W 080 F

Introduction:
I am a first year student at Janus Pannonius University of Pécs, Hungary. This survey was my research assignment for a Writing and Research Skills Course that I attend this semester (spring, 1997). Our tutor, Horváth József gave us five research topics to chose from; I decided to do the one in which I could select my specific research topic.

The aim of my survey was to find out what features of academic essay writing do English major students at Janus Pannonius University of Pécs, Hungary consider the most useful. These are the aspects which they tend to remember and imply the most frequently. I wanted to see how they recognized the criteria of essay writing by showing them the contrary (bad examples) in a sample ``bad`` essay (Horváth, 1995).

Methods:
The research began on May 5, 1997, and was completed on May 13, 1997. I interviewed fifteen English major students who were randomly chosen. They were given an extract of two independent paragraphs from the sample essay ``Why do we play soccer`` by Horváth József (1995). He is a tutor at the English department of JPU, who teaches Language Practice and Writing Skills courses there. He wrote this essay to help students acquire the skills of essay writing by providing them counter-examples. The students in his Writing Skills classes had to read the extract and find those criteria of academic essay writing that are not fulfilled by the work. They were to provide examples from the text to support their ideas where possible.

Group A (6 students) completed the Formal Writing course at JPU last semester, from September 1996 to January 1997. They had read the sample essay during the course, and they knew the author and the purpose of it. I wanted to find out how much they remembered of the lexical items used in class to describe the criteria of a well-organized, impressive academic essay. There were three female and three male subjects.

Group B consisted of nine students in the second to the fifth years. None of them had seen the text, but all had completed a 16XX Writing Skills course where they learnt about essay writing skills. My aim was to find out what features of essay writing remain in use in higher grades; my hypothesis stated that these would be the criteria which the students would recognize in relation to the sample essay. This group consisted of eight female and one male students.

All the subjects were given the same copy of the sample essay, I did not make photocopies. All the assistance that I gave them was that they were not to look for specific grammatical or syntactic errors in the fraction of the essay. They wrote the answers anonymously; only their years were indicated. This is the text that I showed them:

Research Paper Assignment

Here is an extract from an academic essay; please read it carefully. Which criteria of academic essay writing are not met by this work? Please give one or two examples from the text to support your ideas.

``Why do we play soccer?``

This question is very interesting nowadays. People have always been interested in it, and I am sure that you have played soccer or at least seen Maradona and heard about his doping scandals...! Even the prehistoric man played soccer when he came back from the hunt. In the old days, people hunted and gathered to have food. It was a good relaxation, I mean soccer, not food. You enjoyed the two halves of the match.

...
On the other hand, I would like to draw the reader's attention to the importance of playing sports in this paragraph. I do not know when the first match was played, but tennis is also interesting because you can watch it on television as well, on Eurosport and on Sziv TV. To tell you the truth, I think radio coverage of soccer is very boring nowadays. Szepesi was, for example a professional commentator. However, soccer is much better. Perhaps because there is more suspense in a soccer game than in a tennis tournament. My favorite is Wimbledon. And FC Milan my favorite team. Also, in tennis there is an umpire who sits atop a high stool, but in soccer the referee runs together with all the players, but the goalkeeper doesn't. The ball is also much larger in soccer than in tennis or table-tennis, although its size is almost the same as water polo. So it is very important to play soccer, as I mentioned above.
...

After having completed all the interviews I started evaluating the data by reading the responses, grouping the recognized criteria and ticking those that were marked by more than one students. I used separate symbols for groups A and B to be able to distinguish between the subjects who had or had not seen the text previously.

Results and Discussion:
The students’ comments were grouped into seven categories including style and attitude; vocabulary; syntax; accuracy and logic; focus; structure, coherence and paragraph development; and punctuation. The categories were sequenced this way because this was the order in which most students made their remarks. Here are the answers to them:

a) style and attitude:
Three students from group A and two from group B considered the style of the sample essay extract too subjective. Some of the examples they gave include: ``To tell you the truth...``,``I think...``,``My favorite...``, ``I would like to draw the reader’s attention to...``, ``I am sure...`` .

Three subjects from group A and four from group B judged the style of the essay too colloquial and informal. One student from group A responded that this essay was ``like chatting with neighbors``. Subjects from group B made comments like: the essay was ``more like a handwritten speech``, its style was ``not academic`` , ``plain``, it was ``not a real essay for real people``. This last comment implies that the sample essay was not audience conscious enough. E.g.: ``It was a good relaxation, I mean soccer, not food.``, ``...the goalkeeper doesn’t.`` (contraction) and ``You enjoyed the two halves of the match.``

One group A student described the style of the essay as ``careless and shoddy``.
b) vocabulary:

Three subjects from group A and two from group B wrote that the word use of the essay was imprecise and too simple. E.g.: ``very interesting``, ``nowadays`` and ``people``.

Three students from group A and one from group B noticed the use of clichés in the text, but only the three group A students used the term ``cliché`` to describe the phenomenon. E.g.: ``On the other hand...``, ``To tell you the truth...`` and ``...as I mentioned above``.

Three students from group A spotted the inappropriate, confusing use of the generic ``you`` The audience consciousness of the essay is again questioned. E.g.: ``People have always been interested in it and I am sure you...``, ``You can watch it on television...`` and ``You enjoyed the two halves of the match.``

Three subjects from group B considered the ``repetition of words`` unnecessary. E.g.: ``interesting``, ``interested``, ``soccer``, ``also`` and ``nowadays``.

c) syntax:
Only group B students made comments on the syntax of the essay extract. Two of them added that it was ``too simple`` and one subject regarded the compound sentences in the text very few and inaccurate (illogical).

d) accuracy and logic:
One student from each group noted that the writer of the sample essay used numerous sentences that were ``stating the obvious``: they used this very phrase. E.g.: ``In the old days...``, ``I mean soccer, not food.``

One subject from group A criticized the ``vague sentence formulation`` of the essay. E.g: ``This question is very interesting nowadays.``, ``I mean soccer, not food.``, and ``In the old days, people...``.

Six group B students observed the lack of arguments and reasons in the text. Three of them used this terminology; one student wrote that ``the writer does not work out his or her ideas thoroughly``; another noticed that there were ``no explanations to the statements``, and the third subject complained about ``the lack of data`` in the work.

The logical consequence of the lack of arguments was that the essay contained cooked-up facts. Two group B students observed this, saying that the essay was ``not based on research`` and ``lacks sources and bibliography``.

e) focus:
This the category was criticized by sixteen comments, the highest number from all the remarks for the other categories. The comments on the lack of focus are logical consequences of the remarks on accuracy and logic. They followed each other in the answers of the students.

The idea that the question never got answered was formulated with similar terms by four group A students. Two others from this group explained that ``the title did not match the content`` and another pointed out that the essay ``was not focused on the theme``. Two group B students commented that ``the title did not fit the paragraphs`` and it ``did not match the topic sentences``. The term ``topic sentence`` was used by one group A and two group B students.

The use of sentences irrelevant to the topic was spotted by three subjects from each groups. E.g: ``Maradona``, ``Eurosport and Sziv TV``, ``tennis``, ``Wimbledon and FC Milan``, ``the prehistoric man``, and ``the size of the ball in table tennis and water polo``.

f) structure, coherence and paragraph development:
This category received the second most remarks after focus. Four students from group A and five from group B considered the sentences to be disorganized and lacking cohesion. Three students from group B actually used the term ``cohesion``. E.g.: ``FC Milan my favorite team. Also in tennis...``, ``Szepesi was ... a professional commentator. However soccer is much better.``

One student from group A and two from group B criticized the paragraph development of the essay extract, one from each group using the term ``paragraph development``.

g) punctuation:
This is the smallest category only noted as ``fatty`` -the periods are unnecessary- by one person from each groups. E.g: ``...doping scandals...!``

Conclusion:
This section contains the results of groups A and B compared to each other, conclusions from the data. Table 1 on the next page shows the nature and number of comments of the two groups to the seven categories. Groups A and B have those categories under them in one column in which they gave more answers than the other group. The distribution of answers is shown in brackets. The first number corresponds with the number of answers given by group A in the second column, and the answers of group B in the fourth column. While studying these numbers the reader has to consider again that group A had six members, while group B had nine.

Categories Comments
group A had more Equal group B had more
style and attitude -too subjective (3/2) -too colloquial word
-careless/shoddy (1/0) use (7/4)
vocabulary -imprecise word use -repetition of words
(3/2) (3/0)
-clichés (3/1)
-generic „you” (3/0)
syntax -too simple (3/0)
accuracy and logic -vague sentence -stating the -lack of arguments
formulation (1/0) obvious (1/1) and reasons (6/0)
-cooked-up facts
(2/0)
focus -question never got -sentences irrelevant
answered (7/3) to the topic (3/3)
structure, coherence -disorganized
and paragraph sentences (5/4)
development -paragraph dev. (2/1)
punctuation -fatty p. (1/1)

By examining the nature of the categories in which each group had more votes than the other, I came to the conclusion that group A remembered those criteria of academic essay writing better, which constitute the ``surface level`` of an essay (word use, clichés, sentence formulation, pronoun use and focalization). I consider these aspects surface criteria because these are the ones that come into the reader’s mind first, and do not require deeper consideration.

The criteria in which group B gave more answers than group A require deeper consideration and associations (colloquiality, lack of arguments and reasons, cooked-up facts, sentence organization and paragraph development). These are aspects related to the ``deeper level`` of an essay. Due to this distinction I can state that students in higher grades filter the criteria of essay writing according to their experience; they remember only those that proved to be vitally necessary in their essays. I am not claiming that the ``surface level`` is any less important than the ``deep level``. After having completed the evaluation, I conclude that both levels are essential for the writing and analysis of academic essays. My opinion is that if the subjects had had enough time to think about these aspects and the complete version of the sample essay to refer to, they would have come up with more criteria at both levels of analysis.

I had a hypothesis before finishing the survey that higher grade students would use short note form instead of complete sentences more often than first year students, because they wrote so much over the years that they would want to avoid long answers. This proved to be a misconception. Four group B students gave full-sentence comments, while all six members of group A gave short, note form answers; even though all fifteen subjects were informed that note form answers would suffice. The conclusion that I can draw from this fact is that higher year students may have experienced that by full-sentence answers they can avoid confusion and ambiguity.

As for the fairness and validity of this survey, I have to re-emphasize the fact that group A had six members while group B had nine. If both groups had had nine members, table 1 might have shown different figures related to the number of categories in which each group gave more answers than the other. But the distinction in the nature of the comments would still remain present. So my aim -finding out which criteria of academic essay writing did the students remember and use- would be supported by valid data even in the case of equally nine members in both groups.