Approaching Academic Writing Step-wise through
Computer Networking
Judy Yoneoka
Abstract
The present paper describes various aspects of the work involved and results of step - by - step thesis instruction performed via computer network and by hand. Two computer networked courses were required to select topics, prepare an outline and bibliography, write a first draft, receive content editing and language editing comments and implement them into their reports via network. Compared with the work turned in on paper by the control courses, the outlines tended to be of a higher quality, but the resulting papers tended to be shorter. Many time delays due to host computer malfunction occurred, which may have contributed to the lack of length of the papers. In spite of these delays, both groups completed their tasks in the same time frame, due to the fact that the final step of reinputting language errors was not necessary for the networked courses.
1. Introduction
The orthodox pattern of composition for most university courses is that of requiring report after report, each graded separately and provided with comments which rarely give the student any direct clues as to how to improve their basic skills in researching and organizing ideas.
This is especially true in the case of students in Japan, who rarely receive formal instruction in prewriting, writing and postwriting processes in English courses. This lack of instruction shows up especially when students participate in study abroad programs at foreign universities, which usually assume such basic writing skills as prerequisite. Moreover, it has been found (Santos, 1988 p. 85) that papers of foreign students are usually judged more harshly in terms of their content and structure rather than their correctness in terms of English, with the conclusion that "nonnative-speaking students need to improve their skills in the areas that most directly affect content, such as organizing, developing and supporting their ideas and argument." This would seem to emphasize the necessity of greater concentration on presentation and organization skills (and less concentration on grammar and sentence-level composition) than is presently the case in many English composition courses in Japan.
2. Process writing vs. contrastive rhetoric in the present study
Santos continues by suggesting that a process approach would best suit the needs of these students. The process approach to writing (Zamel, 1982) is a prevalent TESL composition theory which places emphasis not on the product itself, but rather on imparting the processes involved in achieving the product in order to improve results. Specifically, it advocates instruction in processes related to pre-writing such as brainstorming, listing, and organizing, as well as those related to post-writing and the actual writing process itself.
Indeed, the ideals of this theory would be greatly suited for teaching academic-style composition in Japan, but for two difficulties: l) process writing is designed more for freestyle composition rather than academic treatises, and therefore provides no guidelines for teaching either research and note-taking skills or formal structure, and 2) the outline, which would seem to be the most valuable tool for Japanese students to learn how to structure academic style reports, is downplayed in process writing. In fact, outlines are actually rejected in favor of imitation of the actual writing styles of skilled native speakers, who tend to begin writing without formalizing their thoughts, and come up with their structure cyclically (through a series of brainstorming-organizing-writing cycles) rather than linearly. As Zamel (1982, p. 197) puts it, "requiring students to formulate their ideas beforehand, to elaborate upon them by using some prescribed rhetorical framework and to submit these written products for grading purposes seems to ignore every-thing we have learned about the process." Because of the two difficulties mentioned above, a process theory type pattern of instruction was not used in this course program. On the other hand, the traditional composition pattern described in the introduction does not seem to do the trick for Japanese students either . Then, what type of instruction program would best fit the needs of these students?
Contrastive rhetoric studies (Kaplan, 1966, 1983, Leki 1991) have suggested that different cultures show different rhetorical styles. Aspects of the Japanese composition style in particular have been documented by Hinds. For example, regarding the difference in emphasis on unity, he writes (1987, p. 146):
“For English readers, unity is important because readers expect and require landmarks along the way.... In Japanese, on the other hand, the landmarks may be absent or attenuated since it is the reader's responsibility to determine the relationship between any one part of the essay and the essay as a whole."
In view of such differences in English and Japanese composition style andstructure, “ESL teachers have a responsibility to teach the expectations of the English audience to L2 writers ... our students' texts will be easier for their professors to read if the writers show the kind of audience awareness that comes from knowing what the rhetorical expectations of the readers are." (Leki, p. 138)
The processes used in the course program described below were designed with this "responsibility to teach the expectations of the English audience to L2 writers" in mind. Although they are not directly related to those in vogue in the process theory, some are likewise intended to bridge gaps in students' prewriting task abilities, especially with respect to judging appropriate topics for research papers. On the other hand, more traditional methods are employed to teach students how to make use of library resources efficiently, and to write with the clear and explicit structure which will be expected by most American instructors.
3. Motivation for computer networking
In a fanciful introduction to his bibliography of computer-related works, Susser (1987) relates a story of Jiro Yamada, a Japanese university student who does all of the processes involved in composing a report for his composition class using a computer atop his kotatsu. His professor receives, corrects, and resends the report fully by computer as well. Although a fantasy, as pointed out by Susser, this story could be reality even today using existing technology. And as it may well become a primary modus operandi of education in the future, introduction of students to technology of this nature can only be beneficial in the long run.
On a realtime scientific level, a wide-scale meta-analysis of examination results reported in 99 comparative studies of college-level CBE (computer based-education courses) and conventional ones was performed by Kulik and Kulik (1986). There, the following results were described (p. 88):
"In 77 of the 99 studies, the students in the CBE class had the higher examination average ... The difference in examination performance of CBE and control students was reported to be significant in 22 studies. In 21 of the 22 cases, the significant difference favored the CBE class, whereas only one study favored conventional teaching. Overall, these box-score results favor CBE."
The results were found to vary depending on the course content, in that positive effects of using computer-based instruction was significantly higher in humanity-based CBE courses than in scientific ones. Based on these results, it was hoped that the implementation of a computer-based style of teaching English composition would produce some positive effects in comparison with non-CBE courses.
Coinciding neatly with the planning stages of the course program to be described was the establishment of the MEROS university network, using a UNIX-based host computer, at Kumamoto University of Commerce in 1991. All first year students were required to buy personal computers and were taught the basics of networking as well as word processing in their first semester. This provided a group of students with a working background in the technological side of the experiment, so that valuable class time would not be required for computer-related explanations or demonstrations.
Furthermore, development of an NEC computer version of “Family Feud” by the author (see Yoneoka 1993, in Japanese) allowed for the use of “Family Feud" as a basis for selection of research paper topics. This technique has been successful both as a vehicle for imparting cultural differences between the US and Japan, and for focusing students' concentration on specific differences providing themes appropriate for research. This is because the use of a particular question as a springboard was found to encourage the students to brainstorm about the ways in which cultural differences were reflected through its answers, and to actively wonder about the reasons behind those differences (corresponding to asking oneself “why" about a topic, as in process-writing style invention exercises).
4. The project
Students in 5 university courses (2 freshman general English, I freshman English conversation, 2 sophomore English expression courses) and 2 junior-college freshmen English conversation courses were required to produce one academic style paper over the course of one year. (Keep in mind that the main content of the courses was NOT writing but conversation-oriented). Composition techniques and guidelines for producing the paper were taught in sections as shown in Figure 1, and each will be discussed separately below.
The 2 freshman general English courses (hereafter referred to as CBE courses) were expected to use computer networking exclusively for the completion of their projects, whereas the control classes did all of their work by hand, with the exception of the final draft of the report, for which word processing was required. There was a total of 130 students in the general English courses, as compared with an approximate total of 150 students in the other 5 courses combined. Although the overall number of students in the two groups was similar, the relative course sizes (65 in the 1st group compared with between 15-50 in the second) is a factor which could have influenced the results and should be kept in mind.
The purpose of the project was to investigate the following questions:
- What effects would the requirement of working through a computer network have on English composition education and on the quantity/quality of the reports?
- What are the advantages/disadvantages of using a computer network for English composition?
4.1. Theme/Topic selection.
According to Raimes (1991), a process-centered approach requires students to choose their own topics, as opposed to a traditional form-oriented approach in which topics are assigned by the teacher. In the present project, a compromise between the two approaches was used. A total of 100 questions from the game show “Family Feud" (see Yoneoka 1993, in Japanese) wereintroduced to the students via computer game. These served to suggest specific Japanese, US or contrastive culture-oriented topics which could be easily recognized and researched. After one of the questions was selected by a student (in a first-come, first-serve manner) it was examined in terms of the cultural differences and/or similarities it represented. Often, one question could lead to several different topics. For example, the question “What is the first thing you would get for a trip to Europe?" (responses: 1. passport, 2. tickets, 3. luggage, 4, camera, 5. shots) prompted essays on topics as varied as comparative immigration procedures, travel expenses in various countries, dangers involved in immunizations, and even the gun control issue in America, due to a misunderstanding of the word “shot."
4.2. Research and outlining.
Next, a sample outline and bibliography was distributed and students were instructed to complete an outline of their own based on their selected themes. Students were given minimal instruction on acceptable types of references, where to find them and how to look for them, as well as pointers on format of the bibliography. The outlines were graded by section using a 10-point scale as follows:
Introduction - 2 points
Body - 4 points = 10 points
Conclusion - 2 points
Bibliography - 2 points
Students were requested to include 5 references in order to receive the full 2-point credit for bibliography.
The outline and bibliography were considered to reflect the result of work involved in the prewriting stages. Since this stage is often lacking in Japanese composition instruction (and also the most important in terms of learning to write in an academic-style format) it was required that the students “pass" this stage before moving on to the actual writing of the paper. To do this, they had to receive a total of 8 or more of the 10 points possible; otherwise, they were required to rewrite and resubmit their work.
One problem common to many students observed was the difficulty of finding "information to fit the theme," pointing to the probability that they considered the outline (content) to come first in a linear sense, and the research to come second. This shows a general naiviete towards references, i, e. that any kind of information can be found easily. In fact, several students included no bibliography at all in their outline, and when requested to rewrite their outlines to include the bibliography, were not easily able to revise their original thoughts to correlate with the data available.
4. 3. Drafting.
Another problem which seems to be endemic among Japanese students is the lack of confidence regarding writing directly in English. No matter how often told not to write a Japanese draft first and then translate it, many students just cannot help putting their thoughts down first in Japanese. This may lead to direct transfer of Japanese writing style, which comparative rhetoricists such as Kaplan have found to differ from the linear, logic-oriented style usually used in English.
To make Japanese drafting as unattractive a choice as possible, students in the computer courses were advised to do their drafting directly “0n top of" their outlines, which were already in their word processors; constructing paragraphs directly by “expanding" each item to include an introductory and concluding sentence, as well as supporting their point in the body of theparagraph. This provided the students with a more or less mechanical method for developing their work in English, so that they did not have to resort to their native language to come up with a structure.
4. 4. Content revision.
After first drafts were submitted either by E-mail (CBE courses) or by hand (control courses), they were reviewed for content and organization. This consisted not only of addition/deletion of information and structural corrections, but also of suggestions for refinement of the flow of ideas in the paper. Also, at this stage many students had still not yet come up with appropriate titles for their work, and thus were instructed to do so. For the computer based courses, all of these comments were written IN JAPANESE and or set off by carats (> >) in order to clearly distinguish the comments from the text (as would be done for example by using a red pen on paper). In the control courses, comments were also written in Japanese as much as possible for purposes of comparison, but there were times when English was used as well.
Upon receiving these comments, students were required to revise their work in accordance with the comments and resubmit it. If they received their projects back with further comments, this meant that they had not yet “passed" the content revision stage and needed more work. If not, the papers were then (and only then) subjected to a language revision.
4. 5. English revision.
Originally, it was planned that all students would have a hand in English revision through the use of available spelling/grammar checkers. However this turned out to be impossible, due to the fact that there was no such software at the university which could be used with the students' personal computers. It would have been possible to transfer students' files to either a Macintosh format or MS-DOS format for NEC to make use various spelling/ grammar checkers available for those machines, but lack of time (due to the fact that the English revision draft due date was extended from 11/30 to 12/31 because of a series of computer breakdowns from 10127 to 12/2) made this plan unfeasible.
Therefore, all English-related corrections were done by the instructor directly on the text submitted by the students. For the CBE courses, this yielded the final work (unless there were parts which could still not be understood or which were ambiguous and needed clarification), so there was no need to submit a third draft. On the other hand, for the control courses, a third draft (at this point word-processed) was required. Due to this fact, the two sets of courses completed their work within the same general time frame, in spite of the deadline setbacks due to computer breakdown for the network-based classes.
5. Comparison of composing via computer network vs. paper
5.1. Time related observations.
5. 1. 1. Computer literacy effect on meeting deadlines.
Of the two CBE classes, class 1-4 tended to lag far behind class 1-7 in general computer capability, both according to their data processing course instructors and as judged subjectively by the author. This led to a remarkable difference in ability to meet deadlines through the duration of the course. For example, as can be seen in Fig. 2, only 56% of class 1-4 succeeded in meeting the 5/31 deadline for topic selection, compared with 80% of class 1-7. The latter class was able to meet the deadline almost as well as most of the control courses (80% -90%), and indeed excelled the control classes in choosing topicsAHEAD of the deadline (22% of the class chose their topics a week or more before 5/31 compared with 6% for the “fastest" control class). As the topics were to be “reserved" on a first-come, first-serve basis, this points to the fact that for the computer-1iterate class, reservation by computer was more easily accessible than finding the teacher and reserving outside of class time for the control classes.