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INTRODUCTION
Students’ opinion about syllabi can influence the popularity of courses. The first piece of evidence which students receive on any first lesson is the syllabus. The first week of the semester is for selecting from the courses. The hints which can be found on syllabi are especially helpful for first-year students. If a paper is fascinating students will favour that class. But if the syllabus is boring and only another piece of paper, students will not go for that course, but look for something else of course.

My aim in analyzing syllabi was to find out what the intentions of teachers are with giving syllabi to students, to see the relations between syllabi and also their contents and finally to discover whether a syllabus tells something about its author.

METHOD
I started collecting syllabi in the middle of November. The first seven pieces were easy to obtain, as I received them at the beginning of my first year at university. In the second round I collected nine from other English majors at Janus Pannonius University and two from my Hungarian major friend. After having 18 already another friend from József Attila University at Szeged sent the last five. Three out of these five were for English majors and two for mathematicians.

When I had these papers I classified them: the first 19 are English-course-syllabi, 20-21 are for Hungarian courses and the last two are for mathematicians. I thought that papers with corresponding subjects might have similar characteristic features, thus I put them next to each other, for example the first two are from Writing Skills courses. Then I renamed them with numbers- from 1 to 23.

Having this numeric order I created the foundation of my analysis: a table. In the first line of the table I wrote the numbers of the papers. Then in the first coloumn I listed every type of information I found on the syllabi. Some data appeared on only one or two syllabi so I divided the table into two parts: Table 1. contains those information of which were more frequent, and Table 2. contains the extra, those which appeared on not more than three papers.

2 3 5 6 7 10 13 16 18 19 20 21 22 23
Extra help + +
Signiture + + +
Conditions + +
Next time +
L/S + + +
Date + +
Drawings + +
Dates of exams +
For whom + +

Table 2: Data which appeared on not more than three papers

I wrote numbers or letters in the first three lines of Table 1. The rest of the chambers are filled in with a yes-no method: I filled in the chamber with a "+" sign if that type of information appeared on the syllabus. If not, Then I left the box untouched. When I was ready with both tables I started the analysis.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
I think teachers’ main purpose in giving syllabi is to give information about their courses. I did not find two identicals, as different types of information appeared on each syllabus. I studied some features together because I found relations between them.

Table 1.
Format, Style and Language

The style of the paper is determined by the author. By style I mean outlook, content and tone.
Among the 23 syllabi No. 2 was the only one with informal tone. The other 22 were formal ones with passive sentences, which addressed the readers, the students, as objects.

All the syllabi I had were printed or typed. Non of the teachers handed out handwritten papers. I approved of this feature because typed or printed texts are easier to read. This format has a second adventage too: students do not have to waste time on decoding illegible handwritings.
No. 10 and 14 were unique in that they size were that of an A/5 page. All the others were bigger: A/4 pages.

The average length was one A/4 page. The shortest I met was one A/5 page or 0.5 page and the longests were two A/4 pages.

There were differences in the languages: The first 19 were written in English, these were the English-course-syllabi, and the last four were in Hungarian.

Names
The name of the course together with the name of the teacher (tutor or instructor) determine the course, thus the rest of the syllabus. Surprisingly three syllabi lacked at least one of these information. In the case of No. 12 and 17 the tutors did not include their names. No. 22 is completely anonymous since I found neither the teacher's nor the course's name on it.

Office Hours, Time of Classes, Place
Although the time, when a class is held, is an important information, it was indicated on 11 papers only. The reason why I put 17 "+"-s in the Table is that "Time of classes" meant two things. In the broader sence it refered to the semester. Though all my papers were from Fall 1997, I found this labelled on six papers only. The other meaning of "Time of classes" was the exact days and hours when the classes were held, for example: "Wednesdays: 12-14" (Gombosné 1). This was indicated on four papers, and I could find both types on seven more.
Where were the classes held? Nine syllabi gave answers to this question on the rest of the papers the place was not indicated.

If students needed further help, they could ask the tutors in the office hours. But when and where? This was shown on eight papers. On No. 1 and 9 they were recorded by the teacher, on the rest students added them later as they were hand written and not printed. No. 22 was the only syllabus which told those hours in the exam period when students could consult the teacher.

University, Code and Credits
At Universities where the credit system was introduced and is used, for example at JPU, the courses' codes and credit points are important data. József Attila University might not use this system since non of the papers from JAU registered neither codes nor credits. Out of 18 JPU syllabi 13 represented their codes and six out of this 13 told the credits too. Analyzing Table 1. I found that only eight papers included their birthplaces: JAU or JPU.

Course Description
Describing the course is the main aim of a syllabus. Course description is a complex feature, thus it is indicated in Table 1. as "Introduction" and "Topics". According to the appearance of a general description or a list of possible topics I found three basic types of syllabi.
Those papers, No. 1, 6 and 12, which contained only an introduction belonged to the first group.
The members of the second group, No. 5, 8, 14, 17, 19, 21, 22 and 23, revealed lists of the possible topics or weekly schedules.

The most developed papers belonged to the third group: these gave both introductions and topic lists. These were No. 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18 and 20.

Requirements
Requirements differed in accordance with the type of the course. Thus syllabi from similar courses showed concordance in this aspect. For example both Language Practise courses - No. 6 and 7- required the same textbooks and participation on the lessons too.

Most JPU syllabi included two other types of requirements. One was that students were not supposed to miss more than two classes and the other was that they shouldn't have been late.

Reading Lists
14 syllabi included reading lists. The books on these lists were either used on the courses or were suggested to be read. Syllabus No. 2 differed from the others in this aspect because it contained two lists: the first included those books which were required and the other the recommended ones.

Assessment
Almost every teacher included an assessment or his/ her grading policy. In my opinion this was the most popular part of the syllabi since the grades, given at the end of the terms, are considered important by students.

Some teachers calculated the final grades on the basis of the given points, others on percentages. Most assessments included not only written or oral tests and reports but active participation on the lessons also.

Phone, Email
I marked six "+" signs in this line of Table 1., which means that six teachers indicated either their phone numbers or their email addresses. I found phone numbers on 2, 16, 23 and on 20 which included fax number too. Five email addresses were given, on 2, 14, 18, 20 and on 23 I found the homepage address too.

TABLE 2.

As Schubert says we can find out personal information about teachers by analyzing their syllabi (66). He suggests that we can conclude even their hobbies (66). I agree with him partly, but I would not go that far. Table 2. contains extra data, hints which appeared on not more than three papers. These extra information certainly influence the mood of a syllabus.

Extra Help
József Horváth and Gabriella Vöõ gave extra help. Both of them told that the required books or pieces of papers could be found in the library. József Horváth even told the section of the library.
Signiture, Drawings
Three teachers signed their syllabi and two others included drawings on theirs. In my opinion these features reduced the impersonality of the texts.

Dates of Exams, For Whom
I considered No. 22 unique, because this was which addressed the widest group of students. It was written for students of four different departments at JAU. József Terjéki also included the dates of possible exams too. No. 23 told that it was for mathematicians in their second year.

Conditions, Next, L/ S, Date
Two papers, 5 and 7, told the preliminary conditions of the courses and 5 told the next time when the course would be held. 10, 18 and 21 indicated the whether the particular course was a lecture or a seminar . This was shown in Table 2. as: L/ S. And finally 10 and 20 showed the dates when the papers were printed or typed.

CONCLUSION
After studying the two Tables I counted the number of different types of information appearing on the syllabi. The top number was 14, on No. 20, and the smallest was 3, on No. 17. From these results I concluded that there were significant differences between syllabi. Paper No. 17 is just an image of the course, while papers with more than ten types of information are precise descriptions and fulfill the aims of syllabi.

Before analyzing the tables I thought that there would be correlations between some features: for example if the times of the classes were indicated the places would be indicated too. But the Tables and the analysis showed that the correlations are not as significant as I thought they would be. I found two correlations: true and false.

There is true correlation between the language of the course and the syllabi. In the cases of the 19 English-course syllabi the language was always English, and in the cases of the syllabi for Hungarian majors and mathematicians they were written in Hungarian.

By false correlation I meant that if the credit points were indicated, the code numbers were present too. I call this a false correlation because it did not work backwards: the presence of codes did not mean the presence of credits.

I expected similar syllabi from similar courses, but as I look at the results I must say that there is not more relation between paper No. 3, 4 and 5 -although all of them are from Descriptive Grammar courses- than between paper No. 3 and 6. Thus my conclusion is that the most determining factor of a syllabus is its author.

My final conclusion concerns the practicality of xyllabology- the pseudoscience that considers the analyses of syllabi (Schubert 66). The facts I found and the relations I experienced between the contents of the papers and their executions will be helpful at the beginning of the next semester when I will receive more papers. I shared my findings with you because I did not want to be in a priviledged position. The last detection analyzes reading lists:

If the list is two pages long, you probably won't have to read anything at all. However, if the syllabus contains only, let's say, one book or a couple of articles from different magazines... Leave the room immediately! (Schubert 67)

Thank you for not leaving and reading the Research Paper.