An Analysis of Mechanical Errors in Writing Skill
1Zulfatun Mahmudah*
1*English Education Department, Universitas Serambi Mekkah, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
Email: zulfatun.mahmudah1111@gmail.com
Abstract
Writing skill is one of the important language skills for students. The purpose of this study was to find out the kinds of mechanical errors produced by the 10th grade students at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh. The method used was descriptive quantitative research design. The population comprised 204 students at the 10th grade of SMAN 11 Banda Aceh, while the samples were 30, selected by using cluster random sampling. This study used test as an instrument for data collection. In analyzing the data, the researcher used two steps, namely identifying of mechanical errors and classifying them based on their types. The results showed that the students produced 582 errors in total, which were categorized into three types: errors of punctuation, errors of capitalization, and errors of spelling. In details, the students made 236 errors of punctuation (40, 54%), 312 errors of capitalization (53, 60%), and 34 errors of spelling (5, 84%). The most dominant type of mechanical errors made by students was the errors of capitalization.
Keywords: Error Analysis; Mechanical Errors; Writing Skill
A. Introduction
In general, language skills are divided into four aspects: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. All students are expected to learn all these aspects. Tiwari (2005) states that writing is one of the four language skills besides listening, speaking and reading. Writing can be defined as a process of transforming ideas and opinions into a written language.
However, Spratt et al. (2005) argue that writing is one of the basic skills for language learners. Meanwhile, Troia (2014) says that writing is a way to provide opportunities for students to think about how to change their ideas, meanings, opinions, and confusions in a piece of writing because writing is permanent, interesting, concrete, and requires creative thinking processes to expand students’ knowledge. Additionally, Pranoto (2004) explains that writing means expressing thoughts into a written form, or sending messages to others through writing. In other words, writing allows indirect communication. However, the ideas in writing will not be well- understood if they contain errors. Thus, writers should focus on the mechanics in the correct writing skill, such as punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
One of the problems in writing is the production of mechanical errors. There are some previous studies investigating this topic, such as the study of Puspitasari (2019) showing that all participants made 33 mechanical errors, with the most errors being in the capitalization and spelling categories. The fewest errors were the use of period (10 errors), whereas the most dominant errors were incorrect capitalization. In terms of spellings, the homonyms and word misspelling were the most frequent ones.
A study by Anggraeni (2019) found four types of errors, namely omission (punctuation 33, 91%, capitalization 23, 18%, spelling 7, 78%), addition (punctuation 0, 86%, capitalization 5, 02%, spelling 3, 11%), misinformation (punctuation 1, 04%, spelling 22, 50%), disordering (spelling 2, 60%). The most frequent type of errors was omission of punctuation, which reached 33, 91%. The total of errors produced were 578 errors.
Apriyani (2019) also reported that there were grammatical and mechanical errors generated by the students in writing a descriptive text.
Mechanical errors consisted of punctuation, capitalization, and spellings.
The total numbers of the grammatical and mechanical errors produced
were 353 errors from 23 written descriptive texts. The students made 107 grammatical errors (30, 31%), 89 errors of punctuation (25, 21%), 105 errors of capitalization (29, 75%), and 52 errors of spelling (14, 73%). The most dominant errors were grammatical errors, accounting for 107 errors in total (30, 31%).
The researcher was thus interested to conduct a study on the mechanical errors in writing to enrich the literature review with most current findings and to provide data on this topic, especially at the university level. Therefore, the researcher would like to conduct the study about An Analysis of Mechanical Errors in Writing Skill among the SMAN 11 Students, Banda Aceh.
B. Method
In this study, the researcher used a descriptive quantitative research design. Bungin (2005) says that descriptive quantitative research is used to describe, explain, or summarize various conditions, situations, phenomena, or various research variables according to events as they are which can be photographed, interviewed, observed, and which can be expressed through documentary materials. The descriptive quantitative research used in this study because the researcher wanted to described about the kinds of mechanics error made by the 10th grade students of X IPA 4 at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh.
The population of this study was all students at the 10th grade of SMAN 11 Banda Aceh. The total population were 204 students divided into seven classes and two majors, namely IPA (Natural Science Class) and IPS (Social Science Class). Below are the number of students at the 10th grade of SMAN 11 Banda Aceh:
Table 1. The Number of the 10th Grade Students at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh
No. Classes Male Female Total Number
1. X IPA 1Male 26 - 26
2. X IPA 2Male 27 - 27
3. X IPA 3Female - 28 28
4. X IPA 4Female - 32 32
5. X IPS 1Male 28 - 28
6. X IPS 2Male 28 - 28
7. X IPS 3Female - 35 35
Total 109 95 204
Source: The documents of SMAN 11 Banda Aceh
The samples of this study were 30 students at the 10th grade of X IPA 4 at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh selected through cluster random sampling. The majority of the students were from outside Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar.
Margono (2010) says that cluster random sampling is used if the population is in a group and homogeneous. The process of determining the sample by cluster random sampling was carried out using lottery with the following steps:
1. The writer wrote the names of all classes at the 10th grade in a small piece of paper.
2. The pieces of paper with the names were rolled and put into a box.
3. The box was shaken and the pieces of paper were taken randomly by the students who were going to be included as the samples.
Test was used as the research instrument. It was in an essay form.
The kinds of mechanical errors made by the 10th grade students of X IPA 4 at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh in the essays were then analyzed and identified. The research was conducted on August 16, 2021.
To collect the data, the researcher asked the students to write a paragraph entitled “Talking about Self” with a minimum of 100 words.
Then, the writer gave the students 60 minutes to complete it. The researcher asked the students to write a paragraph on their own without the help of Google Translate. After the students finished their assignments, the researcher asked the students to take a photo of the answer sheet and sent it to the researcher’s WhatsApp. The results from the students’ test were analyzed to generate a finding.
In analyzing the data, the writer did two steps, namely identifying and classifying errors. The following percentage formula by Riduwan (2005) was used:
P x100%
Description:
P: percentage
f: the number of errors in each type N: the total number of errors
The formula above is the analysis technique (percentage) described in the table of percentages.
C. Research Findings
From the analysis, the total number of errors as well as the error types were identified, as follows:
Table 2. The Total of Mechanical Errors Made by the Students No. Types of Mechanical Errors Number of Errors Percentages
1. Punctuation 236 40,54%
2. Capitalization 312 53,60%
3. Spelling 34 5,84%
Total Error 582 100%
Table 2 shows that the most dominant type of mechanical errors produced by the students was the errors of capitalization, accounting for 312 or (53, 60%), followed by the errors of punctuation (236 or 40, 54%) and errors of spelling (34 or 5, 84%).
D. Discussion
Based on the result above, there were three types of mechanical errors generated by the 10th grade students of X IPA 4 at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh, namely punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. The most frequently produced errors were the errors of capitalization, with the total numbers of error were 312 or 53, 60%, followed by the errors of punctuation (236 or 40, 54%) and errors of spelling (34 or 5, 84%).
These findings are different from the findings of Puspitasari (2019) in which the most frequent type of errors made by the students was the errors of capitalization (not capitalizing the first word in beginning paragraph and after period) and error of spellings (in the homonym and misspelled the words) category with the same number from a total of five participants (33 errors). The least frequent type of errors identified was the errors of punctuation (the use of period) with a total of 10 errors.
Next, based on the results of Anggraeni (2019), there were 578 errors found which were categorized into 4 types of errors, namely omission (punctuation 33, 91%, capitalization 23, 18%, spelling 7, 78%), addition (punctuation 0, 86%, capitalization 5, 02%, spelling 3, 11%), misinformation (punctuation 1, 04%, spelling 22, 50%), disordering (spelling 2, 60%). The most frequently occurred type of errors was omission (punctuation), reaching 33 or 91%.
Meanwhile, the study conducted by Apriyani (2019) revealed that the students made 89 errors of punctuation (25, 21%), 105 errors of
capitalization (29, 75%) and 52 errors of spelling (14, 73%). However, the study was different from the current study because it included the grammatical aspect. The most dominant type of errors found in the study was grammatical error with a total number of 107 errors (30, 31%), the total numbers of the grammatical and mechanical errors found were 353 from 23 written descriptive texts.
E. Conclusion
There were three types of errors produced by the students of X IPA 4 at SMAN 11 Banda Aceh in the written texts about themselves, namely errors of capitalization (312 or 53, 60%), errors of punctuation (236 or 40, 54%) and errors of spelling (34 or 5, 84%). However, the current study only focused on the aspects of punctuation, capitalization, and spelling in writing. Further research is thus suggested to include other aspects of writing that are equally significant.
References
Anggraeni, L. (2019). An Error Analysis of the Mechanics in Students’
Paragraph Writing of Recount Text (A Case Study at the Eight Grade of MTSN 2 Surakarta). Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, IAIN Surakarta.
Apriyani, R. E. (2019). An Error Analysis on Grammar and Mechanics in Writing Descriptive Text at the Seventh Grade of SMP Al-Islam Kartasura. Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, The State Islamic Institute of Surakarta.
Bungin, B. (2005). Metodologi penelitian kuantitatif: Komunikasi, ekonomi, dan kebijakan publik serta ilmu-ilmu sosial lainnya [Quantitative research methodology: Communication, economics, public policy and other social sciences]. Kencana Prenada.
Margono. (2010). Metodologi penelitian pendidikan [Educational research methodology]. Rineka Cipta.
Puspitasari, D. (2019). Mechanical Errors in Academic Writing: A Case Study at English Language Education Department of UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya. Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya.
Pranoto. (2004). Creative writing: 72 jurus seni mengarang [Creative writing: 72 techniques for the art of composing]. PT. Primadia Pustaka.
Riduwan. (2005). Belajar mudah penelitian untuk guru, karyawan dan peneliti pemula [Easy research learning for teachers, employees and beginner researchers]. Alfabet.
Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2005). The teaching knowledge test course. Cambridge University Press.
Tiwari, D. (2005). Encyclopedia of modern methods of teaching 7.
Crescent.
Troia, G. (2014). Evidence-based practices for writing instruction.
Recupere du site du Ceedar.
