ERROR ANALYSIS IN WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY.

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ERROR

ANALYSIS

IN

WRITIN<;

ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

A THESIS

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RUSDI NOOR ROSA

Reg. No. :025010065

Su6mittec{ to tfie qrad.Ua.te tFrogram ojr£ng[isli;4ppfiedi:.in&uistlcs In (Parti.a[•Fu(jillment for tlie Vegree of:Magister.'J{umlllriom

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MIUK

PERPUST

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UNIMEO

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS

GRADUATE PROGRAM

THE S:CATE 'UNIVERSIY O F MEDA

ME DAN

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Consultant I

A Tbesis

Error Analysis in Writing Argumentative Essay

Arraaged by:

Rusdi Noor Ros_a 025010065

English Applied Linguistic

Graduate Program of State University ofMedao

lias been defended before thesis Examination committee, on July 27tb 2005 And d~lan~d to have fulrllled the requirement

Approved by

Consultant Commission

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Prof Am

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Saragih, Ph.D. _{4~cifSihombing,}

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Director of Graduate rogram c.q. F irst Director Assistant Head of ·E nglish Applied

Linguistic P;ogram

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Name : Rusdi Noor Rosa Approved on :.July 27th 2005

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Prof. Amrio Sarar,ih, Ph.D.

Dr. l..ince Sihombiog, M.Pd.

Pror. D. P. Tampubolon,

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---Prof. Dr. Jawasi Naibaho

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Ora. Mcisuri, M.A.

Approved by

First Director Assistant of

Grad uate Program of State University of Medan

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..._ - Pr.of. Amrin Saragih. Pb.D.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Praise is to the Almighty God for his blessing giving the writer favour to finish

writing this thesis. This thesis is intended to be a partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master of Humaniora of lhe English App11ed

Linguistic Department, State University ofMedan.

First of nil, the writer would like to express his deepest gratitude and appreciation to Prof. Amrin Saragih, Ph.D., his tlrst consultant,. fo r the valuable time

spent in giving him fruitful ideas, criticisms and corrections for the draft o f the thesis.

Then, his appreciation goes to Dr. l ,ince Sihombing, M.Pd., his secQnd

consultan t, for procedures of writing; comments, and suggestions given in the process

of completion.

Hr.: W(llllrl Rl(.o like to express his gratitude to the Head, Secretary, and

scan·

of

the English Applied Linguistics Department of State University of Medan for the

administrative procedures and to all lecturers and tutors for giving him invaluable

lectures,

tutorials, and

knowledge

during the academic years.

This presence of this thesis is also due to the valuable inputs given by his

review ers ~ P rof D.P. Tampubolon, Ph.D., Prof. Dr. Jawasi Naibaho, and Dr. berlin

Sibarani, ~ . Pd . Therefore, he would like to thank them very much.

His deepest gratitude and love are to his beloved wife, lsvanclly Anwar, S.S.;

father, Said Astachri Koto; mother, Rosmawati Lubis; father-in-law, H. Anwar

Yahya; mother-in-law, Hj. Fedry Yetty Gafhur; sister, Widia N urfa...Rosari, S.H ,

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M.Hum., brothers, M. Khairul Amri, S.T. and Ahmad Brata Rosa for the care,

support, and prayers that have been given lo him.

May God bless us.

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Medan , The writer, July 2005

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ABSTRACT

Rusdi Noor Rosa. E rror Analysis in Writing Argumentative Essay. Thesis : Engli sh Applied Linguistics Graduate Program. UNIMED. 2005.

The main

purpose

of this study is to find the most dominant type of errors made by

the second year students of English Department of Padang State University in writing argumentative essay. Besides, the writer also gives correction to those errors and

hopes

that the students can prevent committing errors when they write an argumentative essay in the future.

This

research

was conducted to 34~second year students of 'English Department of Padang State University. The writer chose them as subjects of the re~arch because they have already taken writing subject concerning with writing argumentative essay

in the previous semester.

This error analysis uses theory proposed by John Langan in his book entitled "College Writing Skills with Readings" which was published ! 997. This analysis refers to the four bases in writing essay; they are unity, support, coherence. and

sentence skill.

The results show that the most dominant type of errors committed by the students in

writing argumentative essay is related to the sentence skill or grammatical structure. 264 errors or 92% of287 errors are about grammatical structure. Errors in coherence come in the second place~ it~ amount is 14 errors or about 5. Next is errors which are

related to supporting ideas with 5 errors or about 1. 7 %. Error in unity is the least dominant type of errors found in the argumentative e•;say made by the second year

stu<funt:;

vf !:ugli:;!-.

Department

ofPadang State University. Only 4 errors or 1.3 %of

287

errors are

found.

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[image:7.597.47.548.144.684.2]

2.3.2 Support ... ... ...

14

2.3.3 Coherence ... ... 14

2.3.3.1 Common Methods of Organization ... .. .. ... .... ... 15

2.3.3.2 Transitions ... ... : .. ... ... ... .. . .. 15

2.3.3.3 Other Connecting Words ... ... .... 16

2.3.4

Sentence

Skill ... ... ... ... ... .... 17

2. ~ .4 .1 Writing Fragments than Complete Sentence ... t7 2.3.4.2 Writing Run-ons ... ... ... 18

2.3.4.3 The Use oflncorrcct Verb .... ... 18

2.3.4.4 Subject and Verb are not in Agreement . .. .... .. . .... ... 19

2.3.4.5 Faulty Parallelism .. ... ... ... , ... 20

2.3.4.6 Faulty Modifie rs ... .. .. ... ... ... .. ... ... 20

2.3.4. 7 The Use of Incorrect Form of Pronoun ... ... 2 1 2.3.4.8 Using Capital·Letters Incorrectly ... ... ---~-- 21

2.3.4.9 Using Puncruation Incorrectly ... ... 22

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2.3.4. 11 C hoosing Words Incorrectly ... 24

2.3.4 .12 Spell ing Errors ... ... 24

CJ IAPTER lJI : METJ IOD OF RESEARCll CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 30

4.1 Findings ... 30

4.2 Discussion ... ... ... ... 34

4.2 I Correction ofthc Errors ... ... ... ... ... 34

4.2.2 Causes ofthe En·ors ... 92

4.2.3 The Weakness ofthe Smdy ... ... .. ... ... 93

C HAPTER V : CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 94

5. 1 Conclusions .. .. ... .. ... ... ... ... .. .. .. ... .. ... . : .. ... 94

5. 2 Suggestions ... ... ... ... ... .. ... .... 95

REFERENCE ... ... 97

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List Page

2. l Fuur Steps in Evaluating Essay

2.3 Transilion Signals ... 16

2.4 Examples of Parallelism ... ... 1 . . . 20

2. 5 Forms of Pronoun ... 21

4.1 Dislribu!ion ofTopics ... ... 30

4.2 Distribution of Errors ... 3-1 4.3 Errors in Unity ... ... ... 32

4 .4 En·ors in Coherence ... .. ... .... .. ... ... ... ... 32

4. 5 Frrors in .Sentence Ski I! ... 33

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LIST OF FIGURE

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

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1.1 Background of the Study

UNIIVIEL

Language is a system of arbitrary and conventional syn1bols which permits all

people in a given culture or other people who have learned it to communicate or to

interact. As the common system of communication, language is used as a means of

understanding and expressing thought and feeling in a comm unity. Clark and Clark

( 1977:3) state that language stands at the center of human affairs.

In international communication, English language is the most dominantly used.

In o rder to be able to communicate in English language, undoubtedly, a person must

master four basic skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Rcadjng and

writing used written expression, while speaking and listening are conducted through

oral expression.

It is not surprising that the students normally assume writing to bt: a solitary,

individual act. Most of them feel that when they set out to put pen to paper, they work

best alone. However, the solitude they

may

require for this one limited aspect of writing-putting pen to paper-has led them to misunderstand the process of writing

as a whole.

Historically, writing allowed people to isolate themselves, for convenience or

any other reason. Writing is an ancient technological advance that lets people

converst: wi th one another even tho ugh they arc separated. Before writing was

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converse. Writing kts conversation go on in spite of the fact that people taking part in

it were thousands of miles away. Writing even lets people converse with the dead in a

limited hut valuable way.

Writing has the ctrect, therefore, of expanding enormously the geob'Taphical

size of the commun1t1es that we can belong to and the number of members those

communities can contain. Wr1ting frees us from having to converse only with our

immediate neighbours, people in the room with us or just down the street. Through

writing we can take part in a conversation going on among human beings throughout

the world, a conversation that has gone on for thousands of years and that will

continue to go on, with any luck at all, for thousand more.

One of the forms of writing is essay.

Essay

1s a kind of scientific writing. ManY.

of the written tests will he in the form of essay. Furthermore, the basic structure of an

essay will help in career-related writing, from a job application letter to the memos

and reports. ft provides valuable purposes. It will make the student who writes an essay a hetter reader; it will make him/her a better thinker; and

it

will give hirnlner

practice

in

the process of clear and logical reasoning. As Langan (1997:10)

saW..

"You will become more aware of other writer's ideas and the evidence they provide (or fail to provide) to support those ideas. Writing an essay forces you

to sort out and organize your ideas and think them through clearly:. iY o u will learn to identify just what your ideas are and what support exi:;ts to back them up. Your abitrty to recognize ideas and to measure their validity will help you

make sound decisions not just in school and your career hut in all phases of

your everyday life."

Based Oil the dcscription.Jibtwe, it can be concluded that essay writing is a skill

that every student especially university student m ust master. Writing essay is also a

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followed. Meyers (1992:8) points out that the composing process is the method by

which a writer discovers and expresses new ideac;. Therefore, in a process, there must be some errors or mistakes completed by the students. These errors may be in the

form of composition skill and grammar skilf.

Gorrell and Laird {1967) says that writing grows from expression and is

intended to communicate; good writing

says

something; i4ii.d dc; : ~ ! c p 3 f10m clear

thinking. Writing also improves more readily through Wlderstanding than through

co rrection. Somt corrt:ction is essential, but many so-called errors diminish when the

student learns to construct a sentence or a paragraph. Based on this statement, it is

essential to do some correction on the students' errors in writing an essay. How to

write essay is taught only tor university students because through learning to write

essay, they can prepare themselves to write more scientific writing, which is ca1led a

theses. That's why to correct their errors in writing essays gives invah.iitile

conn·ibution to them, especially in guiding him to write a theses.

In evaluating essay, some teachers tend to focus on the use of grammar in the

essay. This happens because most of theories in evaluating essay put much attention

on the grammar skill. Actually, if the purpose of the evaluation is the students' ability

in grammar, the essay is not the best instrument; instead, the written test win be much

better. It is due to the fact that an essay is the combination of words and words which

arc tied up togetller under one general idea. The problem of developing and

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composition skill and grammatical skill. That's why the writer is interested in using

Langan's model as the main theory of his research.

J .2 Problems of the Study

In the relation to the background that has been mentioned previously, the

problems are formulated as

follows:

I. What type of errors do the second year students of English Department of

Padang State University make in writing argumentative essay?

2. What is the most dominant type of errors that the second year students of

English Department of Padang State University

mttke

m writing argumentative essay?

J. What are the causes of the errors?

1.3 O bjective of the Study

The objective of this study is to obtain the answer to the questions mentioned in

the research problem. Therefore, this study is aimed at finding out the most dominant

type of errors made by the second year students of State University of Padang in

writin~argumentative essay. furthermore, this study is also aimed at finding out the causes of thos~ errors

1.4 The Scope of tbe Study

This study will be focused..on analyzing the errors made by the second-year

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Among four types of essays proposed by Langan, J ( 1997), namely narrative,

descriptivl!, expository, and argumentative essay, the writer will focus his analysis on

an argumentative essay.

1.5 Significance of the Study

It is expected that the findings of this research can give contribution and

considerations to the students who learn writing art,'Uffientative essays as well as the

lecturers. of writing subject to know and recognize the errors that appear in t he

students ' argumentative essays. The result of this study is also expected to be useful

for them as the basis to reduce making errors in the argumentative essay.

Furthermore, it is expected that the findings of this study can also be used for the

lecturer to tind out the teaching strateb'Y to reduce errors in writing.

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CHAPTERV

CONCLUSIONS AND SUC£-F:STIONS

5.1 Conclusions

There are four types of essay; namely descriptive, narrative, expository, and

argumentative essay. The first three types of essays are primarily to explain or

analyze. Argumentative essay, on the other hand. has a different purpose: to convince

or to persuade. In argumentative essay, as Langan, J (1997: 12 1} said, "a writer

attempts to support a controversial point or defend a position on which there is a

difference of opinion''. It is easy to persuade someone orally because they can see our

facial expression as well as hear our intonation. However, written argumentation. is

difficult since the reader docs not meet the writer. Therefore, strongly specific and

adequate reasons are needed.

Having analyzed the argumentative essays written by the second year students

of English Department ofPadang State University, the writer comes to the conclusion

that the students' argumentative essays are tairly good. There are many errors ma d ~

by the students in writing argumentati ve essay; hOy.'Cvt:r, most of the errors are

related to sentence skill or grammatical structure. They have already been able to

organize their ideas thoroughly by giving logical reasons. It can be seen rfrom the

result of their argumentative essay as discussed in previous chapter. The writer has

foWld 287 errors wbicb are divided into four categories: 264 (92 %) errors belong to

semence skill or grammatical structure, 4 ( 1.3 %) errors belong to unity, 5 ( 1.7 %)

errors belong to support. and

14

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%terrors belong

to Coherence.

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From the statistic above, it can also be concluded 1.1.-...i. Ulaiu ,..~.mbkm of the students in writing a composition is grammatical structure. Although the structure is

not the most important part in compositjon, a number of errors in grammar will

reduce the reader's interest. As Langan, J ( 1997:86) said " A paper that contains a

number of errors

in grammar, mechanics, punctuation, or usage wiJJ not make a favorable impression on a reader" . The errors arc caused by some factors such as: the

students' limited knowledge of grammar, lack of practice of gram matical exercise,

and little l:,'tfammatical exercise given by lhe lecturer.

Among ~64 grammatical errors committed by the students, the most dominant error is related to the subject·verb agreement and the least dominant one is related

with faulty parallelism. Errors in support are much related to the lack of specific and

adequate details used in argumentative essay. Errors in unity are divided into two

types of formulating lheses statement. Three errors go to writing announcement rather

than statement and one error is related the scope of the theses statement.

5.2 S uggestions

Through the error analysis on the argwncntative essay made by the second year

students of English Department of Padang State University. there are some

suggestions to be considered. They are as follows:

I. Langan's model is the best model to be applied in evaluating essay because it

covers both composition skill {unity, support. coherence) and grammatical skill.

Therefo re, it is suggested that teachers or lecturers should usc this model in essay

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2. It is also suggested that the students should know Langan's model in evaluating

essay in order that they are able to do some correction for their works by

themselves.

3. It is also suggested that the university students shouid practise their Jrnowledge of

grammar more often by doing many grammatical exercises.

4. It is also suggested that the lecturers should give many grammatical exercises

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REFERENCE

Baker, R.G. and PhiJlips, B.R .. 1979. The Sampler; Patterns for Composition. Toronto: D.C. Heath and Company.

Brutlcc, K.A. , 1985. A Short Course in Writing. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company.

Gay, J..R., 1987. Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application. Ohio: Merril Publishing Co.

Gorrell and Laird, 1967. Modem English Hand Book. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Jacobus.

L.A.,

1998. Substance, Style. and Strategy. New York: Oxford University

Press.

Langa n, J. 1997. College Writing Skills with Readings. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Tnc.

Meyers, L. Bensel. 1992. Rhetoric for Academic Reasoning. New York: Harper Collins Publishers Co.

Popham, W.J., 1967. Educational Statistic. New York: Harper and Row Publisher.

Raime.s, Ann. 1987. Exploring Through Writing: A

Process

Approach to ESL

Composition. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc.

Reid, M.J., 1988. The Process of Composition. New Jersey: Prentice·Hali, Inc. A Simon & Schuster Company.

Sellinger, Herher, Shoharny, 1984. Second Langayge Methods. Oxford: Oxford

U niv~rs ity Press.

Smalley, L.R. and Ructlen, M.K., 1986. Refining Composition Skills: Rhetoric and Grammar tor ESL Students. New York: Macmillan Publishing Cou1pany.

Weir, Cyri1 J. 1990. Comm4n1catiqg Language ~ est ing. New York: Prenticc ~Halllnc.