Essays create a special relationship between Author, Text and Audience.
The author is externally ‘forced’ to produce a certain type of text (an essay) on one of the theme-possibilities offered by the designers of the test. Time of the working process is restricted to about 60-90 minutes, and the required length of the text is about 400-450 words. The author knows that his text will be evaluated according to what extent it meets the criteria of the essay-genre. The author knows that presumably the only readers of his essay will be the two instructors.
The audience’s task is to assess the essay-writing competency of the candidate, and to decide upon whether he fulfilled or not the requirements. The two readers highlight the spelling , grammatical, semantic and compositional inaccuracies (such as absence or insufficient presence of focus, introduction , text-cohesion etc.), and then reports on their overall impression of the particular essay. The comments are addressed to the author himself; to the colleague marker; or have no specific addressee. This typology is by Horvath Jozsef (Cross Markers Comments on Proficiency Test Essays, May 1996, Cross-Markers: Barbara Gonzalez and Horvath Jozsef, class handout).
Horvath Jozsef must have a valid interpretation on the addressees of the remarks, since he was one of the cross-markers, thus, he was in interaction with the text, the author (recommendations) and the peer-marker as well. However, without this ‘participant’-knowledge, the reader may find it difficult sometimes to identify the addressee of the particular remark. The following three comments belong to three different types in Horvath’s addressee-based typology:
A job well done. ( Type 1: Comments addressed to the author)
Not a workable topic choice. (Type 2: Comments addressed to the other marker)
Explanation not offered. (Type 3: Comments without addressee)
These remarks evaluate the essay either as a whole (1.), or refers to (the lack of ) a certain quality of it, but their common feature is that they make statements exclusively on the text without reference to the creator, or the other interpreter of that. Syntactically, these sentences prefer passive or fragmentary organization, which results in neglecting the agent of the activity. In a grammatical sense, the addressee is not explicitly present in these sentences. For a reader who is deprived from the context with which Horvath Jozsef is familiar, there is hardly any method to relate these sentences to the appropriate addressee-types.
From a quantitative aspect, most comments (45) are addressed to no specific audience; next comes those remarks that belong to the second type (22), and finally, it is the authors who receive the least of direct feedback (15). A reason that could explain this seemingly contradictory situation lies in the fact that the authors of the assessed essays rarely receive their essays back: they are notified about the results of their exam in terms of what scores they gained, and, thus, whether they passed or failed the exam; but their tests and ,as part of it, their essays are not automatically handed out to them. It is possible for them to take a look at their tests, but this happens upon request (Horvath Jozsef’s oral information). From this, it is clear that there is not a real dialogue between the authors and those who read, interpret and assess their texts. The feedback that the markers give is usually not seeked for by the potential recipients of that.
The proficiency essays are evaluated according to the quality of the following factors: focus, accuracy, vocabulary, paragraph organization and essay organization.
The real dialogue takes place between the two interpreters: they independently review the texts, and exchange their opinions in writing. They work independently, but a mutual decision must be reached upon the grade, so they report on their observations to each other. The style of these comments is quite sarcastic, colloquial and recalls the air of informal speech. For one who is accustomed to receive much more formal, if any, feedback from tutors in Hungarian grammar schools and universities this register may seem blasphemous. This difference in style, again, may come from (besides mentality) the special communicative situation: the remarks are public in theory, but practically remain the two markers’ private affairs. Some examples for the witty-sarcastic-informal style:
and A is for AWFUL!
Admit: I’m lost.
me, too
I wish I could have read it all.
Very vague and confusing. P-y shaky.
Too many ‘somethings’ make this essay say little ‘anything’.
‘The main thing’ is that this essay barely manages to do any analysis. I remotely sense it’s
about ‘parents’, though. ( And, of course, there you go with the ruled sheets.)
True. It never stops, does it. Takes essay in jest and then flunks.
The markers’ mutual observations can be characterized as being free, informal in style, but this trait is also true in the case of all the other comments, regardless of the addressee. Thus, the distinctive feature of this type (#2) of comments is that these are really dialogue-like, and that they represent a high degree of interaction and reflection between the markers.
Horvath Jozsef created a communicative typology; in the following part of my essay I will attempt to present a typology based upon the content of the comments. I found seven principal types:
Evaluation of the author’s essay-writing competence
Evaluation of the essay as a whole
Evaluation of a part of the essay
Genre-definitions
Response to the writer’s line of thought
Asking the author about a certain part of the essay
Grade (pass/fail) recommendations
Examples:
...and the more you write, and read, the better writer, and reader, you become. You are
pretty good already! Great Piece! (1)
Author obviously a critical writer; hence, the revisions that abound. (2)
2. Original. Focused. A male-chauvinist essay, though; what about Str8 women reader’s needs? (1)
Long, but an easy read. (2)
Cool. (3)
3. Is this the end? Unconcluded, and vague about the employee. (1)
The subject selected is impossible. (2)
this does not summarize the essay. It’s too mystic on what this “picture” is, I felt (3)
4. Essay is not a letter (1)
Fax is not a letter. (1)
5. or when somebody else gets to discuss lovers’ arguments (1)
Not much friendship (3)
6. Even easier than reading? (1)
And what about a ‘friend’? (1)
7. can’t pass (2)
borderline (2)
A near-fail (2)
Not even close to passing (2)
(The numbers in brackets indicate the corresponding type from the communicative typology)
These are the main types I found, but it is obvious just from these examples quoted that there are no rigid distinctions between the types. A comment like this: Author obviously a critical writer; hence, the revisions that abound. I think I read the essay in its right order, if so, this seems a well-planned piece. Some more focus on explanation would have been in place, though. A Pass, I think. (2) integrates types 1, 2 and 7.
The communicative situation determines and restricts the application of my types quite much: type 6- comments are addressed to the author, while type 7-comments are addressed, naturally, to the peer marker.
The frequency of the types: the rarest is type 4, while the commonest are type 2 and 3.
The markers of the proficiency test essay discuss principally the quality of the particular essay either as a whole, or a part of it. This feature of the comments is mostly independent of who the addressee of the comment is. Since the function of commenting is to produce information that can be utilized later, these comments in general are useful and of relevance.
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