What are the possible obstacles discouraging the third year students of foreign languages department from strictly following steps in the essay writing process

She has done a primary research project and tried to find out what students think about the factors that discourage them from strictly following the neceesary steps of the essay writing

In the time of conducting this study, I have received support, encouragementand valuable advice from my supervisor, lectures, family and friends.

First of all, I am extremely grateful to Ms Bui Thi Phuong Thao, my caring andenthusiastic supervisor for her delication, precious support, invaluable instructionsand reference sources during the development of this project In fact, my scientificresearch would never be completed without her

Secondly, I would like to express my special appreciation to the whole staff ofthe Foreign Languages Department for the favorable conditions that help me indoing my paper

I, in truth, owe sincere thanks to Ms Bui Thi Thanh True who always caresabout my theme and spent her busy schedule supplying me with precious advice.Thirdly, I also express my heartfelt thanks to my family for their spiritual aswell as financial support during my study by far especially for their great supportand constant encouragement to help me finish this research

Finally, I sincerely thank all of those responded to the questionaire and interview

on getting opinions together with all of my friends in SA0201

PHAN THI MINH TAM

Examiner's Comments

Miss Minh Tam has tackled a very difficult subject in her attempt to help

students obtain a proper method of developing the writing skills She has done a primary research project and tried to find out what students think about the

factors that discourage them from strictly following the neceesary steps of the essay writing process.

ement but also for fulfulling their graduation examination.

Miss Tam's 'literature review 'part is particularly interesting and useful since it presents many points of view about the necessities of following the linear model

of the writing process However, one point should be considered is that 42.8% of the students involved in the survey expected that teachers should help them revise their first or second draft I think that is not a reasonable expectation Teachers are expected to look at the final draft for correction because students should learn to work independently, as Hairston (1998: 19) asserted, 'Students can write well once they have' developed a set of practices that help them consistently turn out good work.

This is thoughtful work, and it is very helpful to third- year and fourth- year

students at HUFLIT, who have to master the writing subject, not only for their own improvement but also for fulfulling their graduation examination.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW •.• • • • 8

1/ W ri tin g and po w e r 8

21Writing is a skill that anyone can learn with practice 10

31 Writing - definitions and general features ll

6/ The essay writing process 19

1/ The description of subjects 26

al Questionnaire

bl Interview

2) Students' difficulties consisting of external affections and internal

3) Students' attitude toward the essay writing process (from question 17 to

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS

21 Discussion on the findings of students' difficulties consisting of external

APPENDIX ONE : QUESTIONNAIRE

APPENDIX TWO LIST OF QUESTIONS IN THE INTERVIEW

AND INTERVIEWEES' REPLIES REFERENCES

Good command of English is a desire of any foreign language learnerand a profound acquisition of English writing is no exception According toTribble (1996: 43) there are fundamentally two kinds of English writing.They are professional writing which is used in society and academic writingwhich is used in the school system Reality has shown that most of EFLstudents at Huflit, the third year students in particular, have had lots oftroubles in making their academic essays One of the sources of their majordifficulties is their failure to apply the writing process techniques - themost significant knowledge associated with a person's writing capability.Therefore, this scientific research was carried out with an attempt to seekthe possible hindrances discouraging the junior students at HUFLIT fromstrictly following the steps in the essay writing process even though theyare supplied with sufficient knowledge about area at school, especially inthe writing class

In the process of completing this study, a questionnaire was designedand distributed to seventy-one respondents of HA0302 and HA0303 with adesire to find out the students' attitudes toward the steps in the essay-writing process and the real obstacles they meet in an effort to apply thesesteps Apart from the questionnaire, an interview with ten other

participants was conducted to get more detailed and relevant informationabout this matter The findings drawn from the questionnaire and the

interview revealed that the pressure of time is a really big problem,

causing those students to flinch from using the writing steps they had beentaught Moreover, their inability to thoroughly understand the functions ofthese steps as well as a shortage of social knowledge, the degree of interest

of the topics in their essay writing materials and teachers' behaviors arealso the main reasons causing their negligent attitudes that process

application

Due to the limited time, the small number of subjects and issuesexplored restricted, the shortcomings are unavoidable Thus, it is expectedthat some other papers about this field will go on with studying this moredeeply so that the students can surely be the beneficiaries of the valuableresults and practical suggestions

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we have good command of four language skills: Listening, Speaking,Reading and Writing

A large number of English learners, nevertheless, have amistakenly-held conception that writing is neither an important objective

to achieve nor an urgent task that is worth our consideration or anintensive study Unfortunately, those people fail to realize the truth thatwriting is one of cornerstones of an education, not just for the elite but foreveryone who cherishes an aspiration for obtaining a college degree It isobvious that all of us take a lot of benefits from our conscious, good, regularwriting activities:

_We understand material better and retain it longer when wewrite about it

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_We generate new ideas when we write because the act ofwriting helps us make connections and see relationships

_We think more critically when we write When we get ideasdown on paper, we are more likely to be able to clarify and evaluate them

With the above benefits that writing brings to us, people studyingEnglish as a foreign language in general and EFL students in particular fail

to cherish a desire to be trained with essentially equipped language toolsand English text composing skills According to Tribble (1996:67), the mostsignificant knowledge associated with a person's capacity to writesuccessfully comprises: content knowledge, context knowledge, languagesystem knowledge, and writing process knowledge

Besides that, Tribble also expresses his opinion about kinds ofwriting From the viewpoint of Tribble (1996:43) there are basically twokinds of writing: business writing or professional writing and academicwriting Professional writing can be said to work in society and academicwriting, on the contrary, in the school system Therefore in order to begood at academic writing, students are supposed to thoroughly acquire theabove mentioned - the four-aspect knowledge

During the time studying at university, the researcher has foundout that the third-year students, even the forth-year ones have had to copewith innumerable obstacles in academic writing, typically in writingacademic essays This results in an assumption of the researcher that

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university students may be in the shortage of some ranges of knowledgewhich must be acquired to become a good writer After carrying out aninvestigation together with the trustworthy results from the previousgraduation papers, the researcher can come to a certain conclusion thatbesides the lack of content knowledge, context knowledge , and languagesystem knowledge, university students also seem to show a negligentattitude toward writing process application Such process applying toconducting an academic writing task is considered as a prerequisiteelement In other words, they possibly have a disposition of not strictlyfollowing the steps in the essay writing process although they areadequately conveyed the knowledge about this

From the viewpoint of Tribble, though writing process knowledge isnot so important as the other three elements, it is still an essential part Wecan not deny that a right method is extremely necessary for whatever we

do and writing is no exception Hence, so as to create a perfect writingproduct, we should master a right writing method, I mean writing process,and strictly follow them Applying these writing steps strictly into writingacademic essays will be of great importance - implementing a perfectassigned task with confidence

The steps in writing process comprising Prewriting, Drafting,Revising, Editing and Publishing are considered as the universal rules thatare accepted by any instructors and learners and applied in every schools

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or institutes in the world Good writers, therefore, hardly produce theirwriting creation without going through these stages

In reality, as far as the researcher is concerned, some writingmaterials of the ninth-course students at Huflit are different from those ofthe eighth-course The writing materials presenting the requirement toapply the writing process consist of the textbooks written for Englishlearners:

• Writing to Communicate - paragraphs and essays

• Practice Writing

• Communication through Writing

• The Bedford Handbook

Those have been put into teaching from the early stages of studyingwriting essays with the purpose of training students to stick to the rightstages of writing

No matter how reasonable the students' practice of going throughsteps seems to be, the reality is far from our satisfaction Many writingteachers, nevertheless, reveal that in spite of the students' full acquisition

of how necessary the step-following is, the teachers seem not to be able toteach their students the content or ideas, vocabulary use or word choice,grammatical use or structures, mechanical considerations and writingstages at the same time Due to the limited class time together with manyother ranges of complicated knowledge that need transmitting, effectively

to the learners, these writing teachers at Huflit are unable to make a

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frequent supervision on whether their students strictly follow steps in essaywriting process or not Hence, they are just able to value their students'writing ability on their final products of writing or the very writing papersthe students handed in to them for marking

Additionally, some writing teachers frankly confide that they havenever asked students to make any second revision for the tasks which werecorrected by them since they do not have much spare time to correct thesetasks again and again

Certainly, the students' serious efforts to prepare and revise theirpapers carefully even after the essays have been marked are graduallydiscouraged And the writing teachers admit that it is very disappointingthat their students do not look so serious-minded in their study To put itanother way, good or bad results of students are not completely caused bytheir teachers since the fourth-year students or even the third-year onesare mature enough to be fully conscious of how important their success inwriting is More exactly, those who feel rather discouraged from strictlyfollowing required steps in essay writing process have the other reasons oftheir own

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- ;; ; ; ;.;; ;;,,;;;;;;.;;,,;;;. -II/OBJECTIVES:

From the obstacles caused by such limitations in learning to write,this study is carried out with a purpose of finding out what the possiblehindrances that block the third-year students of Foreign LanguageDepartment from strictly following steps in the essay writing process reallyare This thesis is identified as being of importance to teachers as well asuniversity students That is to say, the teachers should know what maketheir students flinch from investing more time into writing preparationsand draft revision And with directions of the teachers, then the learnerscan find out their own solutions to the problems to perform moresatisfactory versions

III/SCOPES:

Due to the researcher's restriction of time, this study has beenconfined to seventy one female juniors in class HA0302 and HA0303 ofForeign Language Department of Huflit All of them have step by stepfamiliarized themselves with writing essays since their third semester atHuflit These objectives are intended for the fact that they are preparedfor actual essay-writing practice at the sixth semester The results collectedfrom the questionnaire are assumed to be more precise and valid, thusmaking things discussed later only applicable to this level of Englishproficiency

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IV/ORGANIZATION:

This study opens with an overview of the background of writingskill of EFL students of Huflit It then goes on to present the literaturereview The next chapter is devoted to the research method carried out forthis paper Then, it is followed by the report on the findings After outliningthe research findings, the paper presents the discussion Finally, the lastchapter gives a conclusion and some suggestions

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CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

1/ WRITING AND POWER:

Along with speaking, writing is a means of communication, too Itplays an important part in human beings life Mentioning the importance ofwriting, Tribble (1996,12) shares a similar point of view that:

Writing is fundamentally an adult activitiy which is associated with specialised social roles.

In reality, it is clear that there are numerous social activitiesinvolving writing such as writing to the school management to explain ourchildren's absence from class, drawing up a business contract, making aninquiry into a new product, asking the Higher Court to look into one'sappeals In some special situations, we choose to write in order to obtain abetter communication instead of speaking Some activities demand it if theoutcome of the activity is to be successful Take "invitations" as anexample In a small, informal party, to invite a number of close, constantfriends, we find it unusual or odd to send written invitations to them Onthe contrary, we would be well advised to send written cards to be able toinvite the guests to the wedding reception Similarly, we talk of "writing" acontract or making a contract after agreeing on important points duringour oral negotiation In this case, writing must be done due to its firmlegality

-

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Hence,Tribble (1996:13) points out that:

Public events which have legal or financial implications are typically dependent on written documentation, and activities which carry with them the need for high levels of systematic organization are often more successfully negotiated ifwriting is used.

Additionally, the mere fact that something is written conveys its ownmessage, for example of permanance and authority Certain people writeand certain things get written (Stubbs1987, in Tribble, 1996:13) This results

in the implication that writing comes to be associated with status andpower, and the connection between writing, status and power is clearlyexposed in organizations For instance, pre-printed forms request for time-off, company's annual reports, departmental monthly reports in which theinformation is required in a standard and consistent form are used tocommunicate from ones in lower positions in a hierarchy to those withmanagerial responsibility, whereas the other documents like letters ofdismissal, contractual signature etc., which require originality andinventiveness mostly belong to the manager's responsibility and writingskills Thus, Tribble(1996:13) comes to a steady conclusion that by writingyou can have control not only information but of people

Regardless of the superior formality of writing, especially in socialcontexts, writing seems to contain in itself many other kinds of power.Since writing usually produces visable graphic products, it is not difficult toamend the incorrectness in writing assignments Furthermore, thanks tothe durability of writing, throughout history, an aura, an ambience, amystique has usually encircled the written words Last but not least, writing

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is said to be devoted more time as well as more careful and deep thoughtsthan talking Obviously, this leads to the less misunderstanding and offencecaused by writers in comparison with talkers In Teaching Writing Skills,Brown (1994:325) conveys the same viewpoint in terms of writing power:

Once something is written down and delivered in its final form to its intended audience, the writer abdicates a certain power : power to amend, to clarify, to withdraw That prospect is the single most significant contributor to making writing a very scary operation.

2/ WRING IS A SKILL THAT ANYONE CAN

LEARN WITH PRACTICE:

Some people hold the false belief that writing is a natural gift whichsome have and others do not Because of this belief, they never make atruly honest effort to learn to write However, like anything else we learn

to do, writing seems more natural the more we do it That means the more

we write, the more confident we will feel There is no famous writer havingability to write effectively and successfully without experiencing sweatingattempts and strenuous efforts Sharing the same opinion on this issue,Hairston (1998:19) asserted:

Most successful writers have no special verbal abilities, usually they are well read, to be sure, but they write well because they have developed a set

of practices they know will help them consistently turn out good work.

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Hence, no one fails to write well The noticeable issue is thatwhether we make effort to practise writing or not, to students, writing isactually one of the study tasks that call for most concentration and hardwork Practice and effort are neccessary elements to write well, so PhyllisBallata (1997, IX) makes it clear that:

Writing is a skill that must be learned both by practice in safe, private settings and by efforts at peak performance with the pressure such performance entails.

Hidalgo, Hall and Jacobs (1995:216) share a similar statement that:

We realized that writing is not achieved by following formulas but by using skills adapted to new tasks Such skills are developed only through steady practice.

3/ WRITING - DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL

FEATURES:

The results of deep investigations and thorough research havedemonstrated that written language came into existence much later thanspoken language If speaking seems not to be able to fruitfully keep upman's thoughts, feelings, desires for a long time as well as successfullytransmit the heritage to the future generations, writing can undoubtedlymake up for such drawbacks of speaking More specifically, writing can beeven considered as an unique means that helps maintain or prevent

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speaking from being eroded through time and transmit the very spokenmessages through long distances to faraway horizons Therefore, it is not

an exaggeration that writing is extremely necessary for human life and ithas pushed our civilization forward

People have used many tools for writing including paint, pencils,pens, typewriters and computers Writing can be the scripts formed on thewall of a deep cave, a piece of paper on our desks or a well-designed text on

the computer screen In order to have such perfect pieces of writing, the writer is expected to go through different required steps In other words,

writing, in the point of view of making processes, is made up of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. In addition, to understand what ismeant by writing, it is advisable to look at several genres of writing:expository, narrative, descriptive, imaginative, and persuasive ones.Literature is also a type of writing that consists of poetry, novels, plays, andshort stories Regardless of the language or text types, good writingrequires the writer to have command of grammar rules and exceptions,spelling, and punctuation Besides applying those rules to produce effectivetexts or essays, people must have access to other helpful tools such asdictionaries and thesaurus

Although there have been various ways to define writing, thesedefinions all come to an agreement that writing can be used effectively toconvey and transmit meaning Basically, writing is considered as a process

of putting ideas down on paper to transform thoughts into words, to

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sharpen your main ideas, to give them structure and coherent organization(Brown,1994: 321)

Writing is the expression of language in the form of letters, symbols words [file:/IIF:/writing.htcm [accessed_May 2006 ]]

An additional explanation is that:

Writing is a two step process.First,you figure out your meaning,then you

put it into language (ElbowI973, in Brown,1994: 321)

Obviously, we can see the difference between writing andspeaking from the above definition Human beings all generate ourmeaning in our mind first, then we will display it in letters as writing and inutterances as speaking Futhermore, due to the fact that writing produces avisable graphic creation, it is inevitable that we make mistakes which easilylead to misunderstandings together with instant recognization of readers.Sharing the same opinion, Miss Nguyen stated in her graduation paperthat:

Writing- a silent process but definitely a very challenging task, is by no means a minor skill at all.

Writing is, therefore, a productive ability that mainly requirescorrect and even exact use of language as a network of systems

As for the authenticity of writing, there are real writing and display writing (Brown,1994:324) It is extremely necessary for us to clearlydistinguish between these two kinds Real writing aims at the genuinecommunication of messages to an audience in need of those messages whiledisplay writing which is mostly used within the school curricular contextinvolves an element of display A resembling point of view is that:

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Real writing is writing when the reader does not know the answer and genuinely wants information In many academic contexts, however, if the instructor is the sole reader, writing is primarily for the display of a student's knowledge Written exercises, short answer essays and other writing in test situations are instances of display writing (RaimesI991,

in Brown,1994:324)

4/ WRITING - A PROCESS OF DISCOVERY

Talking about the essay writing process, we have reached anagreement that such a writing process involves several steps that besidesmaking up a sequence, the steps are said to build on one another Weshould not get the idea that once we have completed the first step, weshould proceed to the second or the third without ever looking back Incontrast, we can and should stop often, review what we have done andimmidiately make changes To put it another way, we can back the formerstages, add any further information that suddenly appear in our mind oreliminate ideas that are no longer important to our project This makeswriting exciting since the more we discover about a subject, the better weundestand it and the more likely we are to change what we thought wewant to say when we began It is, therefore, possible for us to say thatwriting always involves discovery Hidalgo, Hall and Jacobs (1995:212)make it clear that:

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We also realized that writing was both a procedure for demonstrating what we knew and a procedure for discovering what we knew.

Zamel, Silva and Applebee (1990:152) hold a similar point of view that:

Writing is a recursive and creative process which focuses on discovery and expression of meaning.

Bnscemi,Nicolai and Strugala (1998,5) give additional agreement that:

Going through these stages carefully will make your writing more effective.It may even make the proces more excitingJor it will help you see writing as a voyage of discovery Each stage will reveal more and more about your subject and gradually help you focus on exactly what you want

to say about it.

5/ SOME DISTINGUISHING LANGUAGE

FEATURES

SPEAKING:

BETWEEN WRITING AND

Traditionally, the four languaging processes of listening, speaking,reading and writing are paired in either of two ways: listening and readingare perceptive or receptive skills, speaking and writing are productiveskills The first distinction resides in two criteria: the matters oforganization and of graphic recording Connors and Glenn(1999:332) statethat:

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Writing is originating and creating a unique verbal construct that is graphically recorded Talking is creating and originating a verbal construct that is not graphically recorded (except for the circuitous routing of a trascribed tape).

Connors anf Glenn (1999:332) also give an additional dictinctionthat talking and writing may emanate from different organic sources andrepresent quite different, possibly distinct, language functions Besidesthat, there are still many points that we are able to recognize the realdifferences between talking and writing These differences are showedfundamentally as in follow:

WRITING

_ To be an artificial activity

_To be a technological device,

but early enough to qualify as

primary technology

_To be slower than talking

_Leaning on its own context

_The audience is usually

present

TALKING

_To be acquired as part of growing up

_To be organic, natural, earlier

_To be faster than writing _Leaning on the environment _The listener is usually absent

While it is clear that the physical acts of speaking and writing areobviously different, and while we can see how one language mode might be

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more appropriate in one social context than another (please read in

"Writing and Power "), it is really the case that there are fundamentaldifferences between the language that we use when we speak and when wewrite

Tribble(1996:16-17) reveals that two of the most importantaspects of speaking are prosodic and paralinguistic features He also givesfurther explanation of these two features that:

Prosodic features are the non-verbal aspect of spoken English that are used systematically to help give meaning to utterances like rhythm, pgrasing, and pauses Paralinguistic features are not a systematic part

of the language, but they still add meaning to what we say These features include the way someone is speaking (loudly, softly, shouting

or whispering) , the facial expressions and physical gestures.

Although writing, however, is not able to imitate or express thenon-verbal features of speech mentioned above, it also has its own ways toexpress the non-verbal features similarly like punctuation and typography(bold, underlined, italicized text)

Furthermore, it is very clear for us to see some most significantdifferences between written language and oral language in the areas ofgrammar and vocabulary Taking the same content expressed in the form

of spoken language and written language as an example, we easily havecomments on the differences between them in the following terms:

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full word forms

formal

rare words conventional abbreviations

(Tribble: 1996:18)From the above comparative table, we see that the grammar inwritten language is comparatively simple while the vocabulary in writtenlanguage is in contrast This complexity of written form can be explained bythe number of content words, to put it another way, by the density of thelexis which writers use According to Tribble(1996:18-20) the lexical densityseems to be used more in the written texts than in the spoken texts with thepurpose of making the written texts to be accepted correctly "written".Although the ratio of lexical items in spoken texts is not so much as it inwritten texts, these lexical items in spoken texts counted are of highfrequency In other words, the lexical items in spoken texts are commonwords and easy to understand The difference of lexical density and lexical frequency, therefore, make us easily recognize the "writtenness" or

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"spokenness" of various texts Tribble(1996:20) conveys a similar opinionthat:

This measure of lexical density.combined with an assessment of the relative frequency of the indivdual lexical items,can provide a resonably reliable measure for assessing the " written ness " or "spokenness" of different texts.

6/ THE ESSAY WRITING PROCESS:

While there have been many different descriptions of writingprocesses, there is a general consensus on the main elements As we havealready mentioned in Writing-Definitions and General Features, the

process of writing comprises five fundamental stages: pre writing (invention), drafting (composing), revising, editing, and publishing (presenting).

Prewriting is the stage in which we gather information (details)about a subject In this writing stage, we will quickly note down what weknow and write down any ideas that come to our minds, the things we haveobserved or have experienced that related to our subject We can do thisthrough focused free writing, brainstorming, and through the technique ofidea clustering (mapping) Since Prewriting is a preliminary stage of the

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process, itself has more or less influence on our writing tasks Connors andGlenn (1999:126) share their agreement that:

The pre writing or invention is an essential and expected part of the work they will do for every required essay.

Brainstorming, among the common methods of prewriting step, isthe method used by most professional and academic writers It is not in thecanon of official prewriting techniques but it fits most naturally in this area

of invention theory When doing brainstorming, we try to think of anythingthat occurs to mind on a certain topic There are no "good" or "bad" ideas

in this writing step Any ideas we have are acceptable We do not have tothink carefully, write grammatically perfect sentences as well as put ourthoughts in a specific order The point is to come up with as muchinformation as possible In Writing Academic English (page 19), MrsNguyen states the usefulness of brainstorming:

Bi'Qinsiomrin9 (0, ideas can ge" you sfal'fed w,.;Hn9 mol'e quickly and save you Hme in H.e.lale, sfa9e5 of Hte w,.;Hn9 PI'OCeSS.

In addition to generating ideas, brainstorming also requires ourthinking about the audience and the purpose: we ask ourselves who theaudience will read our work must be and what the purpose of writing is what we hope to accomplish through our writing

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the writer begins to translate plans and ideas into provisional text (Harris1993:55) and move from thinking about writing to do it This is called variously "composing" (Hedge1988), "drafting" (White and

(Tribble,1996:112)

Drafting involves outlining ideas, exploring main ideas, finding linksbetween ideas and the words chosen Drafting is, therefore, considered as acentral and time-consuming stage Besides that, drafting stage in which weare required to most concentrate on our tasks Brown (1994:335) makes itclear that:

In a process approach,drafting is viewed as an important and complex set

of strategies, the mastery of which takes time,patience,and trained instruction.

6.3/ REVISING:

After we write the rough draft, we move to the next step - it is torevise it

Revising means rewriting Effective writers revise their rough drafts three

or more times , each version becoming clearer, more detailed, and better organised Revising helps you clarify ideas, develop concepts in greater detail, or recognize hard-to-follow sentences and paragraphs. (Buscemi,Nicolai and Strugala: 1998,6)

When we revise the text, we can make changes to what we have

written in order to improve it We check it over and over again for sound

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and coherent content as well as well-arranged organization Thoserequirements include unity, coherence and logic Furthermore, we also canchange, rearrange, add or delete the ideas, a certain reason or argumentthat sound "imperfect" or "weak" or "illogical" to the intended readers.Such thoroughly - made operations and hard work are undoubtedly toserve the goal of effectively and interestingly communicating our thoughts.Hedge(1988, in Tribble, 1996:115) suggest that writers should askthemselves the following questions both during and after composition:

_Am I sharing my impressions clearly enough with my reader?

_ Have I missed out any important points ofinformation?

_ Are there any points in the writing where my reader has to make

a "jump" because I have omitted a line of argument or I have forgotten to explained something?

_ Does the vocabulary need to make stronger at any point?

_ Are there any sentences which don't say much or which are too repetitive and could be missed out?

_ Can I rearrange any sets of sentences to make the writing clearer or more interesting?

_Do I need to rearrange any paragraghs?

_ Are the links between sections clear? Do they guide my reader through the writing?

Additionally, valuing the vitality and importance of revising, Hidalgo,

Hall and Jacobs (1995:215) point out that revising is the heart of the process.

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6.4/ EDITING:

Good writers tend to concentrate on getting the content right first and leave details like correcting spelling,punctuation,and grammar until later (HedgeI988, in Tribble,1996:115)

Hence, in this stage, we are seen as the editor We must make surethat we have chosen the best possible words to communicate our ideas andthat our sentences are grammatically correct Nolasco (1987, inTribble,1996:116) gives clearer instruction on what we need to check:

the order in which the information is presented, the layout, the spelling, punctuation, handwriting, word order, choice of words, grammar.

This stage is completely necessary in writing essay process as ourwriting will be never highly graded with too many misspelled words andgrammatical errors On the other hand, this is also a good opportunity for

us to learn how to evaluate our own success- both on the level of grammarand mechanics and on the level of organization, interest and completeness

This is the ultimate stage of the writing process at which we willshare our works with others We might read what we have written aloud inclass, submit them to our lecturers or give them to a friend to read Inshort, there are many avenues for presenting our works

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*Five stages of writing process can be outlined in the following chart

PREWRITING(specifying the taskl planning and OUtlringi collecting datal making notes)

COMPrlNG

REVISING(reorganizing / shifting emphasis/ focusing information and style for your

readership)

1

EDITING(checking grammar/ lexis/ surface features, for example punctuaion, spelling,

PRESENTING

Simple IIne.r model of the writing proce ••

There are other times, though, that further ideas or information

may instantly come as we are writing Therefore, it will be probably betterfor us not to follow a neat sequence of Prewriting, Composing and then

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Revising In other words, we sometimes do have a right to jump ahead, loopback or revisit some of these stages many times before a text is complete.During each phase of the process, we may find ourselves returning to anearlier phasein order to refine the meaning we are trying to develop.Hidalgo, Hall and Jacobs (1995:215) agree that:

What we realized was that we could change the steps in the process depending on the availability of the ideas that would come our way and

on the mood the writers felt at a particular moment.

It is probable that we found that the different stages appearedmore than once and in different sequences This can be, hence, representedlike the following chart which show the whole process not as a fixedsequence but as a dynamic and unpredictable process

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CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, most matters related to how this study wascarried out were presented in detail in terms of the subjects of thisscientific research, the instruments used to conduct the paper and theprocedure of the research

lITHE DESCRIPTION OF THE SUBJECTS:

The target population of the study was the third year EFL students

of Foreign Language Deparment of Huflit Seventy one students of HA0302and HA0303 were invited to take part in the research investigation All ofthe subjects are female aged around twenty one The researcher chose thejuniors of Huflit as subjects of the study since they were in the peak time ofstudying writing ess!,ys Furthermore, they will have to confront with thedemanding graduation examination in which writing an academic essay iscompulsory That's why the subjects - the third year students areconsidered as the most appropriate objects so that the results of theinvestigation would be valid Then, those results are expected to be a usefulreference for both the writing teachers and students in the followingyears

ISupervisor: BUI TIll PHUONGTHAO

rrrrHE INSTRUMENTS:

1/ Questionnaire:

A questionnaire comprising twenty questions were designed inorder to obtain the necessary information about the students' opinions onthe obstacles discouraging them from strictly following the steps in theessay writing process These twenty questions were divided into followingpatterns:

_Cheking students on the crucial steps of the essay writing process

in theory (from question 1 to question 3.4)

_ Students' difficulties consisting of external factors and internalhardships (from question 4 to question 16)

Students' attitudes toward the essay writing process (fromquestion 17 to question 20)

Since the respondents' level of language proficiency, some contentwords were deliberately translated into Vietnamese and put into theparentheses with the purpose of getting best and most trustful results

The questionnaire consist of 20 questions, 18 of which weredesigned for optional choices and 3 were free-writing questions In the 18optional choice questions, there were also 4 sub-free writing questionswhich were integrated into question 5, question 6, question 9, and question

13 These 4 sub-free writing questions were added with the aim of asking

I Supervisor: BUI THI PHUONGTHAO

students to specify their chosen reasons The 3 free writing questions arequestion 2, question 19, and question 20 Question 2 was designed to askstudents to specify their own steps that were out of the steps mentioned inquestion 1 Question 19 was to explicit how far the students understoodabout the purpose of writing steps in the essay writing process and question

20 was to request them to state the benefits of following these steps inwriting academic essays

2/ Interview:

Ten other EFL students of Foreign Language Department atHumt were invited to participate the interview which approximately lastedten minutes for each The interview was conducted with the hope thatmore detailed information in terms of their difficulties which seemed not to

be able to elaborately expressed in the questionnaire could be obtain.Theparticipants gave comparatively different opinions on their own obstaclesabout writing essays in process At the same time, they stated their quitesimilar viewpoint on the benefits of strictly following steps in the essaywriting process

ISupervisor: BUI TID PHUONGTHAO

_First of all, lots of information and sourses concerned aboutwriting skill together with essay writing process were carefully collected

_Next, the questionnaire on steps of essay writing process and somequestions related to obstacles in following steps in essay writing process wasdesigned to get students' opinions

_Then, the questionnaire was distributed to seventy one students ofclass HA0302 and HA0303 After spending about fifty minutes doingquestionnaire, the questionnaires were collected adequately Not muchlater, the interview was done for completing the research paper

_Finally, the questionnaire and students' opinions in the interviewwere carefully analyzed and discussed While conducting the findingsanalysis, it is worth noting that the researcher discarded six questionnairecpoies since they were incomplete The sixty five ones that had beenhanded in with adequate answers were kept for use

ISupervisor: BUI TID PHUONG THAO

version

Chart 1: The essay writing stages students were taught

ISupervisor: Bill Till PHUONGTHAO

As shown in Tablel together with the above Chart 1, the largenumber of students (88%) and (83%) remembered that Prewriting Stageand drafting stage were parts of the essay writing process whereas only

51% of the students ticked "Revising Stage" option which was seen as a

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crucial element in the essay writing process This can be, to certain extent,explained that most students have not been accustomed to this vital stepand they have not have sufficient appreciation for its importance as well.However, it is worth our consideration that the highest proportion ofstudents (94%) chose " Writing step" option Besides, from the survey,more than half of the respondents (63%) recognized the necessity ofEditing Stage, which made our essays more complete and highly valued.More noticeably, just 29% of the respondents ticked Presenting Step orMaking the last version which was an extremely essential last stagebefore our products were delivered Luckily, none of the students rejectedthese necessary essay - writing steps

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• "Question 2:

None of the respondents answered question 2, that means theyhave not applied any other step(s), they have merely applied the essaywriting stages they were taught

ISupervisor: Bill TID PHUONGTHAO

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.,"Question 3.1:

Exploring ideas, ExploringThe intention of arousing feelings and ideas, Thinking

Prewriting step memories and helping arousing about your

(Idea the writer think about feelings and audience

brainstorming) the audience provoking

memories

@ fable 3.1; The intension of Prewriting step (Ideas Brainstorming)

According to the table 3.1, more than half of the students (59%)

revealed that in Pre writing step, they would generate ideas, provoke their

feelings and memories related to the topic and spend a little time thinking

about their audience In reality, before starting any types of writing tasks,

it is very necessary for us to take our audience, our purpose as well as the

ways we are going to write into due consideration To various kinds of

writing tasks and audience, we must use different ways of writing and

different tones of writing Our consideration must be taken in Prewriting

stage The findings also indicated that an amount of respondents (38%) did

not think of the intended audience, consider the very purpose of writing

and ask themselves about the genres More specifically, just a few students

(3%) wrongly stated that they only thought about their audience in the

Prewriting Step