Improving the Intelligibility of a Self-Study Application
For Japanese Academic Writing Using a Paragraph Writing Method
Nobuko Iki
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japaniki@ouj.ac.jp
Junji Shibasaki
The Open University of Japan
shiba@ouj.ac.jp
Abstract: In this study, we tested improve ments to an academic writing application, based on the methodof a five-paragraph structure and rhetorical functions that we previously developed to help novice writers
learn to write papers and reports in Japanese for academic purposes, Our previous research showed how
students’ understanding, knowledge and skill in writing Japanese improved while using our application.
However, we found it was necessary to change some aspects of teaching the writing method. This ismainly because, although students understand the method, they had difficulty using it. Even though somestudents are familiar with the concept of a paragraph taught in English classes, when it comes to Japanesewriting, they cannot recognize what a paragraph is. We hypothesized that	
  English terminology and ideas
might be blocking their understanding. To overcome this, we felt it is necessary to retrieve the idea of aparagraph in English classes and incorporate it into Japanese writing classes. In this study, we sought a
different approach for novice writers to acquire the foundation of Japanese academic writing.
Keywords: Academic Writing, Paragraph Writing Method, Self-Study Application, Writing Application

Introduction
There have been many reported cases of freshmen not having sufficiently competent writing skills foracademic purposes (Suzuki 2007, Toyota 2006, Okumura 2004). This is mainly due to lack of Japanese writing
skills for academic purposes. Yabe (2008) stated that students were supposed to acquire research, thinking, reading,
and writing skills based on the Japanese curriculum guidelines before they start higher education at colleges oruniversities, but the skills acquired are not sufficient. This hinders students with their higher educational studies,
since writing skills are essential in most cases (Yabe). More schools now offer remedial or introductory classes foracademic writing than in previous decades; some even offer writing classes before the start of the school year,
because students cannot survive school life without those skills. Additionally, there are numerous books publishedon academic writing and computer applications have been developed to help students write better. However, there is
still no prominent method to teach students to write well.

The Current Situation
In order to develop the application, we examined students’ current ability and knowledge with regard towriting skills by analyzing students’ term papers. We found that many papers had no essay structure. Some read likeprosaic journals, impressions or thoughts. Toyota and Okumura (2006) revealed similar cases where writers could
not express their opinions appropriately and could not write papers or reports based on the essay structure. The
writing techniques students have learned in high school differ from the ones they need for academic writing atcollege or university. Until the end of their high school education, students mainly experienced writing journals,
impressions and thoughts, using the four-part organization of Chinese poetry: introduction, development, turn, andconclusion. They wrote about their feelings, thoughts, and emotions in these types of writing so they did not havemuch opportunity to convey their opinions, or arguments based on fact or evidence.
The forms of writing students need for academic purposes are reports, essays, and research papers, which
require a different structure: introduction, body and conclusion (Kinoshita 1994)(Ohshima et al 2005). It is essential
for students to acquire academic writing skills, as well as to understand what an academic discourse community is,what it might expect of them, how and why things are done, and how things are valued in the particular area of study
in which they are writing (Paltridge et al 2012). The logical structure of academic writing usually consists of threeparts, introduction, body and conclusion, which readers find easy to understand. In order to help writers express theiropinions appropriately, Oshima (2004) and Ikeuchi (2005) experimentally adapted the paragraph writing method forJapanese writing, but no research results have been verified as yet. Since students have barely any experience inwriting academic reports, essays, and research papers, they have to start by distinguishing the difference between
writing impressions or journals and academic writing. Our pretest was designed to see whether or not students canlearn how to construct written arguments, using the essay structure and paragraph writing, (an introductory paragraph,several body paragraphs, and a conclusion), as a result of which they can discuss their opinions in an appropriate
form for academic purposes (Iki and Shibasaki 2011).

The Pretest

Figure 1: Template for the Pretest

The pretest used a combination of templates
made with Microsoft PowerPoint and a short lecture
about fundamental rules for academic writing inJapanese. We prepared pages with textboxes for an
introduction, several body paragraphs and a conclusion
to create an outline for students and help them keep tothe essay structure. Each page has a textbox for the
topic sentence and an indication of which part thestudent is working on, such as an introduction or body.
After the students have listened to the lecture on writing,they can start to create their own outlines and fill out the
textboxes prior to writing the essay (Figure 1). If theyneed to add more body paragraphs, they can add in as
many as necessary.
However, as a result of the pre-test, we foundthat using the Microsoft PowerPoint templates did not really help students write better essays. The templates were
too flexible, which allowed students to start writing without creating an outline. In addition, we hypothesized that it
might be easier for students if the length of the document was limited. Though a three-paragraph essay(introduction, one body paragraph and a conclusion) is too short, we felt a five-paragraph essay (introduction, twobody paragraphs and a conclusion) would be a reasonable length. This would also allow writers to add more
information, such as statistics, quotations and definitions, to raise the level of detail and sophistication of the entire
essay (Davis and Liss 2007). Composition classes in general mainly teach the use of five-paragraph essays,
particularly at colleges and universities in the United States, where different types of rhetorical functions are alsotaught, for example explaining, cause-effect, classification, comparison and contrast, and argumentation (Hale et al.,1996). As a result of the pretest findings, for this follow-up study, we therefore developed the application for novice
writers so that they could acquire the knowledge and skills to enable them to write argument- or opinion-based
essays using a five-paragraph structure, together with rhetorical functions.

The Previous Experiment
We developed the application based on the result of the pretest. The features of the application are
designed especially for Japanese novice writers to learn, practice and acquire basic writing skills and knowledge,
such as the ability to use a clear essay structure and rhetorical functions, using five-paragraph writing in Japanese.
The application consists of two parts, the learning part and the practice part. Users can save their work files, an entire
essay, each paragraph, and topic sentences automatically. Once they finish writing, they can name the file and savetheir work as well. As long as they keep the names of the folder and files the same, they can switch computers andcarry the files with them to work on elsewhere. As in the case of the first assessment, to evaluate the changes madein this application, we first ran an experiment to assess operability, usability and intelligibility of the application, andwhether further improvements were necessary.

Changes to the application resulting from the previous experiment
The new developments in our application were based on the results of a previous experiment, in which
three university students and six prospective students participated, the aim in both experiments being to assess theoperability, usability, and intelligibility of the application. .

Figure 2: Comparison of the same Learning Page in the previous and current applications

As a result of the previous experiment, we improved certain aspects of the application.
Inclusion of visual aids
The left page in Figure 2 is from the previous application, while the right page is from the current one.
These pages explain the same thing: the difference between and comparison of the essay structure and four-partChinese poetry. While the left one shows only verbal information with no visual aids, while the right page shows
the same information with visual aids. Other changes included emphasizing and coloring the fonts, andhighlighting the important points to make it easier for participants to focus on key points. These kinds of changes
were made on every page in both the Learning and Practice Pages. We attempted to use visual images, rather thanjust verbal explanations by simplifying the explanation to emphasize the contents.
Simplification and clarification of contents
Since some participants tend to skim while others go through explanations in detail, we repeat important
information wherever students need it to prevent them missing it. However, some participants pointed out that there
was too much information to comprehend in the original application, thus it might be better to focus on the essay
structure and difference between the two types of writing, the essay structure and four Chinese poetry styles ofwritings. It is essential to use at least one rhetorical function to practice writing; therefore we decided to restrict thecurrent application to argumentative essays, since some participants were already familiar with the idea ofargumentative or persuasive essays, because universities sometimes set argumentative essays in entrance
examinations.
Some participants in the previous experiment did not understand that the purpose of the application was tocreate an outline, with topic sentences and thesis statement, and then writ paragraphs for each. Therefore it wasnecessary to make clear what they should do, step-by-step.
Most students were familiar with the use of paragraphs in English, so we changed the use of the term“paragraph”. Participants were familiar with the term “paragraph reading” as opposed to “paragraph writing”,
because “paragraph reading” is a common technique taught in Japan to answer questions in English examinations.
Although the word: paragraph” has the same meaning in both phrases, participants cannot recognize it as the same
concept. To obviate this problem, we adapted the application so that participants could easily understand that theterm “paragraph writing” derives from the same concept as “paragraph reading”.

Procedure for the current experiment
Some students wrote too long or too short to edit in the previous experiment, which gave them difficult
time to edit, From the procedure aspect, it might be helpful to decide edit the paper with application if they have 5paragraph argumentative writing. The aim of the second experiment was to evaluate how alternation, changing the
aspects of explanation, the usage of visual aids and etc, affects intelligibility to improve the application In order toassess the changes made to the application, we decided to assign participants a five-paragraph argumentative essay
and then edit it using the developed application. Participants were then asked pre-test, previous experiment,
current experimented to rate their experiences in both sessions. As of 19 June 2013, nine university students had
participated in the assessments of the application, which took place during June 2013. Both structured andunstructured questionnaires were used to collect the data.

Application

Figure 2: The Application

As stated above, we aimed to improve the application based on the results of the previous experiment. In
the second stage application, we sought a different approach for novice writers to attain the foundation of Japanese
academic skills. Figure 3 shows the menu for the application.
The learning part enables students tolearn the workflow of writing academic papers. It
begins with the necessary basic knowledge, suchas the difference between writing impressions or
thoughts as opposed to academic papers orreports, the definition and elements of aparagraph, paragraph writing, and therelationship between paragraphs and the essay
structure. Students can learn the foundations of
all they need to know.
Then, using the practice part, students
can actually practice writing paragraphs,
following the instructions for an argumentative
essay. Students plan the workflow first toaccomplish what they are going to do step bystep. Then, starting from the Outline Page
(Figure 4), they create the thesis statement, topic
sentences for each paragraph, and the title. The
left textbox is for the explanation of what the
Figure 4: Outline Page
writer should know in order to create topic
sentences and the thesis statement. The page wasdesigned so that, once writers read it, they will beable to comprehend what to write and how to write
the outline in the right textbox. They can write,
edit and save the thesis statement and topic
sentences just using the Outline Page. Once they
complete the thesis statement and topic sentences
for all the body paragraphs, they can start writing aparagraph.
All the Practice Pages have their own
textboxes to fill out with a display for the topic
sentence or the thesis statement for the paragraph(Figure 5).	
  Either the topic sentence or the thesis
statement from the Outline Page will automaticallyshows up when a student opens the Practice Page.
If they have omitted anything at this stage, they
will have to go back to the Outline Page to create
it. There is an explanation about what they should
write in the paragraph, depending on the rhetoricalfunction on the left. Students can write, edit, read
Figure 5: Practice Pageand save the files for both the Paragraph andOutline Pages.
In addition, the application can display the entire document and outline as pop-up windows. Users can use these
displays at anytime, whenever they need to refer to them. From the Entire Essay Page, if necessary, they can also
post the document as an entry on a blog set up previously.
Assessment procedure
The experiment consisted of two sessions. The first was to assess participants’ writing skills andknowledge at the start of the experiment, and to prepare them for the second session. Participants were asked to readsome passages on which to base a five- paragraph argumentative essay. This was followed up by interviews with thestudents to assess their experience, using both structured and unstructured questionnaires. The second session was
to assess the usability, operability, and intelligibility of the application. Participants were asked to edit their writingfrom the first session using the application. Again, both of structured and unstructured questionnaires wereadministered after the second session, to assess students’ reactions.
Results
In comparison withthe results of the previous
experiment, it seems thatparticipants understand the
purpose of the writing process
better with the second stage
application; they could create
topic sentences and thesis
statements as an outline for
Table 1 Comparison: Understanding the Writing Process
the entire essay and write
each paragraph based on theoutline (Table 1) as well as
the essay structure (Table 2).
The interview
sessions also showed thatsome participants found it
was fun to learn academic
writing skills using acomputer application. Someparticipants were previously
Table 2 Comparison: Undeanding the Essay Structure
experiencing difficulties
writing reports at school.
While there are no classes offered to teach them academic Japanese writing, they are nevertheless required to submit
written reports. When they become aware of their lack of academic writing skills, this leads to another problem:
there is nowhere they can get help or learn the basics of writing. As a result, some participants wanted to use theapplication we developed immediately to help them write reports or, at least, to learn the fundamentals of writing;they wanted to put the Practice Page into use immediately to help them adapt their writing style to writing paragraphs.
It is clear that there are students who try to write reports based on the four parts of Chinese poetry, since they do notknow any other way to write. Using the four parts of Chinese poetry confuses them since there is a “turn” in thisChinese method of writing. Including this “turn” makes it difficult to keep the report consistent.
Some participants asked if they could have the application as soon as we completed its development
because, they think it would significantly help their writing. They felt that using the application definitely enabled
them to develop a clear essay structure, as well as helping them plan an initial outline for their writing project.
Though it takes time to learn the fundamental writing skills and adjust their writing style, once they had
accomplished this, they found it much easier to write that way compared with their previous attempts. Additionally,
being able to see the topic sentence for the paragraph they are working on keeps them focused on what they are
writing about, and is advantageous since, without this aid, it is difficult for them to keep their writing coherent.
Some participants said that previously they had had no clear idea of what they wanted to say in their reports. The
following two charts summarize the improvement in understanding which students experienced using the second
stage adapted application. Eight of the nine students, double the number in the first experiment, reported that they
understood the writing process well using the new application, while seven out of nine said they understood the essay
structure well. Thus the new application seems particularly helpful to students in understanding the writing process.
The high number of students who said they understood the writing process well in the second experiment suggests
the new application is significantly more helpful and easier to use than the first stage application.

Conclusion
The results of the latest experiment suggest that simplifying the contents of the application has made iteasier for novice writers to understand the writing process and improve their writing skills. Since the main purpose ofthis application is for novice writers to understand the fundamentals of academic writing and acquire better academic
writing skills, we regard the changes to the application as successful. We expect an even wider applicability of theapplication with future improvements. However, further experiments and data analysis will be necessary to ascertain
this.

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