Feature Article
Using Rhetorical Structure Theory forContrastive Purposes: A Pilot Study
Jonathan D. Brown
Hosei University/Leiden University
Arie Verhagen
Leiden University
This pilot study explores the effectiveness of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) for
contrastive purposes. Two English texts, one written by a native speaker of Japanese andone by a native English speaker, were broken into elementary discourse units and annotatedwithin the RST framework. The frequency of relations was then tabulated and compared
to reveal different features in a Japanese EFL learner’s English writing and an L1 English
speaker’s writing. Therefore, this study has a methodological result: it shows to what extent
this approach is feasible and effective at investigating and assessing these kinds of issues.
この予備研究は、Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST, 修辞構造論)が対比研究にいかに効果的かを探るものだ。日本人が書いた英文と、英語が母語である話者が書いた英文の２つを、RSTの枠組みの中で、基礎的な談話単位に分けて注釈をつけた。そして一覧表にして比較することで、英語を外国語として学ぶ日本人の英作文と、英語ネイティブの英作文における特徴的な違いを明らかにした。この研究は方法論的な結果を出した。本アプローチが、こういった問題を調査し評価するのにいかに現実的で効果的かを明らかにしたのだ。

Contrastive studies of Japanese writers’ written texts have employed a variety ofanalytical techniques to investigate both linguistic and rhetorical features in theirattempts to explain why Japanese English writing is often not as coherent as texts
written by native English speakers (NES; Brown, 2012; Connor, 2005; Harder& Harder, 1982; Hinds, 1976; Nishihara, 1990). Several studies conducted havebeen more objective in applying quantitative approaches, such as error analysis
3

Brown & Verhagenat the micro-level, i.e., linguistic features to identify phenomena that differ fromthat of NESs (Achiba & Kuromiya, 1983; Bryant, 1984; Hinkel, 2001; Hirose,
2014; Hirose & Sasaki, 1994; Ito, 2004; Moriya, 1997). Other studies, however,
have applied more subjective approaches that have focused on rhetorical andorganizational patterns (Easton, 1982; Haenouchi & Ichinose, 2010; Hirose,
2003; Miyake, 2007; Nishigaki & Leishman, 2001; Takagaki, 2003). Together,
these studies make up a field of research that has offered substantial contributions
to our understanding of Japanese and English discourse as well as L2 writing in
general. Unfortunately, despite the insight these studies have provided, we havestill been left with many unanswered questions. This pilot study has thus adopted
Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST; Mann & Thompson, 1988) as its analyticalframework to explore whether it is suitable for contrastive purposes and can shedlight on some of these unanswered questions.
It has been made abundantly clear that Japanese English writing is consistently
perceived as illogical and ambiguous or perhaps more accurately, incoherent,
relative to that of NESs writing (Achiba & Kuromiya, 1983; Atkinson, 2012;
Connor, 2005; Davies, 1998; Easton, 1982; Harder & Harder, 1982; Hinds,
1976, 1980, 1983a, 1983b, 1987, 1990; Kunihiro, 1976; Nishigaki & Leishman,
2001; Nishihara, 1990; Oi, 1986; Oi & Kamimura, 1998; O’Riordan, 1999),
but no study thus far has been extensive enough to offer more than suggestions
as to why this might be the case. The majority of such studies have relied heavily
on discourse analysis, often not adopting precautions in research design to assure
the replicability of the study, such as inter-rater reliability. The lack of rigor has
resulted in discrepancies across the literature, with some studies suggesting thatJapanese L2 learners apply traditional Japanese organizational patterns (e.g.,
ki-shō-ten-ketsu1) and inductive approaches to their English writing (Achiba& Kuromiya, 1983; Easton, 1982; Haenouchi & Ichinose, 2010; Iwamoto,2006; Nishigaki & Leishman, 2001), which could account for the apparent
incoherence of their English writing. Others, however, have found that such
patterns are not typical of Japanese writing and that standard conventions
and rhetorical/organizational patterns of English can also be commonplace inJapanese, particularly in academic writing (Kobayashi, 1984; Kubota, 1997;4

Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24

Matsunaga, 1999; Miyake, 2007). Findings such as these latter ones then makeit difficult to generalize Japanese writing as illogical and would therefore notreliably account for why their English writing would appear to be so.
Other studies have focused their investigations at the micro-level andhave looked at cohesive devices in an attempt to quantify differences between
Japanese English writing and NESs’ writing (Connor, 1984; Hinkel, 2001;
Narita, Sato, & Sugiura, 2004; Nishigaki & Leishman, 1998, 2001; Nishigaki,
Chujo, Leishman, & Hasegawa, 2007; Oi, 1986). Though these studies haveshown a tendency for over-explicit linkage between adjacent sentences with theuse of connectors, lack of variety in transition usage, and weaknesses in ellipsis
and synonym substitution among Japanese English writing, they still have notsatisfactorily pinpointed exactly what causes Japanese English writing to feel lesscoherent than writing by NESs. One reason for this deficit is the fact that manyof these studies did not expand beyond the micro-level connections (Hinkel,
2001; Nishigaki & Leishman, 1998, 2001; Oi, 1986). However, those studies
that have been based on the idea that cohesion at the micro-level may help in
the formation of coherence at the macro-level (Nishigaki, Chujo, McGoldrickLeishman, & Hasegawa, 2007) are rooted in an erroneous premise, as coherence
does not necessarily depend on cohesive devices (Carrell, 1982). Thoughcohesive devices may linguistically signal a writer’s decision of expressing aconnection between two ideas, they do not necessarily connect them (Maynard,
1998). As a result, relying on the analysis of cohesive devices is not the best
approach to understanding the structure of a text, which means they cannot
accurately account for why Japanese English writing is regarded as more illogicaland ambiguous.
What is needed, therefore, is research that combines quantifiablemeasurements with interpretive observations of anomalies at both the macroand micro-levels These anomalies must be considered in tandem with one
another and not as separate entities in order to account for what is plausibly
causing Japanese English writing to be experienced as illogical and ambiguous
beyond inaccurate generalizations of Japanese rhetoric and errors in cohesion.
Accordingly, this type of rhetorical analysis demands a different type of5

Brown & Verhagenapproach that can look at both local and global features and offer quantifiabledata to substantiate its results. This paper, therefore, adopts the RST framework
for contrastive purposes and applies it to a pilot study between a Japanese EFL
learner’s English text and a NES’s text to show how it can be used to meet thisneed. Before proceeding to the study, however, it is first necessary to provide athorough overview of RST so that its usefulness in contrastive research can bemade apparent.
The Rhetorical Structure Theory
RST, developed by Mann and Thompson (1988), is a descriptive linguistic
approach that analyzes the organization of discourse. Unlike other theories
of text structure (e.g., Grosz & Sidner, 1986), RST eliminates the necessity of
linguistic devices as indicators of relations and, alternatively, offers a systematic
way for texts to be annotated by modeling the rhetorical structure of a text into ahierarchical discourse tree, or RST tree, in which relations between spans of texts
are identified. These spans of texts are usually made up of smaller units called theminimal building blocks of discourse, or Elementary Discourse Units (EDUs).
The coherence structure of the texts is described in terms of RST (Mann &Thompson, 1988). The EDUs in this analysis are clauses, except for intraclausal
constituents and restrictive relative clauses, or independent fragments thatfunction as complete utterances. The functional relations between the
propositions in a text are defined in terms of semantic constraints on theconstituent units and the analyst’s plausibility judgments about the writer’s
purpose in producing those units. The unit that is most central to the writer’s
purposes is called the nucleus (N); less central supporting or expanding units
are called satellites (S). The relations apply recursively to yield a hierarchicalstructure. RST trees combine subject matter relations (relating states of affairs)
and presentational relations (relating illocutions or text parts) in a single
representation. This conflation of content structure and intentional structure
allows the analyst to choose the contextually most salient relation, that is, the onethat maximizes the relevance of a unit to the local or global discourse purpose athand.
6Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24

Though the concept of nuclearity is rather novel, the classification in which
rhetorical relations occur appears to be comparable to that of other discourse
structure theories. According to Mann and Thompson (1988), rhetorical
relations can either be asymmetric (N-S) or symmetric (multi-nuclear).
However, as has been pointed out, while these classifications were expressed insemantic and syntactic terms, RST’s N-S notion is concerned with the purposesof the writer and the effect they intend to bring about, which is more in line withthe function of rhetoric (Mann & Thompson, 1988; Matthiessen & Thompson,1988). Therefore, RST provides a way by which to describe the coherence of atext beyond linguistically observable phenomenon, but by the deliberate choices
made by the writer who was seeking to bring about a specific reaction in thereader. In fact, one of the four constraints in which rhetorical relations may
be defined revolves around achieving this effect (Figure 1), which is achieved
through “a mixture of propositional and intentional language” (Knott, 1996, p.
39).
An asymmetric relationship is made up of two spans of text: the N and theS. The N acts as the more important span as it is essential to the writer’s goal andpurpose and is independent from the other span, whereas the S is less importantand serves to support the N; it cannot act independently (Figure 2). Asymmetric
relationships can be further subdivided into two categories: Presentational
Relations (their effect is to increase some inclination in the reader, such as thereader’s belief in the N, the reader’s desire to perform the action in N) and
Subject Matter Relations (their effect is that the reader recognizes the relation
between two spans of texts).
Unlike asymmetric relations, symmetric relations can be made up of two

Figure 1. List of RST relation constraints as identified by Taboada and Mann (2006).

7

Brown & Verhagen

Figure 2. An example of an RST tree demonstrating the asymmetric relationship.

or more spans, each of which is of equal importance to the writer’s intention.
In other words, each node in a symmetric relation is an N. An example of asymmetric relation is given in Figure 3.
Texts are structured through the relationships between these twocomponents, i.e., the N and S. EDUs serve as either N or S and act as spans of text
within the RST tree. A span may be made up of a single EDU or more. The way
by which one EDU is connected to another is by addition of either one of the 25
asymmetric relations or one of the seven symmetric relations (Table 1), which
can only be marked by following four constraints: completeness, connectedness,
uniqueness, and adjacency.
Completeness refers to the fact that an RST tree must cover the entire text.
In other words, annotation is very holistic in nature; it takes the entire text

Figure 3. RST tree representing a contrast relation (one of the seven types of symmetric relations).

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Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24
Table 1
List of RST Relations Divided by the Asymmetric and Symmetric Relations Categories
Asymmetric Categories

Symmetric Categories
Presentational
Relations

Subject Matter Relations

Multinuclear
Relations

CircumstanceCondition
Elaboration

Antithesis

Evaluation

Cause Cluster

Background

Conjunction

Interpretation

NV Cause

Concession

Contrast

Means

NV Result

Enablement

Disjunction

Otherwise Purpose

V CauseEvidence

Joint

Restatement

V Result

Justify

List

Solutionhood

Motivation

MN RS

Summary

Preparation

Sequence

Unconditional
Unless
Notes. NV = non-volitional; V = volitional; MN RS = multinuclear restatement

into account, and a portion of a text cannot be considered separate from therest. Connectedness regards how the sub-trees within the tree that represents
the entire texts are connected to one another. They must act as a related unit
to another until the minimalist unit is identified. In a well-structured text, notree can function on its own outside the hierarchy of the entire text. In otherwords, every EDU should be linked to every other EDU within the confines of
the RST relations, and therefore, the structure of a text should be represented
only as a single tree unit. Uniqueness refers to the concept of how each set ofspans must be made up of different segments. For example, in Figure 2, [Span1-3] is made up of EDU 1, EDU 2, and EDU 3. That span is then broken down
9

Brown & Verhagen

into two smaller spans in the hierarchy of the RST tree: [Span 1] (EDU 1) is
the N, and [Span 2-3] (EDU 2 and EDU 3) is the S of [Span 1]. It would not
be possible, however, for the two separate spans on the same level to be made upof the same segments, e.g., [Span 1] [Span 2-3] and a third span [Span 3], sincesegment 3 already occupies [Span 2-3] at that level of the tree. This is to what
uniqueness refers. And, finally, adjacency denotes the limitation of spans. In RST,
only adjacent spans can be connected to one another to form larger spans. So, forexample, referring again back to Figure 2, [Span 1] is connected to [Span 3] only
by incorporating [Span 2] to create [Span 1-3]. According to RST principles,
there cannot be a [Span 1&3], as one span cannot cross over another without
connecting with it.
To sum up, when annotating an entire text within the RST framework, theanalyst seeks an annotation that includes every part of that text in a connected
whole (Taboada & Mann, 2006). The whole text is broken into EDUs, andthe way by which one unit is connected to another is by addition of one of
32 predefined RST relations, which are defined in terms of four fields: 1)
Constraints on the nucleus; 2) Constraints on the satellite; 3) Constraints on
the combination of the nucleus and satellite; and 4) Effect (achieved on the text
receiver) (Taboada & Mann, 2006).
One of the greatest advantages of RST is that it “points to a tight relation
between relations and coherence in text, thus constituting a way of explaining
coherence” (Taboada & Mann, 2006, p. 428). In other words, RST can
effectively describe coherence at both the micro- and macro-level and quantify
those relations, thereby providing the analyst with a way to see the innerworkings of a text and how those inner workings connect to form its greaterwhole. Consequently, RST is well suited for the purposes and objectives ofcontrastive studies that seek to understand why Japanese English writing is
generally regarded as illogical and ambiguous beyond grammatical correctness
and idiomaticity. Accordingly, this pilot study attempts to answer the following
research questions:• Is RST an effective analytical framework for contrastive purposes?
• Can it effectively combine qualitative observations and quantitative data
10

Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24

to bring about a better understanding as to why Japanese English writing
is often seen as “illogical” and “ambiguous”?

MethodTwo English texts (one written by a first-year native-English speaker (NES)
college student and one written by a first-year Japanese EFL learner ( JEFL) college
student) were randomly selected from the International Corpus Network of Asian
Learners of English (ICNALE; Ishikawa, 2015), by the authors. ICNALE is “acollection of controlled essays and speeches by learners of English in 10 countries
and areas in Asia” (Ishikawa, 2015, Description section). In other words,
the essays were created under a set of strict parameters, i.e., they were not justrandomly selected essays from various students. Therefore, though participants
who contributed their writing and oral recordings to the ICNALE database were
volunteers, they were expected to follow a number of protocols to ensure the datacollected was authentic and reliable. For the purposes of this study, the authors
chose data only from ICNALE-Written as opposed to the ICNALE-Spoken (acollection of monologue transcripts) corpus, since this study is concerned solely
with learners’ written product and not their oral production. Furthermore, theauthors limited their search to texts written by NESs and JEFLs.
Second-language English-speaking participants who volunteer to submit
their writing to ICNALE-Written are expected to (i) complete a questionnaire
to measure their language-learning motivation and (ii) take a vocabulary
test created by ICNALE that consists of 50 questions in order to assess theparticipants’ current vocabulary repertoire. NESs are exempt from these firsttwo steps. Once participants have completed these two tasks, they are asked towrite two 200-300 word essays in English based on the following topics. The
instructions and prompts are only given in English.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Use reasons andspecific details to support your answer.
1. It is important for college students to have a part-time job.
2. Smoking should be completely banned at all restaurants in the country.
Because of the way these prompts are worded, the authors noticed a great
11

Brown & Verhagendeal of the texts did not have a direct thesis (topic sentence, see below). Instead,many began with “I agree with this statement,” or “I do not agree with this.” Thus,
before selecting the texts to be analyzed, the authors set a couple of parameters:
1) Each text must have a direct thesis in the form of an explicitly stated topic
sentence, e.g., “I think it is important for students to have a part-time job;” 2)The text that was compared in each corpus must be based on the same topic,
either topic one or topic two. Based on these criteria, the authors selected a 226word essay on part-time jobs written by a NES (Appendix A) and a 213-wordessay on the same topic written by a JEFL (Appendix B). These were the first two
essays we came across that fulfilled our parameters.
The selected essays were broken into EDUs and annotated based on theirrhetorical relations in accordance to the RST framework producing a structural
analysis of each text using UAM Corpus Tool (O’Donnell, 2009). It is a highly
versatile annotating software that allows the user to tag data according to a
specified annotation scheme, in the case of this study, the RST scheme, andcreate RST tree structures (Figures 4 and 5). Based on this analysis, the authors
identified the relations and frequency of EDU use in each text and comparedthem to one another.

Results & discussion

Within the Japanese EFL learner’s text, 12 relations were identified with the total
number (asymmetric and symmetric) of relations of 21 (Table 2). Within thenative English speaker’s text, only six types of relations were identified with a totalfrequency of 15 (Table 3).
These results offer some interesting insights. First, the JEFL’s text has morethan double the relation types with a frequency rate 1.4 times greater than therelations found in the NES’s text. This may account for why the JEFL’s text
appears overly complex and cumbersome. These numbers could also suggest apossible distinction between how the JEFL and NES approached the writingtask.
In the JEFL’s text, the frequency at which the rhetorical relations occurred(N = 21) was only 20% more than that of the number of sentences in the text
12

Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24

Figure 4. NES’s RST analysis.

13

Brown & Verhagen

Figure 5. JEFL’s RST analysis.

14Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24
Table 2
JEFL’s Text
Asymmetric Categories
Presentational Relations

Symmetric Categories

Subject Matter Relations

Multinuclear Relations

Evidence

1

Circumstance1

Restatement

1

Elaboration

5

Summary

1

Cause Cluster Non-volitional Cause

3

Concession

1

Evaluation

2

Antithesis

1

Solutionhood

1

Justify1

Condition

3

Joint

(1)

Total Number of Relations: 20 (1)Table 3
NES’s Text
Asymmetric Categories
Presentational Relations

Symmetric Categories

Subject Matter Relations

Multinuclear Relations

Evidence

3

Circumstance2

Background2

Elaboration

2

Restatement

1

Cause Cluster Non-volitional Result 2
Volitional Result

Contrast

1

2

Total Number of Relations: 15(N = 17), while in the NES’s text the frequency of rhetorical relations (N = 15)
was nearly double that of the number of sentences in the text (N = 8). So, while
the NES writer formed more complex sentences that were made up of EDUs andconnected by a limited variety of RST relations, sentences in the JEFL writer’s
text were relatively simple and acted as EDUs on their own. Furthermore, the
JEFL writer relied heavily on a large variety of RST relations to connect these
non-complex clauses. Thus, the complexity of the text rested in the number of15

Brown & Verhagen

relations used rather than the ideas and how they were connected. This could
account for why the JEFL’s text feels less cohesive and more choppy than the
NES’s text. It may also suggest that the JEFL approached the writing task at
the sentence level (each sentence was a task in and of itself ), while the NES
completed the entire essay as a single task by observing how connecting ideas
at the micro-level helps to build the overall hierarchy of the text structure. The
following examples exemplify this.
Example 1 – NES Text
What many students don’t realize is that because the economy is so bad right now,
good grades and academic achievements are not enough to ensure employment
after graduation, especially in technical fields like engineering or physiology.
Example 2 – JEFL Text
However, the most thing they should do is study. College students should haveenough time to study. It is useless for them to have no time for study because ofworking too hard. College students don’t have to earn too much money.
The NES text (Example 1) is a single sentence made up of three EDUs. The
ideas are connected within the single sentence. The JEFL text (Example 2) isalso made up of three EDUs; however, the text consists of three separate, shorter
sentences with each sentence connected to its adjacent through an RST relation
giving the feeling of a choppy and less cohesive whole.
Additionally, the Joint (two units that do not hold any rhetorical relation
within the hierarchy of the text; Figure 5, Units 10-12 and Units 13-14) present
in the JEFL’s text further interrupts the cohesion and further supports theauthors’ belief that the JEFL approached the writing task at the sentence level.
In addition to the number and frequency of rhetorical relations, the typesof rhetorical relations also reveal a number of differences between the two
texts. For example, the NES’s text had a higher proportion of argumentative
relations through the use of evidence and background compared to that of the
JEFL’s text, while the JEFL writer relied heavily on elaboration. Argumentative
relations such as evidence and background are effective at not only building
upon ideas but moving them forward (Mann & Thompson, 1987). Elaboration
relations, however, while useful for providing clear, specific, and adequate detail16Rhetorical Structure Theory for Contrastive Purposes, OnCUE Journal, 11(1), pages 3-24

on previous ideas, do not actually construct ideation themselves. Consequently,
when overused they may have a negative effect on the development of a text.
Another issue with the use of elaboration relations in the JEFL text is that they
were often used in an attempt to create support or evidence for the author’s
position, like an evidence relation. For example, the author writes in Segment
12: “So they must earn some money then.” Followed by the elaboration relation:“I think it is too late for them to earn money when they are employees.” It seems,
however, that the JEFL writer was in fact attempting to create support for his
position in Segment 12 through what the author believed to be “evidence.”
Another interesting point to note is the fact that though both the JEFL andNES writers utilized relations from the causal cluster, all three found in the JEFL
text were non-volitional (see Segment 4 and 5; 10 and 11; 18 and 19 in Figure 5),
while two non-volitional (see Segment 4 & 5; 9, 10, & 11 in Figure 4) and twovolitional relations appeared in the NES text (see Segment 12 & 13 in Figure 4);
assigning an agent to an action through several condition relations. Also, though
two causal relations are found in the JEFL text, they are both non-volitional. The
NES on the other hand used non-volitional and volitional causes equally.
It is also worth noting the heavy reliance on subject matter relations by the
JEFL writer, in particular elaboration (discussed previously), while the NES
used both presentational and subject matter relationships at an equal rate. Thiswas somewhat of an interesting find, as subject matter relations are concernedwith ideation and/or content as opposed to presentational relations, which areused to bring about a change in the reader, such as a positive regard, belief, or
acceptance of the nucleus (Vis, Spooren, & Sanders, 2010). In other words,
presentational relations are more rhetorical in nature, while subject matter
relations are more informational. This could suggest the JEFL writer was overly
concerned about what was being said and not how to say it. It also shows alack of reader awareness, which is an important step in the metacognitive
development of writing and can only occur when the “physical task of writing
becomes automatic” (Carvalho, 2002, p. 271). Thus, effective writing is about
making choices that have consequences, not only on what is being said but also
how it is being said. It is a process of inquiry into form, function, style, grammar,
17

Brown & Verhagenorganization, and rhetoric. Ignoring any one of these elements in one’s writing
can result in a less-than-ideal text (Park, 2015).

Conclusions

Unlike previous studies, this pilot study looked at and compared the features ofa JEFL and a NES both at the micro- and macro-levels. However, whether thedifferences observed here are only due to individual writer’s characteristics (e.g.,
IQ level, basic writing ability) or correlate with native versus foreign language
has to await further large-scale investigation. Future research needs to apply RST
to a greater number of texts to bring about statistically significant results andverify whether or not the features identified re-occur regularly in each respective
corpus. Thus, what is of most worth from this study is not the findings themselves(as it is impossible to make any conclusions from such a small collection of data),
but the methodological result. Yet, because the approach used in this study
clearly identifies a difference in the quality of the two texts (the NES’s text being
experienced as more coherent) beyond the level of grammatical correctness oridiomaticity, we feel that this method may be of value for contrastive purposes.
Therefore, if applied in a more comprehensive study, the results seem to suggestthat this method may help to contribute to charting new territories in the fieldsof L2 writing and contrastive rhetoric.

Notes

1. The term used to describe the structure and development of Japanese prose.

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Author bios

Jonathan D. Brown is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics in the
Faculty of Social Sciences at Hosei University in Japan. He will be receiving his PhD
in Linguistics from Leiden University in March 2019. His main research interests
are L2 writing, contrastive rhetoric, discourse analysis, and corpus linguistics.
brownj@hosei.ac.jp
Arie Verhagen is a full professor in the Centre for Linguistics at Leiden University.
Dr. Verhagen’s research interests include cognitive linguistics, construction grammar,
language evolution, stylistics, and usage-based linguistic theory. A.Verhagen@hum.
leidenuniv.nl
Received: February 19, 2017
Accepted: March 16, 201823

Brown & Verhagen

Appendix A – NES’s Text

I think it is very important for college students to have part-time jobs. What
many students don’t realize is that because the economy is so bad right now, good
grades and academic achievements are not enough to ensure employment after
graduation, especially in technical fields like engineering or physiology. The factof the matter is the standards for college graduates have been rising for sometime, in [sic] one result of this is that students must accomplish more in the sameamount of time as they would have had to in the past. I also think that part-timejobs can have a positive influence on college students’ learning experience. For
example, paid and unpaid internships give students the opportunity to acquire
real industry experience while solidifying the knowledge that they will gain in
their classes. I’ve held internships in both of my summers here at university, and I
think that I am a much stronger job candidate than my classmates who do not havesuch experience. Furthermore, I had earned enough money just in the summers
as an intern so that I would not have to work during the regular semester. In thisway, I was able to both further my career prospects while retaining focus on mystudies.

Appendix B – JEFL’s Text

I think it is important for college students to have a part-time hob. I have threereasons. First, if students have a part-time job, they can know how they work insociety. they will have to work when they graduate their colleges. So I think theyshould have time to prepare for work in society. Second if they work in various
situations they will learn how they communicate with people. College students
should experience various situations. Third, college students need a lot of money
when they graduate their colleges. So they must earn some money to use then.
I think it is too late for them to earn money when they become emploees [sic].
Because most college students are adults, they should earn their own money.
However, the most thing they should do is study. College students should haveenough time to study. It is useless for them to have no time for study becauseof working too hard. College students don’t have to earn too much money.
So I think they should work on summer vacation, winter vacation, etc. If theyexperience working, it make their life more valuable thing.
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