Coherence in the Argumentative Essays of ADZU College Freshmen: Assessment of Writing Quality Mary Sheildred D. Angeles Ateneo de Zamboanga University (ADZU), Philippines jshield22@yahoo.com The study investigated coherence features in students argumentative essays for text comprehensibility and overall writing quality. Specifically, it examined (1) the textual features in students argumentative essays; (2) the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays; and (3) the relationship between the textual features and the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and between the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and the type of high school attended. Three techniques were used to analyze the data: a textual analysis involving frequency count to identify the coherence features in the students texts; analytic and holistic scorings to evaluate textual features of coherence and comprehensibility, respectively; and correlational analysis to determine the relationship between the coherence features and the comprehensibility of the students essays and between the comprehensibility of the students essays and the type of high school the students attended. The findings indicate that the students argumentative essays manifested different characteristics of good writing and were mostly rated as moderately comprehensible. The results further reveal that the textual features of coherence showed significant positive correlations with comprehensibility. Conversely, the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays did not show any significant relationship with the type of high school students attended. Key words: coherence, argumentative essays, writing quality
1. INTRODUCTION A fundamental part of what we do as language teachers involves working with students texts. We expect students not only to read authentic texts, but also to produce comprehensible texts that effectively communicate certain information and ideas to others. However, it is common to hear teachers complain that although the students are taught the basic techniques of writing in great detail, they still do not know how to write coherently. In this case, how can we as teachers adequately deal with students difficulty producing coherent texts? What are the best ways we can respond to their writing? What procedure do we take in handling such a vast subject as text? According to Pilus (1996), incoherence is a recurring problem in the students writing and can be a major obstacle to their success in writing classes. Consequently, this problem of producing a coherent text has become a growing concern in school not only among English teachers but also among other subject teachers and academic staff because students demonstrate seeming incompetence to write good compositions as reflected in the lack of coherence, unity, and emphasis in their writing. Teachers usually complain about the standard or quality of writing exhibited by the students particularly among first year university students because their piece of writing failed to communicate effectively and meaningfully by means of its coherence and its conforming to the expectations of its prospective readers. They find it impractical to correct the whole composition since errors in coherence are often more difficult to handle as they involve a chunk of units, such as a series of sentences or paragraphs, unlike grammatical errors which can be easily corrected. This problem is aggravated by the students lack of interest in and indifference towards the task of writing. Generally, students consider the English writing class as boring, time consuming, and difficult, and they find the writing task to be enormous and demanding. Because of this, they usually go to their writing composition classes with a great deal of apprehension especially if they do not know what to write about, or if ever they have any idea at all, they do not how to start writing it. Although the writing skill is one of the macro skills they need to survive the demands of college life, most students entering college today have little practice in writing since at one extreme, they have written only simple book reports and short answer quizzes, and at the other, free-form of expressions of emotions. They also seem to demonstrate a minimum writing competence. More so, they are now much inclined into listening rather than writing. In Ateneo de Zamboanga University (ADZU), for example, first year college students would prefer to listen to their teachers lectures and photocopy handouts or lessons rather than take down notes during class discussion. They like to answer objective test questions over essay questions that require them to express their ideas logically and coherently in paragraph form. Moreover, technological advancement has also contributed quite relatively in turning the students into mere spectators of visuals and listeners of sound rather than writers and reactors of what they see or hear. They are much updated with the latest fashion and trend, and they use the cyberspace to email, chat, download, and browse, or to visit the website for other things, which may not necessarily be school-related. However, they spend less time doing critical academic reading, and they are not concerned about improving coherence in their writing. It is for this reason that this study was conducted to find out if this problem of incoherence in students writing is prevalent among college freshmen of Ateneo de Zamboanga University. In particular, it attempted to analyze the different coherence features of the argumentative essays written by these students for essay comprehensibility and writing quality in general. Obviously, coherence is an area that deserves attention because problems can easily arise
from coherence in writing (Cohen, Glasman, Rosenbaum-Cohen, Ferrara, & Fine, 1979; Cook, 1989; Dubin & Olshtain, 1980). It is especially relevant to research on text quality. It is an essential element of good writing a crucial, contributory factor to effective writing. The study of coherence is therefore a study of writing quality. 1.2 Statement of the Problem The main objective of this study was to examine the features of coherence in students argumentative essays for overall writing quality. The specific questions that the study addressed were the following: 1. How are the textual features such as Focus, Organization, Cohesion, Support and Elaboration, and Conventions achieved in the students argumentative essays to make them comprehensible? 2. How comprehensible are the students argumentative essays considering the following: a. Focus b. Organization c. Cohesion d. Support and Elaboration e. Conventions 3. Is there a relationship between the textual features such as Focus, Organization, Cohesion, Support and Elaboration, and Conventions and the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays? 4. Is there a relationship between the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and the type of high school (private or public) attended? 2. METHODS 2.1 Research Design This study employed the descriptive-correlational method of research since its major purpose was to describe the writing quality of students argumentative essays by examining the different textual features of coherence. Furthermore, these coherence features were used to determine the degree of comprehensibility of the students written texts. In addition to this, this study attempted to determine the relationship between the textual features of coherence and the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and between the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and the type of high school the students attended. 2.2 Participants Thirty regular first year college students of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University participated in this study. They were selected through stratified random sampling. They were taking bachelor courses and were enrolled in English 112 (Research and Academic Writing) during the second semester of school year 2003-2004.
2.3 Corpus of Data The corpus of data consisted of 30 argumentative essays written in class by first year college students based on a given writing situation: topic/proposition with expected content, purpose, prospective readers, and specified length of the paper and time limit. 2.4 Analysis of the Data To answer the first research question, the physical analysis consisted of simple counts of the characteristics that reflected the textual features of Focus, Organization, and Support and Elaboration present in the students essays. For Cohesion, the researcher made a frequency count of the different types of cohesive ties, whereas for Conventions, she categorized the students argumentative essays into four: (1) ungrammatical and incomprehensible, (2) grammatical but incomprehensible, (3) ungrammatical but comprehensible, and (4) grammatical and comprehensible. Meanwhile, to answer the second research question, each writing sample was scored by three independent raters using two different measures: analytic scoring for each of the features of coherence and holistic scoring for comprehensibility of the students essays. To test the research hypothesis of relationship between the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and the type of high school attended, the Point Biserial Correlation Coefficient was employed since type of school is dichotomous data, while comprehensibility scores are continuous. Additionally, to test the relationship between the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and the five textual features of coherence, Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was employed. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The presentation of the findings is organized according to the research questions posted for this study. 3.1 Textual Features in the Students Argumentative Essays The physical analysis of the data reveals that there were actually five general textual features employed in the students argumentative essays which made them comprehensible. These were the Focus, Organization, Cohesion, Support and Elaboration, and Conventions. Each of these coherence features reflected some characteristics of good writing. 3.1.1 Focus Table 1 presents the specific characteristics that achieved focus in students argumentative essays. Table 1 Characteristics of Focus in Students Argumentative Essays Characteristics Frequency Percentage clear statement of subject or topic 27 90 clear statement of position or point of view 28 93 clearly stated topic sentence 22 73 clear statement of heading/divisions of the text 9 3 clear presentation of major divisions and/or subpoints 7 2
As shown in Table 1, clear statements of position and subject were most frequently used and highly observed by the students, whereas clear statement of heading and clear presentation of major divisions were rarely employed. The findings indicate that the majority of the student writers expressed their argumentative positions (93%) and clearly established the subject or topic in their argumentative essays (90%). This may also denote that they responded adequately to the writing prompt, which explicitly required them to take a position for or against the proposition. This may imply that taking a clear stand on a given proposition helped the first year college students maintain focus in writing and contributed to comprehensible text. Meanwhile, the findings further demonstrate that only few first year college students did clearly specify the major points in their essays (2%) and did explicitly show the divisions of their essays in terms of the arguments or points they made in the introduction (9%). This may suggest that the student writers whose essays failed to incorporate these features may need to set the major and subpoints in the beginning to show a clear flow of ideas and to maintain focus in their writing and may need to develop the skill of pre-revealing the form of their text and the content within the first paragraph of their essays to improve focus in their writing. 3.1.2 Organization Table 2 presents the characteristics of Organization in the essays written by first year college students of ADZU. Table 2 Characteristics of Organization in Students Argumentative Essays Characteristics Frequency Percentage Clear rhetorical relationship cause and effect 6 17 reasons 24 80 general to specific 21 70 Clear rhetorical pattern (introductione bodye conclusion) 8 27 position stating in the introduction 15 50 supporting the position with reasons in the body 15 50 restating the position in the conclusion 8 27 Explicit overall plan (clear beginning, middle, and end) 16 53 clear beginning 23 77 clear middle 22 73 clear end 16 53 Smooth and logical transitions between sentences and/or paragraphs 11 37 Logical progression, relatedness, and completeness of ideas 12 40 Table 2 shows that the preponderance of reasons as an organizational plan was evident in the students argumentative essays. This finding may mean that the students compositions were predominantly organized by enumerating supporting reasons after presenting their positions. The results also indicate that the majority of the student writers used the general-to-specific arrangement or deductive organizational pattern that reflected their natural linear thought pattern in organizing their essays. These findings suggest that the first year college students apparently applied their learned knowledge of organizing their argumentative essays using reasons and general to specific because these organizational arrangements seemed to be the most common
and most appropriate structural frameworks for their argumentative texts based on the given writing task. The data further show that a good number of the students argumentative essays (53%) displayed the text structure consisting of beginning, middle, and end, closely associated with the introduction, body, and conclusion of a typical three-part essay. This may mean that these essays employed the linear organization, reflecting the overall organizational plan of the text. Table 2 further shows that only a small number of students argumentative essays had smooth and logical transitions between sentences and/or paragraphs through the use of cohesive ties and demonstrated logical progression, relatedness, and completeness of ideas. Since more than half of the argumentative texts were not logically and effectively organized from sentence to sentence and/or paragraph to paragraph, this may imply that more students included ideas that did not progress logically from beginning to end, cluster of ideas that were loosely connected and/or key ideas that might be incomplete. This may further suggest that in order to achieve organization in their texts, students need to arrange and present the ideas in their essays clearly, logically, completely, and effectively. 3.1.3 Cohesion Table 3 deals with the frequency and percentage distribution of the different cohesive types employed in students argumentative essays. Table 3 Frequency and Percentage Distribution of the Types of Cohesive Ties Cohesive Ties Frequency Percentage I. Grammatical Ties A. Reference (n = 1049) It 124 43 They 140 48 This 164 22 The 566 75 II. Transitional Ties A. Amplification/Addition (n = 210) and 189 90 B. Contrast (n = 90) but 65 71 C. Cause and Effect (n = 70) because 38 54 III. Lexical Ties A. Reiteration (n = 214) repetition 151 71 Table 3 shows the different cohesive ties used by first year college students in their argumentative essays. As reflected, grammatical ties were most predominantly used by the students while the lexical ties were least used. This finding seems to imply that the student writers attempted to make their essays cohesive through the use of ties.
3.1.4 Support and Elaboration Table 4 focuses on the characteristics of Support and Elaboration in students argumentative essays. Table 4 Characteristics of Support and Elaboration in Students Argumentative Essays Characteristics Frequency Percentage sufficient quality and quantity of supporting ideas 12 40 specific details, examples, reasons, explanations, illustration, and evidence 24 80 clear and relevant development of the central idea 12 40 Table 4 shows the different characteristics of support and elaboration in students writing. As shown, more than half of the students argumentative essays used specific details, whereas less than half of them had sufficient quality and quantity of supporting ideas and clear and relevant development of the central idea. These findings seem to point out that the majority of the student writers included specific support or evidence using details, examples, reasons, and explanations to develop their essays main ideas. However, only few of them presented their essays central idea with clarity and relevance and provided adequate and appropriate supporting details to expound this idea. These findings further indicate that although the use of specific details may be essential to the development of support and elaboration in students argumentative essays, not all of them could incorporate the necessary details to develop their ideas or could determine the amount of details their essays should contain. This means that in order for their essays to be more coherent and comprehensible, the student writers need to include good quality and right quantity of concrete supporting details and logical and relevant development of main ideas. Since the employment of sufficient and relevant details may be critical to the development of comprehensible writing, these findings seem to imply that the student writers may need direct instruction on improving this aspect of their writing. 3.1.5 Conventions Table 5 reveals the characteristics of Conventions in students writing. Table 5 Characteristics of Conventions in Students Argumentative Essays Characteristics Frequency Percentage ungrammatical and incomprehensible 1 3 grammatical but incomprehensible 0 0 ungrammatical but comprehensible 19 63 grammatical and comprehensible 10 33 Table 5 shows the different characteristics of the students argumentative essays in terms of convention. The data show that more than half of the students argumentative essays were ungrammatical but comprehensible, less than half were both grammatical and comprehensible, and one was both ungrammatical and incomprehensible. No students texts were grammatical but incomprehensible. A high percentage of student essays contained errors in sentence formation, mechanics, grammar, and word usage that made them ungrammatical, but the errors did not
cause the writing to be totally unclear or difficult to read and did not impede the essays meaning. Although these errors did not significantly interfere with the idea being expressed, they weaken the overall fluency and quality of the composition. This may also imply that the student writers, whose essays were ungrammatical, showed limited control of conventions. Meanwhile, only a very limited number of the students argumentative essays displayed very slight or few, if any, errors in standard English rules for grammar, usage, mechanics, and sentence structure. This may mean that the student writers, whose essays had very minimal errors, demonstrated a basic understanding and consistent command of conventions. This may suggest that the overall strength of the conventions contributed to the comprehensibility of the students' argumentative essays. Although the data show that the majority of the essays were comprehensible (though with errors), there was one essay which was considered both ungrammatical and incomprehensible. This may mean that this essay had severe and/or frequent errors that caused the writing to be incomprehensible, and these errors substantially detracted from the overall quality of the composition. This may further imply that the student writer of this essay did not correctly apply the conventions of the English language. 3.2 Comprehensibility in the Students Argumentative Essays According to the Textual Features of Coherence Table 6 presents the means and standard deviations of coherence and comprehensibility. Table 6 Means and Standard Deviations of the Textual Features of Coherence and Comprehensibility N = 30 Mean Standard Deviation Focus 2.64.315 Organization 2.39.372 Cohesion 2.41.508 Support and Elaboration 2.44.432 Conventions 2.24.637 Comprehensibility 2.59.452 In Table 6, the data show that the raters analytic scoring is highest in Focus, but lowest in Conventions. Based on the standard deviations obtained, the data further show that the raters rating for Focus in students argumentative essays tend to cluster around the mean. However, the most diversified scoring is in Conventions as shown by the value of the standard deviation (.637) which is the highest. This may suggest that the standard deviation for Conventions (.637) is much larger than other textual features. This indicates that there were greater individual differences in the students argumentative essays in terms of language conventions. Looking at the descriptions in the analytic scoring guides for the textual features, a score point of 2 for Focus indicates that the students argumentative essays as a whole are somewhat focused and have some sense of completeness. This may mean that the student writers have somehow established a focus in their writing and have demonstrated at least a minimal attempt to respond appropriately to the assigned topic by stating a subject, specifying their position, providing topic sentences and headings that help the readers be engaged and not confused about the subject matter. On the other hand, a score point of 2 for Organization shows that the essays may not always reflect a smooth or completely logical progression of thoughts from sentence to sentence and/or paragraph to paragraph. Ideas may somewhat ramble, and clusters of ideas may
be loosely connected. As for Cohesion, a score point of 2 reveals that the students compositions may somehow be cohesive, and logical transition between ideas may be apparent; however, the frequency of the usage of cohesive ties does not always guarantee a smooth flow of ideas. Meanwhile, a score point of 2 for Support and Elaboration indicates that the students pieces of writing display little evidence of depth and breadth of supporting details and elaboration. This may suggest that the development may be somewhat general, superficial, inconsistent, contrived, or uneven, consisting of elaborated ideas interspersed with bare, unelaborated details and/or details presented with little, if any, elaboration. Finally, a score point of 2 for Conventions shows that the students argumentative essays represent inconsistent or limited control of language conventions that did not enhance the quality of the response. This may mean that the student writers committed errors in sentence formation, word usage, mechanics, and grammar that somehow affect the overall fluency of the composition. Moreover, the data further reveal that the analytic mean scores obtained for the textual features were not very far from the holistic mean score of Comprehensibility (2.59) since the ratings fall within the two-point range. This may mean that the analytic scoring for the text-level components of coherence is in consonance with the holistic scoring for comprehensibility. A score point of 2 for comprehensibility indicates that the essays are moderately comprehensible, requiring interpretation on the part of the readers. Based on this rating description, it can be said that the students argumentative essays are moderately comprehensible considering the textual features such as Focus, Organization, Cohesion, Support and Elaboration, and Conventions. 3.3 Relationship between the Textual Features of Coherence and the Comprehensibility of the Students Argumentative Essays Table7 focuses particularly on the correlation results between the students mean score in comprehensibility and their mean score in each of the five textual features of their argumentative essays. Table 7 Relationship between the Textual Features of Coherence and Comprehensibility in Students Argumentative Essays r r2 2-tailed Significance Degree of Relationship Focus.783.6131.000 (significant) high Organization.796.6336.000 (significant) high Cohesion.587.3446.001 (significant) moderate Support and Elaboration.691.4775.000 (significant) substantial Conventions.802.6432.000 (significant) high p<0.01 It can be seen in Table 7 that the five textual features of coherence, namely, Focus, Organization, Cohesion, Support and Elaboration, and Conventions were all significantly correlated with comprehensibility (p<0.01). The correlational analysis reveals that there is a positive and significant relationship between the five features and comprehensibility. Among the five features, Conventions had the strongest relationship (r =.802, p<0.01) with comprehensibility, while Cohesion had the weakest (r =.587, p<0.01). This seems to imply that Conventions may be the most probable indicator or measure of comprehensibility in students argumentative essays, followed by Organization and Focus, whereas Cohesion seems to be the least indicator of text comprehensibility. This may also suggest that the students argumentative
essays that adhere to the basic language features that include sentence formation, mechanics, grammar, and word usage and observe the standard English rules for these features will greatly enhance the overall writing quality and contribute to text comprehensibility. 3.4 Relationship between the Comprehensibility of the Students Argumentative Essays and the Type of High School (private or public) attended Table 8 deals with the correlation results between comprehensibility and type of high school (private or public) attended. Table 8 Relationship between the Comprehensibility of the Students Argumentative Essays and the Type of High School Attended r r2 2-Tailed Significance Degree of Relationship.0678.0046.361 (not significant) negligible p<0.05 As reflected in Table 8, the correlation between Comprehensibility and type of high school was not statistically significant (r =.0678, p<0.05). The results of the correlational analysis reveal that there is no significant relationship between the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays and the type of high school (private or public) students attended. This tends to indicate that the students type of high school is not an indicating factor for essay comprehensibility. This further implies that the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays is not affected or influenced by the type of high school they attended. This also means that whether the students are coming from a private or public high school, it is more likely that the quality of the essays they produce will be the same. 4. CONCLUSION This study has shown that the comprehensibility of the students argumentative essays can be characterized by the presence of the textual features of Focus, Organization, Cohesion, Support and Elaboration, and Conventions. These features are key aspects of coherent and comprehensible writing involving students texts. Specifically, the readers who evaluated textual comprehensibility in the present study attributed it to clarity of subject, position, divisions of text, textual structure and to appropriate use of cohesive ties, supporting details, and language conventions. In essence, it can be said that the determination of text comprehensibility is fundamentally an interpretation by a reader, a part of transaction between text and reader between the reader s world and the writer s language as Larson (1987) has purported. In the same way, the interwoven and interlocking features of comprehensible text require a merger of readers and writers perspectives. That is, in comprehensible writing, the readers and writers interact, their expectations and intentions meeting and merging as Horning (1993) has underscored. This meeting in text occurs when the writers specific intentions are realized in conventions of text, facilitated by the incorporation of the textual features mentioned above, and the readers specific expectations are confirmed through the use of their prior knowledge. In sum, comprehensible writing resides chiefly in the text and in the reader and writer, and it is achieved when there is a match between features and content of the text written by the writer and the competencies and expectations of the reader, as dictated by a particular writing context or situation (e.g., the academic community). One way to measure the balance between the reader and text is to conduct a written discourse analysis to find how a text operates according to the
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