Results

22

My results were not quite what I had expected. I expected to see quite a noticeable consistency within each of my specified criteria, but that was not the case at all. My results can be seen in Table 2 and the following discussion.

23

Regarding punctuation errors, my junior year in high school collectively (WS #1–3) had the most errors. Then my senior year samples (WS #4–6) came in second, and my freshman year in college samples (WS #7–9) had the fewest. However, WS #4–6 had 45 errors, which is very close behind the WS #1–3 group’s 50 errors. Therefore, there was only a consistency between junior and senior year in high school because in my freshman year at college the number of errors came to a total of 20.

24

Next, I examined word repetitiveness. WS #1–8 had anywhere from two to four repetitive words in each sample. One of the repetitive words WS #1–8 shared was the word “that.” Besides “that,” both WS #1 and 3 used the word “by” between six to eight times. WS #6 and 8 had repetitive words that correlated with the writing sample’s topic; WS #6 used the word “country” eight times and WS #8 reused the word “student(s)” fourteen times. WS #9 had no repetitive words. Since almost every single sample had at least two repetitive words and such words were repeated a considerable number of times, I concluded there was a consistency in word repetitiveness.

25

Each writing sample had sufficient and quality word choice. I noted on WS #1–7 that the word variety was indeed sufficient. However, on WS #8, I commented that the word choice did not demonstrate much variety. For instance, the title of WS #8 is simply “School Uniforms.” Any teacher would agree that this title is not captivating or thought-provoking. The title is only sufficient because it simply informs the reader of the essay’s content. WS #9 had average word choice; it was not spectacular, but it was not exactly poor. The following excerpts are from WS #9: “To write better,” “thought of,” “I plan on,” “I want to see,” “to think,” “would like to know,” “I would look,” and “I have done.” WS #9 is barely two pages long; I provided eight excerpts from WS#9 that represent the average word choice.

26

Each writing sample differed in the quality of word choice. The Flesch Reading Grade Level assessment scores varied greatly for each writing sample for every group. For example, WS #1’s randomly selected passages were all above the 12^th grade level even though I was only in 11^th grade at the time. As for WS #2 and #3, their scores varied anywhere from 8^th to 12^th grade. The following two groups of writing samples seemed to follow the same format; at least one of the writing samples in its group was on or above grade level, whereas the other two in the group were anywhere from a little to significantly below grade level.

Table 2

Results

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Writing samples #1–6 showed consistency in insubstantial sentence structure; whereas, WS #7–9 showed decent rhetorical choice in sentence structure and maybe one or two errors within the sentence structure. WS #1–6 have consistencies with run-ons, confusing word order, and simple—instead of complex—sentences.

28

Last but not least, I looked at each sample for fully developed ideas. Writing samples #2, 5, 6 were the only ones to have incomplete or weakly developed ideas. It was noted that the ideas lack evidence or had poor transitions between thoughts, which caused confusion. As for writing samples #1, 3, 4 and 7–9, they showed consistency in the development of ideas through writing.