CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Writing
1. Definition of Writing
Writing is one of language skills besides listening, speaking, and reading. There are many definitions of writing according to many experts.
Writing is the mental work of inventing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraphs that willclear to reader (Nunan, 2004: 88).\
Another definition of writing is stated by Tarigan (1994: 3). It is explained that writing is one language skill, which is used to communicate indirectly. Writing is the ability to put pen and paper to express ideas through symbols. Representations on the paper will have meaning and content that could be communicated to other people by the writer (Klein in Tan, 2009).
From the definition, it can be concluded that writing is the way or the
process to express or to represent writers‟ ideas as indirectly
communication. 2. Procedure of Writing
There are some steps to make good writing. Based on Harmer (2004: 4-5), the process of writing has four main elements. Those are:
a. Planning
1) Considering the purpose of their writing since this will influence (amongst other thing) not only the type of text they wish to produce, but also the language they use, and the information they choose to include.
2) Thinking about the audience they are writing for, since this will influence not only the shape of writing (how it is laid out, how the paragraph structured, etc), but also the choice of language, for example it is formal or informal.
3) Considering the content structure of the writing that is, how best the sequence the facts, idea, or arguments which they have decided to include.
b. Drafting
It is the first version of a piece of writing as a draft. As the writing process proceeds into editing, a number of drafts may be produced on the way to the final version.
c. Editing (Reflecting and Revising)
Once writers have produced a draft they then, usually, read through what they have written to see where it works and where it does not. Perhaps the information is not clear. Perhaps the way something is written is ambiguous or confusing.
d. Final Revision
Once writers have edited their draft, making the changes the consider to be necessary, they produce their final version.
This may look considerably different from both the original plan and the first draft, because things have changed in editing process. But the writer is not ready to send the written text to intended audience.
The writer assumes that there are four procedures in writing, those are planning, drafting, editing, and final revision.
3. Purpose of Writing
There are some reasons for people to write. Writing is used by educated people to record, ensure report and persuade and those purposes can be reached by people who can organize well their thought and express it clearly, this clearence depends on the thought, organization, diction, and sentence used Morsey ( in Tarigan, 1994: 4). Everyday writing activity has purpose. Hugo ( in Tarigan, 1994: 24) assumed that the purpose of writing as follows:
a. Assignment Purpose
b. Altruistic Purpose
Here, the writer writes to entertain the reader, to avoid the reader‟s sadness, to help the readers to understand and
comprehend the feelings and their logic, to make their lives much easier by using his writing.
c. Persuasive Purpose
With this purpose, the writer writes to convince the reader about the truth of idea given.
d. Information Purpose
The purpose of this writing is to give information or explanation to the reader.
e. Self-expressive Purpose
The purpose is to introduce the writer to the reader. f. Creative Purpose
This purpose is closely related to the self-expressive purpose. However, it tends to get the artistic values.
g. Problem-solving Purpose
This writing is used to solve problem faced by the writer. The writer wants to explain and observe carefully about his thought and idea to be understood and accepted by the reader.
4. Criteria of Good Writing
The writer surely want to produce good writing, but before it we have to know some criteria of good writing. A good writing shows the ability of the writer to:
a. Express ideas.
b. Arrange ideas in a good sequencial order .
c. Write clearly (unambiguous), using the sentence well, language, and examples. Therefore the meaning is in line to what the writers‟s want, so the writer is easy to understand.
d. Write surely; it can make the reader interested in the main idea of the writing; it can describe the main idea clearly and logically. In this case, the writers have to avoid the use and the repetition of useless phrases. The words used must support the main idea harmoniously which want to be reached.
e. Criticize his draft of writing and then revise it to get the better one. The key of the successfulness in writing is the willingness and the abilities of the writer revising his first draft.
f. Show the pride of his writing: the willingness to use good punctuation, to reread the words meaning in correlation to the grammar used before sending it to the readers. A good writer knows well that those things are important since they may give good contribution to the result.
5. Problem of Writing
There are some problems that influence the process of writing which cause it difficult to understand . Based on Nurgiyantoro (2001: 298-299), those problems are as follows:
a. Lack of Vocabulary
Vocabulary is an important part in writing composition. The writer can not produce a good composition if he do not master the vocabularies well. Most of students face this problem, they end up repeating the same words, this hinder creativity and make the sentence not communicative.
b. Unstructured idea
The problem faced by students in writing composition is about how to organize the idea into sentence. In writing composition, students usually write the composition which is not in a sequencial structure. It happens because students get difficulties in putting or maintaining ideas in order.
c. Incorrect Use of Grammar
When students try to make composition they are always confused whether their sentences are grammatically correct or not. Generally most of beginner students do not master English grammar well. They just start their English so their competence is still weak especially in grammar. It becomes problem when they have to make composition which cosist of sentences.
The result of having problem in writing, it makes some errors in their writing. According to Richard (in Hendiyari 2012: 1586) the existence of errors depends on the result of L1 transference or mother language transference. It means that error comes from the strategies that they use in language acquisition and reciprocal interference of target language items. Therefore, the teacher has to figure out what areas should be focused and what kind of attention is need in foreign language classroom.
The writer assumes that there are some problems of students in writing such as lack of vocabulary, grammatical accuracy, and organizing ideas. The result of having problem in writing makes developing error in their writing. Mother language transference included in source of development errors.
6. Evaluation of Students‟ Writing
There are some aspects to evalute students‟ writing. Based on
Nurgiyantoro (2010: 441), some aspects to evaluate students‟ writing
a. Content
Content refers to the topic and its explanation, discussion, evaluation, and conclusion. It should be clear, specific, and relevant.
b. Organization
Organization means how paragraphs are arranged to make a good text.
c. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the most important elements in writing. The writers should choose appropriate words and arrange the words into sentence.
d. Language Use
The good language depends on the grammar. It means that a good writing is a group sentences with correct grammar in every sentence. It does not need a long sentence in writing, but what the writers need is an effective sentence with correct grammar.
e. Mechanic
Mechanic refers to the role how the students write. The writers have to make sure that all pargraphs are well developed. All the words are spelled correctly and also the use of correct punctuations in their writing.
B. Grammar
1. The Definition of Grammar
Grammar is sometimes defined as the way words are put together to make correct sentences. Harmer (2004: 12) defines grammar as the description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that language. Nunan (2004: 214) also states that grammar is the study of how form, meaning, and use work together to create well-formed sentences. Burns (2009: 10) adds that grammar is essentially about the system and patterns in selecting and combining words.
Grammar is the rule of language which should be thought by the students, the sentence clearly give information to the reader. Learning grammar means the study how words are constructed in sentence well, when the pattern of grammar is used appropriately, and how the sentence will be interprets correctly.
The writer assumes that it is not only the way that contains a set of rules to make good sentence but also it tell about the system and pattern in selecting and combining words. It also tells about the construction of sentence.
2. Error Classification of Grammatical Problems
grammatical rules when they have to write their ideas. Error is regarded as the problem. There are some classificaton of garmmatical rules, that the students still make errors in their writing are sentence pattern, tense, pronoun, and preposition (Emaryana, 2010: 19-23).
a. Sentence Pattern
Sentence pattern is the problem of making sntences where the writers have to arrange sentence correctly.
The correct English sentence contains of a subject (S) and a verb (V). Subject is the word that tells who or what performed the action of the verb (Nancy: 2004). The verb may or may not be followed by an object (o). This means that the subject comes before verb which comes before object.
Examples:
1) The baby cried
(S) (V)
2) I played a volley ball
(S) (V) (O)
Verb is a word used to describe an action, state, or occurence, and forming the main partof the predicate of a sentence. Verbs that are not followed by an object are called “intransitive verbs”.
followed by an object called “transitive verbs”. Common transitive verbs, as follow: build, cut, find, like, make, need, send, use, want (Azar, 2010: 71).
b. Tense
Tense is one of the problem that the students faced when they make text. The student still confused when they choose a tense that appropriate. Tense identifies when an event happens or describes. The students feel confuse when using tenses. Recount text is the text that is used in this research. It uses simple past tense to indicate an activity or situation began an ended at a particular time in the past. The problems are seen for example, when the student still uses V1 in recount text. It is not appropriate when they want to make recount text because V1 usually used for simple present tense. If we make recount text, we must use past tense by using V2.
c. Pronoun
Pronoun is one of problem that the students face when they want to
represent of noun or phrases, for example “I will go to you house” it is
not clear, the right phrases is “I will go to your house”.
Personal pronouns are sub-divided acoording to person, which classifies the relationship of the speaker. Personal pronouns are words such as: 1) The speaker, called first person pronouns.
a) Singular : I (spelled with a capital letter)
b) Plural : we (includes the speaker and one or more others) 2) The person spoken to, called second person pronoun – you. 3) The person or thing being spoken of, called third person pronoun.
a) Singular : he (male) / she (female) b) Plural : they (for all thing)
(Frank, 1972: 21) d. Preposition
Preposition is one of the problem that the student faced when they want to connect noun or noun phrase because different language use different preposition to express the same ideas for example: “I went to
school with motorcycle; the right phrase is “I went to school by motorcycle”. Preposition is always followed by nouns (or pronouns).
1) Place, position: across, after, against, among, around, at, before, behind, below, between, by, in, in front of, near, on, on top of, opposite, outside, over, to, under, underneath.
2) Direction: across, at, by way of, down, into, out of, to, through,
toward, up, upon.
3) Time: about, after, around, at before, by, during, from...to, from...until, in.
4) Purpose, reason: for 5) Possesion: of
6) Manner, instrument: by, in, like, with. 7) Identification: at, by, in, on, with. 8) Distance: for
9) Agent: by 10) Material: with 11) Quantity: by
(Burks, et al. 1980: 289-291)
C. Recount Text
1. Definition of Recount Text
experiences, etc. Text means main written or page contrasted with notes, diagrams, illustration (Ratmoko, 2006: 1).
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that recount text means a text which retells what happened and when happened in the
past such as, one‟s adventures, experiences, etc.
2. The Generic structure of Recount Text
The generic structures consist of three parts. There are as follows: a. Orientation
Orientation provides the background information needed to understand the text such as what, who, when, where, and why.
b. Events
Events present series of things that happened and described in chronological order. The events happen in the past.
c. Re-orientation
Re-orientation consists of comment or personal attitude on the activity.
(Effendi et al, 2008: 24)
3. Language Features of Recount Text
Hartono(2005: 8) states that language features used in recount text are:
a. Focus on individual participant / a group participant
or third person. First person, is happening to the writer (ex: I). Third person, an observer is telling it (ex: Vera).
b. Using Simple Past Tense
Simple past tense is the form a verb used to describe action in the past. It indicates that the activity or situation began and ended at a particular time in the past. The patterns of simple past tense are:
1) Positive
- Subject + to be (was, were) + .... Example: I was happy
- Subject + Verb 2
Example: She went to Bali 2) Negative
- Subject + to be (was, were) not + .... Example: They were not happy last night
- Subject + did not + Verb 1 + ....
Example: They did not watch TV last night 3) Interrogative
- To be (was, were) + Subject + ....? Example: Were you happy last night?
- Did + Subject + Verb 1 + ....?
c. Using Action Process
Action process is process of doing. It uses action verb. In recount text, it is modified into V2. For examples: went, saw, played, etc.
d. Using Linking Verb
Linking verb do not express action. Linking verbs connect the subject of the verb to add information about subject. In recount text, linking verb should use past form. For example: was, were.
e. Focus on Temporal Sequences of Events
