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Introduction

Essay writing is hard work, especially at exams. Students tend to make mistakes, which later are corrected by tutors. For earning good marks, students have to fulfill the requirements of focus, essay organization, paragraph organization, vocabulary, and accuracy. However, tutors` concept on grading are not always identical. At the same time, students are also more skilled at particular topics. This paper will analyse the result of my research on grading among students and the results of proficiency essays.

Method

My aim with this paper is to give a notion of essay evaluation, one way is by comparing tutors` and students` opinions on the same essays, and the other is to see comments on essays of the 1996 proficiency tests. My purpose was to try to uncover why students commit mistakes and how tutors identify the faults.

The skill to correct mistakes is in realizing what these are. "For many students, daily writing will increase their fluency, and fluency will help them revise their papers. But daily writing — spontaneous, indirect, and uncorrected—is a means to an end, not the end itself " (Hall, 1988 p. 53). I wished to know about essays written in 1996, and the remarks given to them, so I might learn of the experience. I also wanted to know what could influence markers in evaluating writings.

My topic chosen, I asked my tutor and received eleven proficiency essays, written at JPU Hungary in 1996, randomly chosen. It was important that I should not take either the best or the worst writings. Comments of two cross-markers could be found on them, and the evaluation of the grading categories. From my tutor I also received "Cross Markers Comments on Proficiency Test Essays, May 1996" (González , Horváth, 1996 ), a collection of comments without the essays.

I chose two of the eleven compositions, a succesful and a less succesful. One received twenty-three points, which meant that it failed. "The overall pass mark at 26 ..."( Nikolov, Horváth, 1996 p.96) would have been necessary to reach . The other composition obtained thirty- nine points which was a good mark. "The total score of the essay was 50 marks" (Nikolov, Horváth, 1996 p.96 ). These I typewrote. The reason for this was for me to be able to give copies without remarks on them to eight English majors, so they would not be distracted by the outward quality of the writing or the remarks when giving their opinion . The eight students asked to give answers to my questions about the typewritten essays were English majors. Here are three examples of the queries I asked :

Was the essay coherent, understandable?
Were there mistakes in it?
Was it interesting, understandable?

The assessments were needed to see how differently students approached the question of evaluating a piece of writing. Questions including the names of grading schemes would have been too suggestive about the aim of my inquery. The answers differed greatly. They were in agreement, in opposition to the markers` evaluation or partly identifying flaws.

Results and Discussion

I examined the answers about the weaker and the better composed essays separetaly.The evaluations of the weaker essay were of two types. I divided the answers into two groups. One group of three students claimed that the essay was an interesting work, easy to read, but contained mistakes of accuracy. The other group, five students, can be divided into two sub-groups. One sub-group, three students` remark was similar to the tutors` assessment: focus and essay organization were poor, but the three other categories—paragraph organization, vocabulary, and accuracy— were of high value. The other sub-group, two students, claimed the opposite: focus and essay organization were dim, but paragraph organization, vocabulary, and
accuracy were agreeable.

The better composed essay that achieved thirty-nine points, and was among the best works, was evaluated similarly to the weaker essay: the evaluating methods could be divided into two groups. Three students claimed that the piece was a work of good value, interesting, but containing grammatical mistakes. It is important to recognize that, just like with the weaker essay, the question was approached from only the interest and grammar point of view. The other factors were not considered. The other group, five students, gave their opinions of all five categories by which tutors marked. Their view was similar to the weaker essay`s evaluation. Out of five, four students stated that focus and essay organization were low, but the other three categories were appropriate. One student said that the essay had no focus at all, and it was impossible to understand what the composition was written about.

Examining the comments sheet, it occured to me that markers referred to focus, paragraph organization, and essay organization most of the times. In the fifteen comments addressed to the author, focus was referred to nine times, organizations five times while accuracy was referred to only once, and vocabulary was not pointed at.

"It is simply that innacurate syntax is easiest to spot and no comment is really necessary; a simple A will indicate an error However, focus and organization slips may need more explanation" ( Horvath 1997: 2).This evidence led me to conclude that the five grading categories could be placed into two groups. one is the group of focus, paragraph organization, and essay organization; the other is vocabulary and accuracy.

The direction I chose to understand how tutors and students evaluated essays was to examine the reviews given to them. The students` example showed that they concentrated on either focus and organization, or vocabulary and accuracy. Considering that students would write compositions the same way, keeping their interest on either grammatical components or organization, and focus components, the marks given to the five grading categories should differ greatly.

Examining the grades given to the five categories I realized that the grades did not differ to a great extent. In nine essays out of eleven between the marks there was only two or three marks difference. In two essays the difference reached five marks: the lowest being three points, the highest eight points. The evidence that the marks given to the five grading categories did not differ excessively shows that tutors approach the question of evaluating differently from students. Examining students reflections on essays I understood that one group of categories is always considered in greater extent than the other group, while tutors, however, they do make distinction between categories, concentrate on all the factors.

Conclusion

Evaluation methods differ between students and tutors :students pay attention to only several of the five grading categories while tutors tend to take all the factors into consideration. Through inquiry among students I obtained information of their method of essay evaluation. Answering the questions concerning two typewritten essays, they approached the evaluation from only one group of categories` point of view. Examining comments on a separate sheet I concluded that only one group of grading categories was highlighted. The marks given to the five categories in eleven essays did not differ to a great extent. If tutors evaluated one group of categories more than the other , the grades should extremely differ. However, the grades did not differ exceedingly. Examination of the marks given to the grading schemes on eleven proficiency essays and comments on a separate sheet proved the tutors attantive toward all the five grading categories.