Introduction
Each English major student arrives at the University having experience in writing in English. However, they may not have attended a formal writing course, and since having little experience in essay writing, they may have not put their writing habits and style into shape yet. In the second year, everyone has completed a writing course and written sufficient papers to evolve their attitudes. Therefore, the step between these stages must be the greatest one. In this piece of work these differences will be examined closely.
Method
As a starting point, I handed out questionnaires to fifteen first-year and fifteen second-year students at Kodolányi János College in Székesfehérvár. I asked them to mark only one answer and try to be as honest as possible. They filled out the questionnaires in the first ten minutes during their seminar, on the 7th of May, 1997. Then, I collected and analysed the data. I found that all second-year students had passed a writing course during their previous studies, and the first- year students were just attending one. The first part of the questionnaire(questions 1-7) referred to their writing process, the second part (questions 8-11) referred to their revising process, and the third part (questions 12-14) consisted of miscellaneous questions. I examined each answer from the following points of view: how many students marked it, and how many of them were first-year and second year students. Therefore, each answer has two numbers, ranging from one to fifteen. Because of the limited number of students, I considered the difference significant if one number of the given answers was higher at least four more than any other.
Results and Discussion
Part One
1. Do you write your essay using a word processor?
1st- year students 2nd- year students
No 7 2
Yes 8 13
First of all, let me take a look at what William Zinsser tells about the role of the computer in writing. “What does the word processor do that’s so helpful? It puts your words right in front of your eyes for your instant consideration - and reconsideration.” (Zinsser, 1988 p.209). Later in his book he says, “with a word processor you can play with your writing on the screen until you get it right, and the paragraphs will keep rearranging themselves, no matter how many words you change or add or cut, and you don’t have to print it until it’s just the way you want it.” (Zinsser, 1988 p.209). We can see from the figures that more second-year students took these advantages than first-year students. Only eight first-year students worked with computers, in contrast with thirteen second-year students. The reason for this can be the first-year students’ lack of computer knowledge. By the time they reach the second year in their studies, they have become familiar with the word processor and get used to working with it.
2. Do you follow the rules of American or British English?
1st 2nd
American 0 0
British 12 8
It depends... 3 7
The most striking finding is that none of the thirty students examined used consistently American English in formal writing. In spite of the fact that the influence of the American culture is much stronger on our society than that of the British culture, many first-year students maintained British English. In the second year, some of them gave up writing only in British English, and turned to using either one. However, no one went for exclusively American English.
3. Do you brainstorm before you start writing your essay?
1st 2nd
Always 7 8
Often 4 7
Sometimes 3 0
Never 1 0
The sign of improvement can be seen in the second year. Students at this stage either always or often brainstorm before starting to write an essay, whereas some first-year students fall into the ‘sometimes’ or ‘never’ category. They do not have their writing style developed enough yet.
4. What does your draft consist of?
1st 2nd
I don’t write drafts. 2 1
Some words. 0 1
Some thoughts. 10 9
Some complete sentences. 3 4
In many advanced coursebooks one can find some hints on how to plan a composition. These books include pieces of advice such as “write notes of the main points you wish to make; work out what order you wish to put these points in; a plan is just a note or reminder to yourself, so it only needs to include the main points which you will then expand upon in the composition itself.” (Kingsbury, 1984 p.14). I wanted to find out the features of students’ drafts, and, I can see now, they were quite close to the hints of the coursebooks: most students preferred having thoughts in their drafts to complete sentences or only words. Since there was no major difference between the two tested groups, I can claim that the habit of writing only thoughts in drafts is brought to the University. Fortunately, few students do not write drafts.
5. Do you write anything in Hungarian in your draft?
1st 2nd
No 13 10
Yes 2 5
Another remarkable finding is that there were both first-year and second-year students who wrote something in Hungarian in their draft. I was inspired to include this point in the questionnaire by a classmate who admitted that she would write essays first in Hungarian. Although I do not know what extent the students used their mother tongue (only a few words or the whole essay?), I think that one should avoid including many words in another language when writing drafts.
6. Have you ever used someone else’s idea or work in your essay, which remained unrevealed to your reader?
1st 2nd
Never 5 4
Once 3 1
A few times 7 7
Several times 0 3
At first, I intended to include the word ‘plagiarism’ in this question but I changed my mind and used a dictionary definition (Sinclair, 1995 p. 1254) to avoid making them feel uncomfortable. However, it was not a big discovery that students did commit some plagiarism. Twenty-one out of thirty were not innocent: at least once, they broke the rule of copyright. If we consider those who did not dare answer honestly to the question, this number could be even higher. Three second-year students used someone else’s idea several times, but there were no first-year students in this category. The more essays students wrote the more plagiarism they committed.
7. If the number of words is given, what do you do?
1st 2nd
a) I plan the length in advance. 6 4
b) I start writing, and I will see later how many more words I need. 9 11
The number of students who plan the length of their essay in advance was smaller than of those who did not. There seemed to be no major change in the second year.
Part Two
8. When revising, you change or omit...
1st 2nd
...nearly nothing. 1 3
...some words. 1 1
...a few sentences and some words. 11 7
...a few sentences and several words. 2 0
...several sentences and several words. 4 0
Zinsser says the following about revision: “What do I mean by rewriting,? I don’t mean writing one version and then writing a whole new version from scratch, and then a third. Most writing consists of reshaping and polishing the raw material you wrote on your first try.... Most writers don’t initially say what they want to say, or say it as well as they could.” (Zinsser, 1988 p. 211). The figures indicate that the most frequent type of revision was changing or omitting a few sentences and some words. However, only second-year students revised several sentences and several words, which means their revision must be more thorough. This consequence can also be detected from the twelfth question, which I will discuss in more detail later in my paper.
9. How do you check spelling and grammar?
1st 2nd
By the word processor. 2 1
Not only by the word processor but also myself. 4 6
Only myself. 6 6
I show it to someone. 3 2
The word processor is quite useful to check spelling and grammar, but it is not capable of revealing all typing mistakes. For instance, if one types the word ‘bit’ instead of ‘bite’, the computer will not correct it. Therefore, it is important not to rely solely on the word processor. Out of thirty only three students did not care about checking spelling after the computer, which is, I think, a good ratio. There was no major difference between the two groups.
10. Do you show your essay to a native speaker before submitting it ?
1st 2nd
Always 0 0
Often 0 0
Sometimes 3 9
Never 12 6
Second-year students showed their essays to a native speaker more often than first year-students did. Second-year students may have developed closer friendship to native speakers on the campus; thus, they may have more chance to show their work to them.
11. Do you show your essay to your peer before submitting it?
1st 2nd
Always 0 0
Often 2 1
Sometimes 6 5
Never 7 9
The frequency of peer editing did not differ much in the two groups. It is good to know that some students, at least sometimes, practise it.
Part Three
12. How many hours do you usually need for a 1000-word essay ?
1st 2nd
on average 3 hours and 3 minutes 5 hours and 31 minutes
Another striking fact is that the firs-year students spent far less time to complete a 1,000-word essay than second-year students. One reason has been suggested in the eighth answers: they revised fewer parts of their essays. Another reason can be discovered in the third answers: brainstorming occurred less frequently among first-year students. In my opinion, writing an 1000-word essay in three hours is a hurry.
13. Do you prefer being alone during writing?
1st 2nd
Yes 13 2
Others’ presence doesn’t really bother me. 14 1
Both groups liked to work alone when writing, and this attitude did not change in the second year either.
14. How do you feel when you start to work on your essay?
1st 2nd
a)‘ If only I did not attend this course’. 1 0
b) ‘It’s a tremendous work’. 5 2
c) ‘It takes a few hours but it’s not an awful task’. 2 6
d) ‘I don’t mind. I sometimes enjoy it.’ 6 7
e) ‘I’m glad because I like writing essays.’ 1 0
Though second-year students spent more time on an essay, not so many of them found writing ‘tremendous work’. Twenty-one students fell into the two slightly positive category (c, d).
Conclusion
A second-year student does more brainstorming, sometimes writes in American English, uses a word processor, commits more plagiarism, revises many parts of the essay, shows his or her work to a native speaker more often, needs more time to complete an essay, and finds writing less tiresome. However, one might raise the question whether all phenomena revealed in this research can be considered as an improvement.
Zinsser also has some thoughts about improvement: “Add a few percentage for such natural gifts as good ear, a sense of rhythm and a feeling of words. But the final advantage is the same one that applies in every other competitive venture. If you would like to write better than everybody else you have to want to write better than everybody else.” (Zinsser, 1988 p.233).
Being a first-year student, I am looking forward to the changes in my own essay writing attitude in the second-year. I wonder how many findings will apply to me and my peers in the future.
Showing posts with label writing skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing skills. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
W 110 M
INTRODUCTION
Among university students, and especially English majors, essay writing is regarded as an essential skill. “Failure to learn and practice writing reasonable lengths of text in school was leading to declining literacy levels and to a college-entry population that could not think critically about intellectual ideas and academic material.” (Liz Hamp-Lyons, 1990 , p. 69) Teachers at Janus Pannonius University find it one of the best ways to test the knowledge of their students by means of either in-class or take-home essays. The kinds that students have to write may vary on a broad scale: it can be a short story, a research paper, a proficiency test or a lesson plan, but they have one point in which they are common, and it is the skill which is needed to complete the task. This skill can be taught: that is why the Writing and Research Skills course was introduced, which aim was to acquaint students with all the basics of successful writing. Knowing the rules of how to create a good piece of writing definitely helps students, but it does not guarantee that the end product will be faultless. Success also depends on such circumstances like how the given student looks upon the task, which belongs to the category of attitude. For example, if a student is afraid of beginning an essay, this fear will surely cause the sad result of a completely wasted introduction. In this research paper, I want to clarify what the attitudes of English majors towards essay writing are and through the collected data, show how student and teacher needs can be brought closer.
METHODS
Besides using written theoretical works, I also introduced data collection from the layer which is the subject of my paper, and it is the layer of university students, especially English majors. The best way of gathering information seemed to be to hand out questionnaires (see Appendix for details) with specific, clear questions and instructions to the chosen persons. To use a number of them which can be said as reliable to draw a conclusion from, I questioned 30 university students who are English majors at the same time. Although all of the participants studied the same subject, I chose 15 people who completed their studies in an average high school with no essay-writing traditions, and 15 who came from Karinthy Frigyes Hungarian-English Dual Language School where a great stress is put on teaching and practising essay-writing techniques. In this way I wanted to get samples from people who have different backgrounds. Among the chosen ones, 17 study at JPU, while the remaining 13 study at Eotvos Lorand University. They all filled out the same questionnaires.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The first part of my questionnaire dealt with the different kinds of writings which required skills in producing texts. I wanted the students to give information on what the ideal length of a specific work should be and why. The first kind of writing was a research paper. Fifteen students answered that the ideal length would be between 1,500 and 2,000. These were the students who did not have any preliminary training, while those who did essay writing in high school found 2,000 - 3,000 - word long essays desirable, because ‘it is the length in which I can include everything that is important’ (Hencsei Vilmos, personal communication, 9. May 1997.). I think, the cause of the difference might be found in the lack of experience: students underestimate their capacities if they encounter something new. The next category was the in-class test: thirty out of thirty considered a 450-600 word long piece ideal, so in this case, different earlier experience in writing did not influence answers. When they were asked why they found this length appropriate, almost all answers were included the words ‘time’, ‘concentration’ and ‘skills can be measured’. To the question of whether a 250 - word long essay is enough to tell much about the students’ knowledge or not, every subject gave the answer ‘no’.
The next part of the questionnaire consisted of questions which focused on the students’ skills in writing an essay. Participants were asked to mark different parts of writing on a scale from one to five, 1 meaning ‘easiest’, 5 meaning ‘hardest’. This section was introduced to show the differences between the fears of students with differing previous studies. Eight categories were set up, the first two probably the most important, including ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’. From the fifteen respondents who completed an average high school, fifteen gave 4s and 5s to this part, while among participants in the survey coming from Karinthy Frigyes, three was the most common mark, only two 4s occurred. This result clearly shows that the skills of writing introductions and conclusions can be taught but not to the extent where it is automatic or does not cause problems. There were two categories (‘grammar’ and ‘giving a relevant title’) which were marked with 1s and 2s by everybody, which shows that since these skills do not have anything to do with writing background, they do not mean a problem to anyone among the subjects. Another category (‘vocabulary’) was marked as ‘not quite difficult’ (mainly getting 3s) but it did not show any differences again. Last came the questions on the difficulty of writing topic sentences and reaching the required length in a longer work, meaning at least 1,500 words. Those coming from the dual language school found these parts of writing easy (giving 1s and 2s) but the other group considered them difficult, giving marks from 3 to 5. Again, when the task was in connection with knowledge previously acquired (or not acquired) there were differences in the success level of solving the problem. To the option which allowed students to list any other problematic fields, only a few students wrote problems which were in connection with essay writing techniques. Most of them wrote about the lack of style in their essays, meaning that they do not think about themselves as writers who are capable of hitting always the right tone required for the specific task.
The purpose of the questions which followed was to see which kind of writing did students prefer: the one which does not allow them much freedom, or the other type which lets them do what they would like to do. They were asked to answer the following question: what are the advantages/disadvantages of a ‘free’ and a ‘strict’ essay? The aspects which they found positive about the strict essay were that the requirements are clear, and the theme is given so they do not have to spend time on choosing a suitable topic. The drawbacks were that if the theme is not so interesting or challenging, then it is much harder to write it. As for the ‘free’ one, they mentioned the free choice of topic which allowed them to choose one in which they are really good at. Among the disadvantages, they mentioned that they did not really know what are the expectations towards them, so it is difficult to live up to them . There was another question which was closely connected to the previous questions, and it asked about the essay which students would like to write. From the answers, I can conclude that the ideal essay should be a 500-600 - word long piece which needs creative thinking, but also tells the students what is expected from them.
CONCLUSION
It can be clearly seen from the results and the data that there are differences between the groups. The first surprising result is that those who studied essay writing beforehand were not afraid of numbers, so they found it executable to write any length they are required to. They also had fewer difficulties in such writing related skills as beginning or concluding essays, and also creating good topic sentences. All these findings indicate one conclusion, and it is that those who had earlier experiences in this field can more easily solve these tasks. The only solution remaining for the problem of essay writing is that students should acquire this knowledge before going to universities, for example in high schools. Those students who had preliminary training in essay writing, tackle the problem of creating written works more easily.
Among university students, and especially English majors, essay writing is regarded as an essential skill. “Failure to learn and practice writing reasonable lengths of text in school was leading to declining literacy levels and to a college-entry population that could not think critically about intellectual ideas and academic material.” (Liz Hamp-Lyons, 1990 , p. 69) Teachers at Janus Pannonius University find it one of the best ways to test the knowledge of their students by means of either in-class or take-home essays. The kinds that students have to write may vary on a broad scale: it can be a short story, a research paper, a proficiency test or a lesson plan, but they have one point in which they are common, and it is the skill which is needed to complete the task. This skill can be taught: that is why the Writing and Research Skills course was introduced, which aim was to acquaint students with all the basics of successful writing. Knowing the rules of how to create a good piece of writing definitely helps students, but it does not guarantee that the end product will be faultless. Success also depends on such circumstances like how the given student looks upon the task, which belongs to the category of attitude. For example, if a student is afraid of beginning an essay, this fear will surely cause the sad result of a completely wasted introduction. In this research paper, I want to clarify what the attitudes of English majors towards essay writing are and through the collected data, show how student and teacher needs can be brought closer.
METHODS
Besides using written theoretical works, I also introduced data collection from the layer which is the subject of my paper, and it is the layer of university students, especially English majors. The best way of gathering information seemed to be to hand out questionnaires (see Appendix for details) with specific, clear questions and instructions to the chosen persons. To use a number of them which can be said as reliable to draw a conclusion from, I questioned 30 university students who are English majors at the same time. Although all of the participants studied the same subject, I chose 15 people who completed their studies in an average high school with no essay-writing traditions, and 15 who came from Karinthy Frigyes Hungarian-English Dual Language School where a great stress is put on teaching and practising essay-writing techniques. In this way I wanted to get samples from people who have different backgrounds. Among the chosen ones, 17 study at JPU, while the remaining 13 study at Eotvos Lorand University. They all filled out the same questionnaires.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The first part of my questionnaire dealt with the different kinds of writings which required skills in producing texts. I wanted the students to give information on what the ideal length of a specific work should be and why. The first kind of writing was a research paper. Fifteen students answered that the ideal length would be between 1,500 and 2,000. These were the students who did not have any preliminary training, while those who did essay writing in high school found 2,000 - 3,000 - word long essays desirable, because ‘it is the length in which I can include everything that is important’ (Hencsei Vilmos, personal communication, 9. May 1997.). I think, the cause of the difference might be found in the lack of experience: students underestimate their capacities if they encounter something new. The next category was the in-class test: thirty out of thirty considered a 450-600 word long piece ideal, so in this case, different earlier experience in writing did not influence answers. When they were asked why they found this length appropriate, almost all answers were included the words ‘time’, ‘concentration’ and ‘skills can be measured’. To the question of whether a 250 - word long essay is enough to tell much about the students’ knowledge or not, every subject gave the answer ‘no’.
The next part of the questionnaire consisted of questions which focused on the students’ skills in writing an essay. Participants were asked to mark different parts of writing on a scale from one to five, 1 meaning ‘easiest’, 5 meaning ‘hardest’. This section was introduced to show the differences between the fears of students with differing previous studies. Eight categories were set up, the first two probably the most important, including ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’. From the fifteen respondents who completed an average high school, fifteen gave 4s and 5s to this part, while among participants in the survey coming from Karinthy Frigyes, three was the most common mark, only two 4s occurred. This result clearly shows that the skills of writing introductions and conclusions can be taught but not to the extent where it is automatic or does not cause problems. There were two categories (‘grammar’ and ‘giving a relevant title’) which were marked with 1s and 2s by everybody, which shows that since these skills do not have anything to do with writing background, they do not mean a problem to anyone among the subjects. Another category (‘vocabulary’) was marked as ‘not quite difficult’ (mainly getting 3s) but it did not show any differences again. Last came the questions on the difficulty of writing topic sentences and reaching the required length in a longer work, meaning at least 1,500 words. Those coming from the dual language school found these parts of writing easy (giving 1s and 2s) but the other group considered them difficult, giving marks from 3 to 5. Again, when the task was in connection with knowledge previously acquired (or not acquired) there were differences in the success level of solving the problem. To the option which allowed students to list any other problematic fields, only a few students wrote problems which were in connection with essay writing techniques. Most of them wrote about the lack of style in their essays, meaning that they do not think about themselves as writers who are capable of hitting always the right tone required for the specific task.
The purpose of the questions which followed was to see which kind of writing did students prefer: the one which does not allow them much freedom, or the other type which lets them do what they would like to do. They were asked to answer the following question: what are the advantages/disadvantages of a ‘free’ and a ‘strict’ essay? The aspects which they found positive about the strict essay were that the requirements are clear, and the theme is given so they do not have to spend time on choosing a suitable topic. The drawbacks were that if the theme is not so interesting or challenging, then it is much harder to write it. As for the ‘free’ one, they mentioned the free choice of topic which allowed them to choose one in which they are really good at. Among the disadvantages, they mentioned that they did not really know what are the expectations towards them, so it is difficult to live up to them . There was another question which was closely connected to the previous questions, and it asked about the essay which students would like to write. From the answers, I can conclude that the ideal essay should be a 500-600 - word long piece which needs creative thinking, but also tells the students what is expected from them.
CONCLUSION
It can be clearly seen from the results and the data that there are differences between the groups. The first surprising result is that those who studied essay writing beforehand were not afraid of numbers, so they found it executable to write any length they are required to. They also had fewer difficulties in such writing related skills as beginning or concluding essays, and also creating good topic sentences. All these findings indicate one conclusion, and it is that those who had earlier experiences in this field can more easily solve these tasks. The only solution remaining for the problem of essay writing is that students should acquire this knowledge before going to universities, for example in high schools. Those students who had preliminary training in essay writing, tackle the problem of creating written works more easily.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
W 105 F
At the beginning of the semester students had to take new courses which were very important for their later studies and examinations. One of them was Writing and Research Skills course. The aim of this course was to introduce and involve the students into different reading and writing styles and to help in studying how to write an essay and a research paper. On the first class students were given the syllabus of the course from which they could see which topics they would deal with and what they would do in the whole semester. When I had to choose a topic I would write about in my research paper assignment, I decided on the characterization and evaluation of the course and tasks students were given and they had to solve since the spring semester began. I would like to see, whether the course was useful for me and for other English majors or not.
After choosing the theme I started to work on the work methods with the help of which I could see how the tasks done in the class and at home (in-class and take-home assignments) influenced writing skills of students taking the course. I collected some Portfolios of my mates, so that I could see how they wrote about different themes, how they developed from the point of view of writing topic sentences, developing paragraphs and all the rest of it. I also made interviews with students, they told me about their ideas and thoughts about the usefullness of the course, how it helped them in improving their essay writing skills, what they found interesting and what they missed, what was not discussed in details.
I talked to many people and according to collected information the Writing and Research Skills course really did help to the majority of university students. The biggest development can be seen on the field of writing topic sentences and developing paragraphs. Students also made quite an effective progress on the level of sentences. Mainly in the last weeks of the semester they did various activities which were focusing on the sentence, as the lowest level of speech used in a written work. While practicing they seemed to understand the secrets of this field as well.
To make a classification we need to know more about each task, so that we could compare them with each other and we could evaluate them.
At the beginning students started to develop their skills in academic writing by reflecting on various reading styles. They had to read two essays from a book called ‘Seventy-five Readings’. Basically the first one written by Zinsser was the more effective one, as it spoke about the difference between two men’s style in writing. The cause of this difference was based on their professions, one of them being a writer the other one was a doctor, who writes only for the sake of fun, to entertain himself. After reading these essays students got a short extract of each. They were asked to fill in the gaps within the two paragraphs. They had to do it in order to realize how differently every person reads. It was depending on student’s character. By doing such a predicting activity students saw that in most of the cases people used different words for the same gap. That showed that everyone had different impressions while reading a text, every person understanded it in a different way to some extent. During the next class students got the opportunity to discuss the two essays in whole. The above mentioned Zinsser essay, ‘The Transaction’, introduced the students to their next topic which was writing styles.
After discussing the essays students read, they used metaphors in order to understand the structure of writing an essay. One illustration of this was the process of taking pictures. When photographing a person also needs to find a topic, to focus on it and to develop it. Landing of an aeroplane is similar to the former process as well as to essay writing.
When working on a written composition or paper you must begin with the basic elements, which are the first sentences of paragraphs. They must be effective, clearly showing the point the paragraph will be about. With the help of a worksheet students learnt how to make a topic sentence impressive, what information or data it should contain, how it should be constructed. All this was done in the class, so students could immediately discuss this problem, as it was the most important part of the paragraph students were dealing with in the following classes.
Students understood that a paragraph has to be unified, it has to focus on the problem indicated in the first sentence. They wrote short one or two paragraph essays, just to develop this skill. While doing this an other skill did improve as well. One of the tasks was quite interesting. Students received several sentences in connection with the death of the two famous American presidents: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Students had to choose some of those sentences containing information about the two tragic events. They had to compare them and include them in a short paragraph. This task served for making the students to use already known information and to make it interesting for a reader.
Students did enough practicing exercises to learn topic sentence and paragraph development. The next theme was building of revesion skills. There were two assignments connected to this purpose; an in-class two paragraph essay and an essay on tape. The point in this activity was that all students had to read their essays after finishing them in order to see and correct their mistakes; grammatical, lexical and structural as well. They realized how important it is to scan the text to avoid inaccuracies such as repetition, flat expressions, unorganized paragraphs, misspelled words. They discussed everything in the class.
A special technique for revesion was a take-home assignment: an essay on tape. Students had to write an essay about a given topic and then they recorded it on a tape. That was good for making sure that students did really revise what they had written down. Most of them revised it more than once, because they wanted to be sure about the correct pronunciation, correct grammatical structures and things like that. Students also could have a picture of their performing skills. This activity was not only useful but funny and enjoyable at the same time. The fact that the average mark of the group in this task was really good strengthened the students in their decision that they always have to revise everything they submit for some purpose.
Activities done in the first half of the term brought the group of students to a very special task, which was group writing. They were given a sheet with ten topic sentences which included all the different themes they were doing in the class and at home by that time. Students had to choose one of the ten phrases, then they had to look for people among their mates who chose the same sentence. After that they formed small groups with two or three in some cases maybe four people, but that was the most. Their task was to think of the specific sentence and write a paragraph about it. There were groups who chose the same topic sentence, but it was all right, because then they could at least compare the two works and they realized that there were different things in them. They found different things to mention as their interest varied. While doing this writing students had to cooperate with each other, share their ideas, come up with their own thoughts in connection with the topic, which was good again, because they could speak free, not being afraid to be laughed at by anyone else. Everyone could bring valuable and important opinions.
Then students had to choose one more topic sentence and work on it individually. Afterwards they had to discuss it with each other. That meant that everyone did something on his or her own, but then he or she got the chance to correct it, to complete, to give more details to it. In the next class students could see the work of the group in total. The tutor summerized it and they discussed the whole essay. As a next take-home assignment each student got a copy of group writing activity’s result and they had to write an introduction and also a conclusion. In addition they also received as a task to complete still incomplete paragraphs and sentences, to connect paragraphs and so on.
An other method for developing reaction to other people’s work was a two-page long essay with a title ‘Why Do We Play Soccer’. It was an essay written by the tutor to reflect on certain errors. It was full of all kinds of mistakes. The main problem was lack of focus on the topic. There were sentences which did not belong to the theme at all. Students’ task was to write a reaction on this masterpiece. They had to include all their doubts about the essay. As an end of this assignment they had to submit their reactions, they changed them among each other and took home for editing. Peer editing was very effective, as the students could read other people’s essays and they could write their ideas about them.
In the last three weeks of the term, students worked with different worksheets. They were reflecting on parallelism, run-ons and comma splices, pronoun problems, sentence fragments, dangling and misplaced modifiers, semicolons, sentence logic, avoiding wordiness, writing an introduction and a conclusion and many more important issues, which can perhaps cause difficulties to students while writing an essay. All these problems were properly discussed and illustrated with various examples.
As the top of the course students had to submit their so called Portfolios. This was a mixture of different papers and worksheets, they were working on during the semester. They had to put all the drafts in it and submit them to the tutor who could take a look at everything again and write down his comments and evaluation. By doing this he was able to see if students had made any progress in their writing style, developing paragraphs, in completing topic sentences and if so in what extent they could utilize learnt and practiced skills. He also reflected on specific parts of the Portfolios such as topic sentences, paragraph development, vocabulary, appropriacy of grammer and punctuation.
The last and biggest task is this research paper assignment, where students have the opportunity to show their skills once more and to summerize everything that they have learnt from the beginning of the term.
If we want to make a conclusion about those fourteen weeks we can say that the course has almost totally meet its goal. Students could learn all the important things they will have to utilize in their future studies at the university and maybe later, after finishing all their studies as well. Now it is their task to develop their skills to an even higher level. But they can feel a little bit better when they think of the proficiency test, which will be the first real barrier they must get over with the help of their knowledge.
After choosing the theme I started to work on the work methods with the help of which I could see how the tasks done in the class and at home (in-class and take-home assignments) influenced writing skills of students taking the course. I collected some Portfolios of my mates, so that I could see how they wrote about different themes, how they developed from the point of view of writing topic sentences, developing paragraphs and all the rest of it. I also made interviews with students, they told me about their ideas and thoughts about the usefullness of the course, how it helped them in improving their essay writing skills, what they found interesting and what they missed, what was not discussed in details.
I talked to many people and according to collected information the Writing and Research Skills course really did help to the majority of university students. The biggest development can be seen on the field of writing topic sentences and developing paragraphs. Students also made quite an effective progress on the level of sentences. Mainly in the last weeks of the semester they did various activities which were focusing on the sentence, as the lowest level of speech used in a written work. While practicing they seemed to understand the secrets of this field as well.
To make a classification we need to know more about each task, so that we could compare them with each other and we could evaluate them.
At the beginning students started to develop their skills in academic writing by reflecting on various reading styles. They had to read two essays from a book called ‘Seventy-five Readings’. Basically the first one written by Zinsser was the more effective one, as it spoke about the difference between two men’s style in writing. The cause of this difference was based on their professions, one of them being a writer the other one was a doctor, who writes only for the sake of fun, to entertain himself. After reading these essays students got a short extract of each. They were asked to fill in the gaps within the two paragraphs. They had to do it in order to realize how differently every person reads. It was depending on student’s character. By doing such a predicting activity students saw that in most of the cases people used different words for the same gap. That showed that everyone had different impressions while reading a text, every person understanded it in a different way to some extent. During the next class students got the opportunity to discuss the two essays in whole. The above mentioned Zinsser essay, ‘The Transaction’, introduced the students to their next topic which was writing styles.
After discussing the essays students read, they used metaphors in order to understand the structure of writing an essay. One illustration of this was the process of taking pictures. When photographing a person also needs to find a topic, to focus on it and to develop it. Landing of an aeroplane is similar to the former process as well as to essay writing.
When working on a written composition or paper you must begin with the basic elements, which are the first sentences of paragraphs. They must be effective, clearly showing the point the paragraph will be about. With the help of a worksheet students learnt how to make a topic sentence impressive, what information or data it should contain, how it should be constructed. All this was done in the class, so students could immediately discuss this problem, as it was the most important part of the paragraph students were dealing with in the following classes.
Students understood that a paragraph has to be unified, it has to focus on the problem indicated in the first sentence. They wrote short one or two paragraph essays, just to develop this skill. While doing this an other skill did improve as well. One of the tasks was quite interesting. Students received several sentences in connection with the death of the two famous American presidents: Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Students had to choose some of those sentences containing information about the two tragic events. They had to compare them and include them in a short paragraph. This task served for making the students to use already known information and to make it interesting for a reader.
Students did enough practicing exercises to learn topic sentence and paragraph development. The next theme was building of revesion skills. There were two assignments connected to this purpose; an in-class two paragraph essay and an essay on tape. The point in this activity was that all students had to read their essays after finishing them in order to see and correct their mistakes; grammatical, lexical and structural as well. They realized how important it is to scan the text to avoid inaccuracies such as repetition, flat expressions, unorganized paragraphs, misspelled words. They discussed everything in the class.
A special technique for revesion was a take-home assignment: an essay on tape. Students had to write an essay about a given topic and then they recorded it on a tape. That was good for making sure that students did really revise what they had written down. Most of them revised it more than once, because they wanted to be sure about the correct pronunciation, correct grammatical structures and things like that. Students also could have a picture of their performing skills. This activity was not only useful but funny and enjoyable at the same time. The fact that the average mark of the group in this task was really good strengthened the students in their decision that they always have to revise everything they submit for some purpose.
Activities done in the first half of the term brought the group of students to a very special task, which was group writing. They were given a sheet with ten topic sentences which included all the different themes they were doing in the class and at home by that time. Students had to choose one of the ten phrases, then they had to look for people among their mates who chose the same sentence. After that they formed small groups with two or three in some cases maybe four people, but that was the most. Their task was to think of the specific sentence and write a paragraph about it. There were groups who chose the same topic sentence, but it was all right, because then they could at least compare the two works and they realized that there were different things in them. They found different things to mention as their interest varied. While doing this writing students had to cooperate with each other, share their ideas, come up with their own thoughts in connection with the topic, which was good again, because they could speak free, not being afraid to be laughed at by anyone else. Everyone could bring valuable and important opinions.
Then students had to choose one more topic sentence and work on it individually. Afterwards they had to discuss it with each other. That meant that everyone did something on his or her own, but then he or she got the chance to correct it, to complete, to give more details to it. In the next class students could see the work of the group in total. The tutor summerized it and they discussed the whole essay. As a next take-home assignment each student got a copy of group writing activity’s result and they had to write an introduction and also a conclusion. In addition they also received as a task to complete still incomplete paragraphs and sentences, to connect paragraphs and so on.
An other method for developing reaction to other people’s work was a two-page long essay with a title ‘Why Do We Play Soccer’. It was an essay written by the tutor to reflect on certain errors. It was full of all kinds of mistakes. The main problem was lack of focus on the topic. There were sentences which did not belong to the theme at all. Students’ task was to write a reaction on this masterpiece. They had to include all their doubts about the essay. As an end of this assignment they had to submit their reactions, they changed them among each other and took home for editing. Peer editing was very effective, as the students could read other people’s essays and they could write their ideas about them.
In the last three weeks of the term, students worked with different worksheets. They were reflecting on parallelism, run-ons and comma splices, pronoun problems, sentence fragments, dangling and misplaced modifiers, semicolons, sentence logic, avoiding wordiness, writing an introduction and a conclusion and many more important issues, which can perhaps cause difficulties to students while writing an essay. All these problems were properly discussed and illustrated with various examples.
As the top of the course students had to submit their so called Portfolios. This was a mixture of different papers and worksheets, they were working on during the semester. They had to put all the drafts in it and submit them to the tutor who could take a look at everything again and write down his comments and evaluation. By doing this he was able to see if students had made any progress in their writing style, developing paragraphs, in completing topic sentences and if so in what extent they could utilize learnt and practiced skills. He also reflected on specific parts of the Portfolios such as topic sentences, paragraph development, vocabulary, appropriacy of grammer and punctuation.
The last and biggest task is this research paper assignment, where students have the opportunity to show their skills once more and to summerize everything that they have learnt from the beginning of the term.
If we want to make a conclusion about those fourteen weeks we can say that the course has almost totally meet its goal. Students could learn all the important things they will have to utilize in their future studies at the university and maybe later, after finishing all their studies as well. Now it is their task to develop their skills to an even higher level. But they can feel a little bit better when they think of the proficiency test, which will be the first real barrier they must get over with the help of their knowledge.
W 099 F
Introduction
Bilingual university students need dictionaries, but many of them have problems with using them. I understand them very well as I am an English major, too. In the first year I had to confront applying dictionaries because there were a lot of texts to interpret and several essays to write. After I read ten of my groupmates' writings I noticed that most of them did not pay enough attention to accuracy. They aimed at trying to find the easiest way to get over with their work quickly and apply words that come to their minds at once. They told me that using dictionaries was a waste of time. They did not even know any techniques to improve their writings. I would like to give some help to them by presenting what kind of dictionaries an English major uses and how she applies them for essay writing.
Method
I interviewed one of my classmates who also attended a writing course this year. I chose Zita (the name has been changed to avoid recognition) because as she was one of my best friends, I assumed that she would not reject to answer my questions. I recorded the talk on tape to be able to listen to it as many times as I wanted, and this way I could quote some of her views as well. I made the interview in a room in the dormitory one day before I wrote this research paper. I did not really need to ask her a lot of questions because when she heard the first question ”How do you use dictionaries for essay writing?” she told me everything in detail. Zita works for the U.S. Army, so she has a special wordpower, full of American slang. That is why I was interested if she needed any dictionaries at all. I wondered if she was afraid of using words that may have seemed awkward for those readers who did not speak American English. I asked her what kind of dictionaries she preferred for writing and what her opinion was about them.
Results and discussion
Zita said that she, as a first-year student, also had troubles in writing mainly at the beginning of the semester. She had had to write some essays before but those could be called short stories. Her English teacher did not consider the essay writing serious, and although she had a dictionary did not need to open it at all. She built the words and expressions, which she picked up from the American soldiers, into the texts. Her classmates thought that as she could speak English almost fluently her essays must have been the same good. As she said she did not know what to do with the topic she got for the first time. She suspected that she must grasp it in an other way than before. Strictly speaking, she was scared a bit that the non-formal words she used would not fit in the context.
While she was writing her essay she looked the formal adequates of the words in the Synonym Finder to take her work more variable. According to her, that dictionary is useful but difficult to choose the right expression from the long list. "You cannot know which word has a meaning in the context unless you have read a lot in English before", said Zita. For these reasons "Synonym Finder must be used with caution. Even though two words may be quite similar in meaning, the substitution of one for the other may not always be appropriate, and the writer’s intent may be ill served." Zita also told me that the book also helped her when the proper word did not occur to her at a particular moment, though it was on the tip of her tongue.
Zita realised, after she had written her first essay at the university, that she had to be more careful with her spelling. Several American words are spelled another way, and teachers told her not to mix the British and American spelling. Since then she has been taking care of looking up the words that existed in British English.
If she does not recognise the meaning of the term she looks for the information in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary because it includes the most current English. Besides the authors of it took care of every single detail and the definitions are clear and easy to follow. She often uses the wordbook for solving grammar problems because it has study pages that give answer even the basic linguistic questions. "Oxford Learner's Dictionary provides me the biggest help while writing an essay", said Zita. It is not just a list of words and their meanings. It contains much more information that can help to write good, natural English. For writing something she considers how to link one word to the other in a sentence important. The dictionary gives her instructions about the grammar of a word and about the structures that often follow it. It also tells whether the word is formal or informal, helping her to select what is appropriate for a particular context.
On one occassion she looked up the equivalent of the word 'writer' in the Synonym Finder because the expression appeared in her essay a lot of times. She chose the term 'scribe', but since she doubted the meaning she checked it in the Oxford Dictionary. She found the following definition under the headword: "a person who made copies of writings before printing was invented". After reading it she realized that she had to look for another, more adequate word.
Zita also has a bilingual dictionary by Országh László, but she applies it for essay writing only on few occasions. It contains much more expressions, idioms, and prepositions than the earlier editions, but its word content still makes up of some old and old-fashioned words. That is why Zita do not find it suitable for writing. She uses it only that time when she has the idea of a word only in Hungarian. Then she can do nothing but look it up in that dictionary.
Conclusion
On the basis of an English learner’s ideas I have presented how the different dictionaries gives help for writing. Zita told me everything in detail about the content of three types of wordbooks and about why each one has advantages for writers. They had to open them more seldom than the beginners if they have mastered the foreign language perfectly. But they may hesitate even then and look for a better word or expression in the Synonym Finder, the unknown terms in the Országh László Dictionary and the grammar in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
Bilingual university students need dictionaries, but many of them have problems with using them. I understand them very well as I am an English major, too. In the first year I had to confront applying dictionaries because there were a lot of texts to interpret and several essays to write. After I read ten of my groupmates' writings I noticed that most of them did not pay enough attention to accuracy. They aimed at trying to find the easiest way to get over with their work quickly and apply words that come to their minds at once. They told me that using dictionaries was a waste of time. They did not even know any techniques to improve their writings. I would like to give some help to them by presenting what kind of dictionaries an English major uses and how she applies them for essay writing.
Method
I interviewed one of my classmates who also attended a writing course this year. I chose Zita (the name has been changed to avoid recognition) because as she was one of my best friends, I assumed that she would not reject to answer my questions. I recorded the talk on tape to be able to listen to it as many times as I wanted, and this way I could quote some of her views as well. I made the interview in a room in the dormitory one day before I wrote this research paper. I did not really need to ask her a lot of questions because when she heard the first question ”How do you use dictionaries for essay writing?” she told me everything in detail. Zita works for the U.S. Army, so she has a special wordpower, full of American slang. That is why I was interested if she needed any dictionaries at all. I wondered if she was afraid of using words that may have seemed awkward for those readers who did not speak American English. I asked her what kind of dictionaries she preferred for writing and what her opinion was about them.
Results and discussion
Zita said that she, as a first-year student, also had troubles in writing mainly at the beginning of the semester. She had had to write some essays before but those could be called short stories. Her English teacher did not consider the essay writing serious, and although she had a dictionary did not need to open it at all. She built the words and expressions, which she picked up from the American soldiers, into the texts. Her classmates thought that as she could speak English almost fluently her essays must have been the same good. As she said she did not know what to do with the topic she got for the first time. She suspected that she must grasp it in an other way than before. Strictly speaking, she was scared a bit that the non-formal words she used would not fit in the context.
While she was writing her essay she looked the formal adequates of the words in the Synonym Finder to take her work more variable. According to her, that dictionary is useful but difficult to choose the right expression from the long list. "You cannot know which word has a meaning in the context unless you have read a lot in English before", said Zita. For these reasons "Synonym Finder must be used with caution. Even though two words may be quite similar in meaning, the substitution of one for the other may not always be appropriate, and the writer’s intent may be ill served." Zita also told me that the book also helped her when the proper word did not occur to her at a particular moment, though it was on the tip of her tongue.
Zita realised, after she had written her first essay at the university, that she had to be more careful with her spelling. Several American words are spelled another way, and teachers told her not to mix the British and American spelling. Since then she has been taking care of looking up the words that existed in British English.
If she does not recognise the meaning of the term she looks for the information in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary because it includes the most current English. Besides the authors of it took care of every single detail and the definitions are clear and easy to follow. She often uses the wordbook for solving grammar problems because it has study pages that give answer even the basic linguistic questions. "Oxford Learner's Dictionary provides me the biggest help while writing an essay", said Zita. It is not just a list of words and their meanings. It contains much more information that can help to write good, natural English. For writing something she considers how to link one word to the other in a sentence important. The dictionary gives her instructions about the grammar of a word and about the structures that often follow it. It also tells whether the word is formal or informal, helping her to select what is appropriate for a particular context.
On one occassion she looked up the equivalent of the word 'writer' in the Synonym Finder because the expression appeared in her essay a lot of times. She chose the term 'scribe', but since she doubted the meaning she checked it in the Oxford Dictionary. She found the following definition under the headword: "a person who made copies of writings before printing was invented". After reading it she realized that she had to look for another, more adequate word.
Zita also has a bilingual dictionary by Országh László, but she applies it for essay writing only on few occasions. It contains much more expressions, idioms, and prepositions than the earlier editions, but its word content still makes up of some old and old-fashioned words. That is why Zita do not find it suitable for writing. She uses it only that time when she has the idea of a word only in Hungarian. Then she can do nothing but look it up in that dictionary.
Conclusion
On the basis of an English learner’s ideas I have presented how the different dictionaries gives help for writing. Zita told me everything in detail about the content of three types of wordbooks and about why each one has advantages for writers. They had to open them more seldom than the beginners if they have mastered the foreign language perfectly. But they may hesitate even then and look for a better word or expression in the Synonym Finder, the unknown terms in the Országh László Dictionary and the grammar in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
W 047 F
Introduction
Few possibilities exist for a Hungarian student who would like to learn the rules of English essay writing. Writing is not taught in high schools, only for English majors at universities. Those people who would like to learn writing can choose between many books - but choices are difficult. Students often do not know which book is the best.
There are three major categories of English writing books. The first group contains just theoritical books. The second is the group of practical handbooks, and the third is a mixture of the two. Students have to study the rules of English writing because these are different than the Hungarian ones. After that, learners can start to practice. Best for doing this is to buy writing book which builds on those theories that he or she has studied earlier. This essay suggests such a book.
Method
Effective Writing by Jean Withrow, was written for intermediate students of American English. My aim was to evaluate the usefulness of this handbook using Jeremy Harmer's theories. Professor Harmer is a recognized ELT authority. One of his most successful books details his thoughts about English writing teaching: The Practice of English Language Teaching. This book contains many suggestions for writing teachers, six of which I used to assess Withrow's book.
Results and Discussion
Effective Writing contains a one page introduction to the students. There are eight suggestions in it which can help to do the exercises and improve the students' writing ability. Following this, learners can find eight units in this book. These themes are different and practical as well: Formal and informal letters, Writing a story, Reports, Articles, Instructions, Business letters and memos, and Stating an opinion I-II.
Each unit starts with a section on Organizing ideas. It contains exercises to put sentences into logical order. The task can be from a letter or an article or an introduction where sentences are in the wrong order and students have to rearrange them. These exercises are useful for improving students' vocabulary, and by the end of the book they can understand the structure of English sentences. The given expressions are repeated in the exercises so it is easier to memorize them. The whole text builds on group work, but students can do the exercises on their own. Harmer believes that written exercises should integrate skills development. As he says, "Information gap tasks, then, provide students with a reason to communicate with each other, and can be designed to practice..." (Harmer 93).
Following the section on Organizing ideas, there is usually a section entitled "Relating ideas: Linking words and phrases." (Withrow 2, 12, 21, 34, 55, 67, 79) As Harmer states, the "use [of] the information gap principle [is] to prompt the practice of specific items of language..., usually by writing information down." (Harmer 90) Students can study the usage of linking words or phrasal verbs. They can develop their vocabulary and learn how to join ideas and how to punctuate. Students should discuss these word-forms and their usage before they start to do the next exercise. Throughout the section, they have to find the missing words which are the most appropriate. Alternatives are always given. Learners should just concentrate on the meaning of sentences and phrases. By Harmer's opinion, "The concept of parallel writing is central to the teaching of connected discourse since it suggests that students should have a model from which to work... The original piece that they look at will show them how English is written and guide them towards their own ability to express themselves in written English." (Harmer 102)
Jean Withrow used this idea in several sections. (Withrow 6, 15, 22, 24, 35, 57, 70, 82) Students have to choose the best beginning or the end of a composition from a variety of given examples. Another way for practicing this kind of exercise in "Adding examples and details." (Withrow 41, 74, 87) Groups have to discuss texts and the writers' main points and their reasons. Then they have to make the essay longer by thinking of examples and details to explain and support each of those reasons. After that, they write an essay using the reasons. Each reason should be a paragraph. At the end they finish with a conclusion. Those students who do not like this kind of exercise can find a similar exercise where they have to complete an article. (Withrow 13, 84, 87) In one such exercise characteristics of each communicative style were given and students have to write examples for them. Learners can practice their stylistic writing with this exercise. It helps them to empathise with people and be more careful about their audience when they write.
Some units have so-called "Composing texts." (Withrow 8, 15, 28, 48, 60, 85) Their main idea is to decide which version of a given text is more appropriate and why. After readers analize the texts, there is given exercise based on the texts. They have to write a letter or an article. Slowly students study the technique of English writing. Organizing paragraphs show the learners how English sentences are joined together. As Harmer states, "The variety of exercises in the sequence gives students practice not only in working out the logic of such organisation but also in putting their newly acquired understanding into practice." (Harmer 109)
"Punctuating: commas, periods, and semicolons" is another section of Effective Writing. (Withrow 10, 18, 31, 43, 52, 64, 76, 89) Students have to punctuate the sentences correctly and add connecting words. This exercise also helps students to know the structure of English sentences and functions of punctuation marks.
Harmer thinks that writing about a picture is a useful exercise which "has the advantage of getting the students to use specific language... to make their own sentences..." (Harmer 101) "Writing text based on visual information is a section based on this point. (Withrow 17, 30, 39, 50, 62, 73) Generally, students have to write about an article from a newspaper. Themes are from everyday life (about computers, maps, tools). Groups have to discuss the text and the picture which is next to the article. Then they select topic and write a story about it. Harmer believes that writing reports and advertisements "is attractive because it involves all the skills, as well as the ability to order and organise ideas. It also involves current events and is thus interesting and motivating..." (Harmer 138) I think this exercise helps to improve students' speaking and writing ability. Again, they are practicing grammar and using new words.
At then end of each unit readers can find a so-called "Practicing writing" section. Many kind of topics are suggested, from letters to an opinion essay. Students can use all the information that they learned in the previous sections. This exercise is for showing how students' writing ability have improved.
Conclusion
Writing is one of the most essential abilities which students need to study if they learn a foreign language. A lot of exercises are needed to improve their writing skills. Using punctuation and learning the structure of the sentences, and writing an essay are some of the ways to practice writing language. Effective Writing is a handbook that I would like to suggest to everybody who wants to improve his or her writing ability. This book contains many kinds of exercises which can help us to practice this skill. I found a logical order in the book. As the learners' writing ability improves the author gives more and more complex exercises to them. At the end of the book the students have to write an essay alone. As this essay details, similarities between Jeremy Harmer's text and this book can assure the reader that Jean Withrow has made rules of English writing real in her text. It is hard to find a suitable handbook which is appropriate for practicing those theoritical rules that we have previously learned. Effective Writing steer the improvement of our writing ability as a pilot flies aircraft. The result activities is to achieve the top.
Few possibilities exist for a Hungarian student who would like to learn the rules of English essay writing. Writing is not taught in high schools, only for English majors at universities. Those people who would like to learn writing can choose between many books - but choices are difficult. Students often do not know which book is the best.
There are three major categories of English writing books. The first group contains just theoritical books. The second is the group of practical handbooks, and the third is a mixture of the two. Students have to study the rules of English writing because these are different than the Hungarian ones. After that, learners can start to practice. Best for doing this is to buy writing book which builds on those theories that he or she has studied earlier. This essay suggests such a book.
Method
Effective Writing by Jean Withrow, was written for intermediate students of American English. My aim was to evaluate the usefulness of this handbook using Jeremy Harmer's theories. Professor Harmer is a recognized ELT authority. One of his most successful books details his thoughts about English writing teaching: The Practice of English Language Teaching. This book contains many suggestions for writing teachers, six of which I used to assess Withrow's book.
Results and Discussion
Effective Writing contains a one page introduction to the students. There are eight suggestions in it which can help to do the exercises and improve the students' writing ability. Following this, learners can find eight units in this book. These themes are different and practical as well: Formal and informal letters, Writing a story, Reports, Articles, Instructions, Business letters and memos, and Stating an opinion I-II.
Each unit starts with a section on Organizing ideas. It contains exercises to put sentences into logical order. The task can be from a letter or an article or an introduction where sentences are in the wrong order and students have to rearrange them. These exercises are useful for improving students' vocabulary, and by the end of the book they can understand the structure of English sentences. The given expressions are repeated in the exercises so it is easier to memorize them. The whole text builds on group work, but students can do the exercises on their own. Harmer believes that written exercises should integrate skills development. As he says, "Information gap tasks, then, provide students with a reason to communicate with each other, and can be designed to practice..." (Harmer 93).
Following the section on Organizing ideas, there is usually a section entitled "Relating ideas: Linking words and phrases." (Withrow 2, 12, 21, 34, 55, 67, 79) As Harmer states, the "use [of] the information gap principle [is] to prompt the practice of specific items of language..., usually by writing information down." (Harmer 90) Students can study the usage of linking words or phrasal verbs. They can develop their vocabulary and learn how to join ideas and how to punctuate. Students should discuss these word-forms and their usage before they start to do the next exercise. Throughout the section, they have to find the missing words which are the most appropriate. Alternatives are always given. Learners should just concentrate on the meaning of sentences and phrases. By Harmer's opinion, "The concept of parallel writing is central to the teaching of connected discourse since it suggests that students should have a model from which to work... The original piece that they look at will show them how English is written and guide them towards their own ability to express themselves in written English." (Harmer 102)
Jean Withrow used this idea in several sections. (Withrow 6, 15, 22, 24, 35, 57, 70, 82) Students have to choose the best beginning or the end of a composition from a variety of given examples. Another way for practicing this kind of exercise in "Adding examples and details." (Withrow 41, 74, 87) Groups have to discuss texts and the writers' main points and their reasons. Then they have to make the essay longer by thinking of examples and details to explain and support each of those reasons. After that, they write an essay using the reasons. Each reason should be a paragraph. At the end they finish with a conclusion. Those students who do not like this kind of exercise can find a similar exercise where they have to complete an article. (Withrow 13, 84, 87) In one such exercise characteristics of each communicative style were given and students have to write examples for them. Learners can practice their stylistic writing with this exercise. It helps them to empathise with people and be more careful about their audience when they write.
Some units have so-called "Composing texts." (Withrow 8, 15, 28, 48, 60, 85) Their main idea is to decide which version of a given text is more appropriate and why. After readers analize the texts, there is given exercise based on the texts. They have to write a letter or an article. Slowly students study the technique of English writing. Organizing paragraphs show the learners how English sentences are joined together. As Harmer states, "The variety of exercises in the sequence gives students practice not only in working out the logic of such organisation but also in putting their newly acquired understanding into practice." (Harmer 109)
"Punctuating: commas, periods, and semicolons" is another section of Effective Writing. (Withrow 10, 18, 31, 43, 52, 64, 76, 89) Students have to punctuate the sentences correctly and add connecting words. This exercise also helps students to know the structure of English sentences and functions of punctuation marks.
Harmer thinks that writing about a picture is a useful exercise which "has the advantage of getting the students to use specific language... to make their own sentences..." (Harmer 101) "Writing text based on visual information is a section based on this point. (Withrow 17, 30, 39, 50, 62, 73) Generally, students have to write about an article from a newspaper. Themes are from everyday life (about computers, maps, tools). Groups have to discuss the text and the picture which is next to the article. Then they select topic and write a story about it. Harmer believes that writing reports and advertisements "is attractive because it involves all the skills, as well as the ability to order and organise ideas. It also involves current events and is thus interesting and motivating..." (Harmer 138) I think this exercise helps to improve students' speaking and writing ability. Again, they are practicing grammar and using new words.
At then end of each unit readers can find a so-called "Practicing writing" section. Many kind of topics are suggested, from letters to an opinion essay. Students can use all the information that they learned in the previous sections. This exercise is for showing how students' writing ability have improved.
Conclusion
Writing is one of the most essential abilities which students need to study if they learn a foreign language. A lot of exercises are needed to improve their writing skills. Using punctuation and learning the structure of the sentences, and writing an essay are some of the ways to practice writing language. Effective Writing is a handbook that I would like to suggest to everybody who wants to improve his or her writing ability. This book contains many kinds of exercises which can help us to practice this skill. I found a logical order in the book. As the learners' writing ability improves the author gives more and more complex exercises to them. At the end of the book the students have to write an essay alone. As this essay details, similarities between Jeremy Harmer's text and this book can assure the reader that Jean Withrow has made rules of English writing real in her text. It is hard to find a suitable handbook which is appropriate for practicing those theoritical rules that we have previously learned. Effective Writing steer the improvement of our writing ability as a pilot flies aircraft. The result activities is to achieve the top.
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Essay-writing is an everyday duty in the English Department of the Janus Pannonius University. Students have to write essays in every seminar. These could be academic research papers or short assignments. Students often meet some difficulties when they need to write their essays, but each of them has their own methods to overcome the obstacles of these tasks. I have asked twenty-six students about their processes to be able to write this paper. My aim with this work is to show the different attitudes of essay-writing and the reason of them among English majors in order to make the task easier for the new freshers.
The most important thing about essay-writing is that students have to be able to decide when they should start working so as to finish it in time. "Well before the writing stage, all theses will involve research and gathering of materials.” ( Nikolov Turner, 1997). So, before students begin to write they have to go to the library and seek accessible material for their works. Everybody must take their own pace into consideration, and they have to decide the exact date of the first step of their essay-writing. The vast majority of the asked English majors ( seventeen out of twenty-six ) says that they plan the activity well in advance but only eight of them write it continuously. The rest of them lend the needed books and other materials but they put them into the corner. Approximately three days before the deadline they begin to hurry and they usually manage to finish it by the given time. Nine students out of the twenty-six leave the task until the last moment then they begin to worry about because they cannot find available books in the libraries. Because of the lack of these books they cannot do a great work. The reasons of their behaviours are different. Some of them do not have time to start the essay in advance. Sometimes they are not interested in the given topics.
A new problem can emerge in connection with the previous question. This is the problem of the choice of themes within a given limit. Often it is very difficult to choose a suitable topic for the essay. There are some topics about which is entirely impossible to write more than 200 words. So, students must be careful with their chosen themes. There are great variety of reasons of selecting the actual theme. Some students want to write an essay about which they can easily find books. The cause of it can be the demand on a quick essay or on the contrary the claim to a thorough work with lots of notes. Most of the asked English majors say that they usually write about themes in which they are interested. The reasons of their decisions are the following: they want to know more about the topics, so, they begin to do research on the chosen subject; or they are already well-informed. Only few of the asked students say that they usually write essay about themes which were left because of uninterest.
Students can decide how to begin the essay-writing: they may start with brain-storming or they may go ahead immediately. If somebody begins with the first possibility they can first write the sketch of their works. It is just the skeleton of the essay but it can do students a good service. It can be an ordinary draft or a tree-diagram. In this case writers put down the title of their work in the middle of a piece of paper and then they begin brain-storming. Then they write different headwords around the title. They can make these headwords complete and give some more words. In the end the paper will be fully written and then students will be able to write their essay. Nobody can determine the exact length of brain-storming: it can last for days or just for moments in case of having finished ideas. This kind of activities are very effective if students want to write good essays because they make the work clearly arranged and systematic. Students sometimes leave out brain-storming and go ahead immediately. It often ensue when writers do not have time because they start working in the last work. The result of it is frequently disappointing since their works are usually without plan which appears in the evaluation, too.
What may destroy the appraisal of the work is the word limit. Almost every instictor says that they expect essays consisting of about how many words. Some students ( eleven out of twenty-six ) assert that it is useful to give the word limit since this will show the nature of the writing and because they can easily decide the amount of time worth spending on it. The world limit also helps students to arrange the message. Rest of the asked students say that the given word limit is unnecessary. They think if they like the theme they will write about it as many as they can and if they do not like it they want to do a short and quick essay. Some other students say if they can write the message in a short form then why is it necessary for them to use fat English just because of the word limit. There is one more reason against it. If students write shorter essay they can easily eliminate the realization of it by using larger letters by typing.
I have already written about how to start the essay but there is one more thing in connection with it. This is the problem of the parts of the work. I mean the introductory part, the title, the discussion and the conclusions. Most of the asked English majors claim that they begin with the introductions. It is very surprising since they have already learnt how to write their works. It suggest me that they have already decided what to write when they sit down to work. Five students out of twenty-six say they start with the discussion. and after it they begin to write the introductory section. Nobody among the asked students claims that they begin with the conclusion. Fifteen out of the asked English majors assert that they prefer to write the essay and then give the title.
My last question was about revisioning. Twenty-five students say that they revision their work. The remainder claim that he usually does not have time for it because he has to submit it shortly. Revisioning a university essay is very useful for writers because then they can easily check what they have written. Students need to use the technique of revisioning if they want to avoid annoying little mistakes. There are stylistic and grammatical ones as well. Here come some examples: punctuation, spelling, generalisations, stating the obvious, repetitions, informal language, conversational gap-fillers. "Many of these mistakes are likely made by accident, due to the too fast flow of thoughts, or the knowledge that the time for the task is limited.” (Group Writer Report, 1997). So the aim of revisioning is to correct mistakes and to exchange expressions or words in order to make the essay more effective or to make the ideas clear for readers.
There are different methods for writing a university essay: students may start it well in advance or in the last minute. Students can choose topics about which they find books or in which they are interested in. They can start with brain-storming or they may go ahead immediately. They can begin their writing activities with putting down the introduction, the title or the discussion part of the essay. They may use the effective revisioning technique or they can leave it out. The aim of this essay was not to give a summary of every possibilities but to show some different approach to this fairly difficult problem. Everybody has to work out his own method in order to be able to write effective academic works.
The most important thing about essay-writing is that students have to be able to decide when they should start working so as to finish it in time. "Well before the writing stage, all theses will involve research and gathering of materials.” ( Nikolov Turner, 1997). So, before students begin to write they have to go to the library and seek accessible material for their works. Everybody must take their own pace into consideration, and they have to decide the exact date of the first step of their essay-writing. The vast majority of the asked English majors ( seventeen out of twenty-six ) says that they plan the activity well in advance but only eight of them write it continuously. The rest of them lend the needed books and other materials but they put them into the corner. Approximately three days before the deadline they begin to hurry and they usually manage to finish it by the given time. Nine students out of the twenty-six leave the task until the last moment then they begin to worry about because they cannot find available books in the libraries. Because of the lack of these books they cannot do a great work. The reasons of their behaviours are different. Some of them do not have time to start the essay in advance. Sometimes they are not interested in the given topics.
A new problem can emerge in connection with the previous question. This is the problem of the choice of themes within a given limit. Often it is very difficult to choose a suitable topic for the essay. There are some topics about which is entirely impossible to write more than 200 words. So, students must be careful with their chosen themes. There are great variety of reasons of selecting the actual theme. Some students want to write an essay about which they can easily find books. The cause of it can be the demand on a quick essay or on the contrary the claim to a thorough work with lots of notes. Most of the asked English majors say that they usually write about themes in which they are interested. The reasons of their decisions are the following: they want to know more about the topics, so, they begin to do research on the chosen subject; or they are already well-informed. Only few of the asked students say that they usually write essay about themes which were left because of uninterest.
Students can decide how to begin the essay-writing: they may start with brain-storming or they may go ahead immediately. If somebody begins with the first possibility they can first write the sketch of their works. It is just the skeleton of the essay but it can do students a good service. It can be an ordinary draft or a tree-diagram. In this case writers put down the title of their work in the middle of a piece of paper and then they begin brain-storming. Then they write different headwords around the title. They can make these headwords complete and give some more words. In the end the paper will be fully written and then students will be able to write their essay. Nobody can determine the exact length of brain-storming: it can last for days or just for moments in case of having finished ideas. This kind of activities are very effective if students want to write good essays because they make the work clearly arranged and systematic. Students sometimes leave out brain-storming and go ahead immediately. It often ensue when writers do not have time because they start working in the last work. The result of it is frequently disappointing since their works are usually without plan which appears in the evaluation, too.
What may destroy the appraisal of the work is the word limit. Almost every instictor says that they expect essays consisting of about how many words. Some students ( eleven out of twenty-six ) assert that it is useful to give the word limit since this will show the nature of the writing and because they can easily decide the amount of time worth spending on it. The world limit also helps students to arrange the message. Rest of the asked students say that the given word limit is unnecessary. They think if they like the theme they will write about it as many as they can and if they do not like it they want to do a short and quick essay. Some other students say if they can write the message in a short form then why is it necessary for them to use fat English just because of the word limit. There is one more reason against it. If students write shorter essay they can easily eliminate the realization of it by using larger letters by typing.
I have already written about how to start the essay but there is one more thing in connection with it. This is the problem of the parts of the work. I mean the introductory part, the title, the discussion and the conclusions. Most of the asked English majors claim that they begin with the introductions. It is very surprising since they have already learnt how to write their works. It suggest me that they have already decided what to write when they sit down to work. Five students out of twenty-six say they start with the discussion. and after it they begin to write the introductory section. Nobody among the asked students claims that they begin with the conclusion. Fifteen out of the asked English majors assert that they prefer to write the essay and then give the title.
My last question was about revisioning. Twenty-five students say that they revision their work. The remainder claim that he usually does not have time for it because he has to submit it shortly. Revisioning a university essay is very useful for writers because then they can easily check what they have written. Students need to use the technique of revisioning if they want to avoid annoying little mistakes. There are stylistic and grammatical ones as well. Here come some examples: punctuation, spelling, generalisations, stating the obvious, repetitions, informal language, conversational gap-fillers. "Many of these mistakes are likely made by accident, due to the too fast flow of thoughts, or the knowledge that the time for the task is limited.” (Group Writer Report, 1997). So the aim of revisioning is to correct mistakes and to exchange expressions or words in order to make the essay more effective or to make the ideas clear for readers.
There are different methods for writing a university essay: students may start it well in advance or in the last minute. Students can choose topics about which they find books or in which they are interested in. They can start with brain-storming or they may go ahead immediately. They can begin their writing activities with putting down the introduction, the title or the discussion part of the essay. They may use the effective revisioning technique or they can leave it out. The aim of this essay was not to give a summary of every possibilities but to show some different approach to this fairly difficult problem. Everybody has to work out his own method in order to be able to write effective academic works.
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