3.2 Proportions of topical progressions in essays
3.2.2 Discussion on the uses of topical progressions
3.2.2.2 Topical progressions in introductions and conclusions
According to Schneider and Connor (1991), SP(d) and SP(i) build coherence of an essay and SP(u) is not likely to create text coherence, and these views are correct in introductory part of the essays. However, their views may not be correct in the concluding parts.
Discussion on the introductory paragraphs of essays
In general, the role of introduction is to introduce the discourse topic, the main focus of the essay. Most of the introductions in high-rated essays contain one or two progressions, and these introductions are following the way of writing English introduction which is “very direct and immediate”(Ballard and Clanchy, 1991:30).
To illustrate the point, below are two examples of two introductions in highly rated essays. In the introduction of essay no 1 (see in the Appendix page VIII), there are two clauses, the first clause introduces the literary work in general, the second clause focuses on introducing the novel and its conflict. In the essay no 3 (see in the Appendix, page XII), the introduction consists of 3 clauses, 2 first clauses introduce about the novel; the focus of the essays is in the third clause.
Introduction of essay 1 Introduction of essay 3 In general, the introductions here are quite direct and immediate. In introductions, PP is often used to reinforce the topics supplying additional information. SP is often used to narrow down from general topics to discourse topic discussed, therefore SP(d)is often used to link the clauses.
However, there exist two essay introductions in the highly rated group which contained more than two progressions. They are essays no 2 (see in the Appendix page X) and no 7 (see in the Appendix page XX). These introductions have the features of most low-rated essays that discussed in the next paragraphs.
Introduction of essay 2 Introduction of essay 7
Some essays of low-rated essays are the same as high-rated ones which contain fewer than two progressions, for example, introduction of essay no 38 (see in the Appendix page LVI). Overall, most introductions in low-rated essays contain more than two progressions. These essays follow the Vietnamese way of writing introduction which is often long and provides a great deal of information. For example, the introduction of essay no 40 (see in the Appendix page LX) contains three SP(s). Basically, this paragraph introduces the essay topic with related information supporting the topic context such as the generation of ideas (Describing psychological) to the author (Jack London) and to the novel (The call of the wild).
In short, these introducing paragraphs do not meet the requirement of an English introduction as in high rated essays.
Introduction of essay 40 Introduction of essay 38
In particular, the introductory paragraph in essay no 33 (see in the Appendix, page XLV) has seven topical progressions. Its length is similar to a body paragraph, not an introduction of an essay.
Introduction of essay 33
Discussion on the concluding paragraphs of the essays
According to Phan Le Ha (2008), the standard conclusion in English writing often restates what has been discussed in the body. Information such as suggestions, contributions or recommendation may form another part. Therefore, conclusions of high-rated essays are often short and contained one or two progressions. They are either SP or PP as in the conclusion of essay no 1 (see in the Appendix page VIII) and essay no 2 (see in the Appendix page X). And these SP do not need to link together because their role is to summarize the main ideas in the body paragraphs.
Conclusion of Essay no 1 Conclusion of Essay no 2
However, there are some exceptions in which conclusions in highly rated essays contain more than two progressions. They are the cases of essays no 8 and no 9 (see in the Appendix page XXII and XXIV) in which the conclusion contains 3 progressions and 4 progressions respectively.
There are some conclusions in low quality essays which have fewer than three progressions; however, most conclusions of low rated essays are longer than the
Conclusion of essay no 8
In these cases, the conclusions not only summarize the ideas discussed in the body paragraphs but also give some comments on the discourse topic. And these are also the
feature of low quality essay conclusions. Conclusion of essay no 9
high-rated essays. Because these essays follow the ways in which conclusion of Vietnamese essays are written, which the writer is required to summarize or paraphrase the main ideas discussed in the body, at the same time, to make his/her personal comments to let the main issues be long remembered (Nguyen and Nguyen, 1998). Below are two examples of low rated conclusions, essay no 38 and no 40 (see in the Appendix, page LVI and LVX respectively).
Conclusion of essay 40
Conclusion of essay 38
In summary, SP (d) is dominant in high-rated essays, and SP (u) is most frequently used in introductory parts of low rated ones. The introduction introduces the topic of the essays; therefore, the more related the topics are the more effective the text is. However, in the conclusion, the need for relatedness between subtopics was not very important. In this part, the main focus is to summarize what has been discussed in body parts; therefore, the link between the subtopics within conclusion paragraph is not as important as the link of these subtopics with the ideas discussed in body paragraphs.
CONCLUSION 1. Summary
The present paper investigated twenty-six essays from the population of forty essays written by Vietnamese learners of English. By applying the TSA as developed by Lautamatii (1978), the research examined the link between the reader‟s evaluation and TSA of thirteen high-rated and thirteen low-rated essays.
Specifically, this research investigated the physical features including numbers of t- units, paragraphs, topical depths and topical structures of the clauses, as well as the topical progression types of all paragraphs in general and of paragraphs in three essay components: introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions in particular in order to have a deep view on the contributions of each progression type to essay quality.
Overall, two main research objectives had been achieved. For the first research question, data analysis has revealed the moderately physical differences between low-rated and high-rated essays in terms of t-units, topical depths, but no significant differences could be found in the numbers of paragraphs and topical structures.
Overall, the low quality essays contained more t-units than the high quality essays, and the most significant difference exposed in the numbers of clauses in introductory parts. Moreover, low-rated essays also contained more sub-topics than high-rated ones. Good writer tended to return to higher topic level at the end of the composition rather than low rated essays. In terms of paragraphs, the high-rated and low-rated essays were similar in the numbers of paragraphs per essay, which indicated that they had the same rhetorical pattern, which included four paragraphs, one introduction, two body paragraphs and one concluding paragraph. The statistics also indicated that there was no significant difference between different essay qualities in terms of topical structures. Two groups mainly used the topical structure type 1(T1) which the ISE, the mood S and the topical S coincide and topical type 2 (T2) which the ISE is separate while mood S and topical S coincide to develop the
ideas in the clauses. In summary, the numbers of t-units and sub-topics contributed to the essay quality while numbers of paragraphs and topical structures did not reveal any difference between two groups.
For the second research question, findings indicated that there was a significant difference in the progression proportions used in low-rated and high- rated essays. In general, SP was dominant in both high-rated and low-rated essays;
following were the PP and EPP respectively. The most different feature between low-scored and high-scored essays was found in the body paragraphs. The portion of PP significantly differentiated between the body paragraphs in low-rated and high-rated essays. Especially, the low-rated essays contained more PPs than the high-rated essays. Although, SP was dominant in both introductory and concluding paragraphs of the essays, the distinction between two groups was in the proportions of subtypes of SP. High-rated essays contained more SP(d) in introductions than low-rated essays, but SP(u) was dominant in both groups. In line with the research by Schneider and Connor (1991), the research indicated that SPs especially SP(d) had a significant contribution to the quality of the text, especially in introductions.
However, this type of progression was not important in conclusions because the main focus in this part was to summarize what had been discussed in body parts;
therefore, the direct or indirect link between the subtopics in clauses within concluding paragraph was not as important as the link between these subtopics with the ideas discussed in body paragraphs. It suggests that the use of specific progression type in a paragraph relate to the role of that paragraph in the essays. In addition, this research also reinforced the findings by Burneikaite &Zabiliute (2003) that low-rated essays used PP extensively and the proportion of EPP was small, while high-rated essays had the balance use in the proportions of PP and EPP.
2. Limitations
There exist some limitations in this research. Firstly, one limitation is the small sample of essays (twenty-six essays) which is not substantial enough for
making highly reliable inferences. Therefore, further research should use larger population and sample for investigating essays written by Vietnamese students.
Secondly, the holistic evaluation of the teacher for the essays is taken into consideration, without distinguishing among the different assessment scale descriptors such as vocabulary, accuracy, which could have been decisive determiners in the assessors‟ holistic judgments. In addition, one limitation is about the focus of the study. This research just focused on the topical progressions within paragraphs without considering how topical progressions link paragraphs together.
Therefore, further research should also investigate the link between paragraphs in the essays using TSA to understand more about the ideas development in the essays.
Last but not least, it is about the levels of students while they conduct their writings, different students in different levels may use dissimilar types of progressions in developing their ideas; therefore, further research should consider this characteristic.
3. Implications
Generally, the study has its implications for writing assessment in general and writing revision of the student writing in particular. Firstly, in order to achieve a higher degree of objectivity in the evaluation of written texts, the use of TSA as a descriptor of coherence could be formulated more explicitly and included into the existing assessment scales. In this way, coherence in writing would be easier to establish and evaluate. In addition, it can be seen that TSA is an effective tool for checking coherence of students‟ composition; therefore, TSA may be taught for students especially Vietnamese students as a tool for revising their essays during writing.
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Criteria which the teacher used to rate the student essays Appendix 2: Criteria for categorizing topical progressions
Appendix 3: Data analysis on the essay physical features Appendix 4: The description of essay scores in the population Appendix 5: Topical structures of clauses in the essays
Appendix 6: Topical progressions of low-rated and high-rated essays Appendix 7: Topical structure analysis of some essays
Appendix 1: Criteria which the teacher used to rate the student essays (extracted from the guide the teacher delivered to students).
Appendix 2
Criteria for categorizing topical progressions (Schneider and Connor, 1991)
Schneider and Connor formalized the criteria for categorizing topical progressions into the following coding guidelines, excerpted from Schneider and Connor (1991: 427). In my research, these guidelines are followed in order to analyze the data.
T-units (T)
1. Any independent clause and all its required modifiers.
2. Any non-independent clause punctuated as a sentence (as indicated by end punctuation).
3. Any imperative.
Parallel Progression (PP)
1. Any sentence topic that exactly repeats, is a pronominal form, or is a synonym of the immediately preceding sentence topic.
2. Any sentence topic that is a singular or plural form of the immediately preceding sentence topic.
3. Any sentence topic that is an affirmative or negative form of the immediately preceding sentence topic (e.g., artists, no artists).
4. Any sentence topic that has the same head noun as the immediately preceding sentence topic (e.g., the ideas of scientists, the ideas of artists; the contributions made by scientists, the contributions made by artists).
Sequential Progression (SP)
1. Any sentence topic that is different from the immediately preceding sentence topic, that is, not (1)-(4), or P.
2. Any sentence topic in which there is a qualifier that so limits or further specifies an NP that it refers to a different referent (e.g., a nation; a very small, multiracial nation, referring to two different nations).
3. Any sentence topic that is a derivation of an immediately preceding sentence topic (science, scientists).
4. Any sentence topic that is related to the immediately preceding sentence topic by a part-whole relationship (e.g., these groups, housewives, children, old people).
5. Any sentence topic that repeats a part but not all of an immediately preceding sentence topic (e.g., science and art, science, art).
Appendix 3
Data analysis on the essay physical features
Table 1: Numbers of T-units, paragraphs, and Topical depths in essays
no T-
units Paragraph
Topical depth High-rated essay
1 23 4 9
2 16 4 8
3 22 4 8
4 42 6 11
5 24 5 8
6 26 4 11
7 23 4 8
8 24 4 11
9 25 4 6
10 26 4 8
11 29 4 10
12 22 5 10
13 23 5 8
Low-rated essays
28 29 6 14
29 30 5 10
30 25 7 9
31 31 4 9
32 24 4 7
33 34 3 13
34 30 4 12
35 21 4 7
36 46 5 13
37 32 4 17
38 27 4 10
39 25 4 11
40 29 4 16
Number of T-units in different parts of the essays
High-rated essays
Intro P 1 P2 P3 P 4 Conclu
1 3 10 8 2
2 4 5 5 2
3 2 10 8 3
4 3 12 9 9 8 1
5 2 4 8 7 3
6 3 11 10 2
7 4 9 7 2
8 3 11 6 4
9 3 13 4 5
10 3 12 9 2
11 3 12 11 3
12 2 7 6 2
13 2 8 7 2
Low-rated essays
1 4 2 6 9 6 2
2 3 10 6 8 3
3 1 2 5 9 4 4
4 3 14 10 4
5 3 9 10 2
6 8 24 2
7 6 14 6 4
8 5 10 5 3
9 4 9 18 11 6
10 5 16 8 5
11 3 13 8 4
12 3 7 12 3
13 4 16 7 3
CENTRAL TENDANCY
T-units paragraph topical depth low-
rated
high- rated
low- rated
high- rated
low- rated
high- rated
MEAN 29.5 25 4.5 4.4 11.4 8.9
MODE 29 23 4 4 10 8
MEDIUM 29 24 4 4 11 8
Introductions Body parts conclusions High-
rated
low- rated
High- rated
low- rated
High- rated
low- rated
MEAN 2.8 4 8.5 9.5 2.5 3.5
MODE 3 3 8 10 2 3
MEDIAN 3 4 8 9 2 3
Appendix 4
The description of essay scores in the population
PERCENTAGE
Essays No 40 frequency
1-2 A+ 2 5
3-13 A 11 27.5
14-24 A- 11 27.5
25-27 B+ 2 5
27-29 B 2 5
29-31 B- 2 5
32 C+ 1 2.5
33-35 D- 3 7.5
35-40 F 6 15
Appendix 5
Topical structures of clauses in the essays
Type 1: ISE = mood S = topical S Type 2: ISE ≠ mood S = topical S Type 3: ISE = mood S ≠ topical S Type 4: ISE = topical S ≠ mood S Type 5: ISE ≠ mood S ≠ topical S
The topical structures of Low-rated and high-rated essays
High-rated essays
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5
1 6 7 1 0 2
2 14 6 1 0 3
3 10 12 0 0 0
4 8 8 2 0 5
5 9 10 2 1 1
6 13 8 2 0 0
7 9 10 3 2 0
8 11 12 0 0 1
9 12 8 2 2 1
10 7 12 5 1 1
11 11 12 2 0 1
12 12 17 0 0 0
13 18 13 7 1 0
Sum: 140 136 27 7 15
Percent 43.1 41.8 8.3 2.2 4.6
Low-rated essays
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5
28 12 7 0 2 2
29 4 15 1 1 3
30 10 10 1 3 1
31 12 13 0 0 0
32 6 15 2 3 3
33 18 8 3 0 0
34 11 15 1 0 3
35 12 12 2 3 1
36 13 12 2 1 3
37 6 17 4 0 4
38 16 13 1 1 3
39 19 13 0 2 2
40 20 22 3 3 0
Sum: 159 172 20 19 25
Percent 40.3 43.5 5.1 4.8 6.3
Appendix 6
Topical progressions of low-rated and high-rated essays
Sequential progression SP Directly related sequential SP(d) Indirectly related sequential SP(i) Unrelated sequential SP(u) parallel progression PP Extended parallel EPP
Percentage of topical progressions in high-rated and low-rated essays Topical
progressions total introduction Body conclusion
High- rated
low- rated
high- rated
low- rated
high- rated
low- rated
high- rated
Low- rated
SP 147 156 19 24 118 114 10 18
PP 70 136 6 15 56 110 8 11
EPP 35 43 0 1 33 39 2 3
total of
progressions 252 335 25 40 207 263 20 32
SP 58.3 43.9 76 60 57 43.4 50 56.2
PP 27.8 38.3 24 37.5 27 41.8 40 34.4
EPP 13.9 12.8 0 2.5 16 14.8 10 9.4
`
The distribution of different sub-types of sequential progression in introductions and conclusions Conclusion Introduction
low-rated high-rated low-rated high-rated
SP 14 8 21 19
SP(d) 2 3 2 9
SP(i) 1 1 8 8
SP(u) 11 4 11 2
frequency