1
AN ANALYSIS ON THE COMPONENTS OF COMPLAINT LETTER WRITTEN BY THIRD GRADE STUDENTS OF
SMK NASIONAL PADANG
Silvia Anasti*)
English Department, STKIP PGRI West SUMBAR, Jl Gajah Mada Gunung Pangilun Padang silviaanasti@gmail.com
Syayid Sandi Sukandi,S.S.,MA**) syayid@gmail.com
Rika Afriyanti, M.Pd**) rikaafriyanti21@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Penelitian ini adalah tentang surat komplen yang di pelajari oleh siswa jurusan sekretaris pada tahun tiga SMK Nasional Padang. Siswa di wajibkan mampu membuat sebuah surat bisnis dengan baik. Pada penulisan surat bisnis komponen surat menjadi hal yang harus di pahami oleh siswa, komponen tersebut ialah heading, opening, body dan closing. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk melihat bagaiman siswa sekretaris di tahun ketiga SMK Nasional Padang dalam menulis komponen surat komplen. Sumber data penelitian ini adalah dokumen, yaitu hasil latihan siswa yang di dapatkan dari guru mata pelajaran yang mengajar tentang surat bisnis. Data yang di gunakan di dapatkan dari semua partisipan yang berjumlah 22 orang. Jenis penelitian ini adalah deskriptif kuantitatif. Peneliti menganalisa surat dengan menggunakan documentation cheklist sebagai alat mengukur kemampuan siswa di yang telah di rangkum berdarkan berbagai teori beberapa ahli. Surat tersebut di analisa berdasarkan bagian-bagian dari surat yang terdiri dari;
heading terbagi 3 yaitu: name of company, address of company dan phone,email and fax. Opening terbagi atas 4 yait: inside address, date line, attention line dan salutation. Body terbagi 4 yaitu:
subject line, introductory paragraph, message of paragraph dan concluding paragraph. Closing terdiri 3 yaitu: complimentary close, signature dan enclosure. Setelah mendapatkan hasil analisa maka persentase untuk tiap komponen yang di presentasikan dengan rumus yang di kembangkan oleh elifson. Dari analisa perolehan hasil bahwa terdapat bebarapa masalah di setiap komponen.
Heading (31,8%), opening (55.9%), sedang kan pada body (25%), dan pada closing (33,4%).
Berdasarkan data di atas yang paling banyak melakukan kesalahan pada opening.
This research about complaint letter that learn by third grade students secrretary major at third grade SMK Nasional Padang. The students should be able how to write good business letter.
on writing the business letter components of letter is something that students understanable, there are components heading, opening, body and closing. The purpose this research to know how the third grade students of SMK Nasional Padang on writing complaint lettter. The source of data is document students task that gotten from english teacher who teach business letter. The used of data from all of participan that the amout of participants is 22 students. This research is descriptive quantitative. The analyze of letter the researcher used the documentation checklist as tool to know the students ability that conclude based on several expert. To analyze the letter based on part of components of complaint letter that include; heading has 3 part there are: name of company, address of company and phone,email and fax. Opening has 4 part there are: inside address, date line, attention line dan salutation. Body has 4 part there are: subject line, introductory paragraph, message of paragraph and concluding paragraph. Closing has 3 part there are: complimentary close, signature dan enclosure. After the researcher got the result of analysis the researcher percentage for each components that percentage by formulation that develop by elifson. The result of analyze there is a problem in every component. Heading (31,8%), opening (55.9%), on writing body (25%), and closing (33,4%). Based on the data above the most students do the mistake on opening.
Key words: *) Researcher, **) Advisor ,
2 INTRODUCTION
In learning English writing has a some part. They are writing essay, story and also letters. Especially at vocational school, the students learn how to write business letters.
Business letters is different form the common letters. The form of common letter only informal communication by person to other.
Then, business letter deals with business or commercial activity. For example; complain letter, ordering letter, bad news letter, invitation letter, aplication letter and offering letter. Therefore, the writer should know how to write an effective business letters based on the purpose of the letter.
Therefore, the factors that make students think that Writing business letters is difficult to learn because the components of the business letters has many sections it is included; First, heading of the complaint letter which has some part there are must be complete. They are named company, address, phone number email and company logo.
Second the opening of the letter is important.
Component on writing complaint letter, there are inside address, date line, attention line and salutation. The opening must complete in order to make the opening is clear in addresing the receive for the complaint letter.
Third, the body of the complaint letter is the main point of the letter. There are subject line, introductory paragraph, body of paragraph and the concluding paragraph. The body of complaint letter must be organized for the writer. Last, closing of complaint letter is important to make the letter more proffesional. There are included complimentary close, signature and the enclosure. Because of those factors, many students often do th find difficulities when they are writing complaint letter.
These problem could affect because the students did not know the component part of complaint letter and they can not arrange the components of the letters. Then, the teacher only give example without explains more about the components of complaint letter. As the result, the letter will be uncomplete and the letter was not proffecional. Because of those reasons, it is necessary to be held the remedial lesson on writing business letter for the third grade students of SMK Nasional Padang. Throught the remedial lesson on writing business letter, the students are expected to use the all
components of the business letter to be effective so they can wrote the business letter
Moreover, the students at vacational school need to learn how to write business letter because they will come to the work world after graduation. Based on demand of Curriculum at Vacational School the students who learn secretary learning should know how to write the business letters because it is important. The vacational school has given the English special class in learning the Business Letters. So, the students should be able to learn business letters for students who learn secretary. However, the students often find difficulities in writing bussines letter, because it is considered as the most difficult skill to learn. In one occasion, the researcher did pre-survey in SMK Nasional Padang throught the informal interview to the English teacher in SMK Nasional Padang. The researcher has gotten the information from English teacher about the students in writing, especially on writing business letters is not satisfy.
Reffering to the problem above, the researcher formulated the problem of this research as follow “How are the component of complaint letter written by third grade students of SMK Nasional Padang”
Complaint Letter
The business letter has several type, one of them is complaint letter. The complaint letter is the letter that purpose to solve the problem or dissatisfaction.
According to Ricky (2010:5), complaint letters express dissatisfaction about a service or item that the reader provided. Explains what is wrong with the product or service and include enough details so the reader can check the information. It means that the complaint letters to give information about the problem that happen of the customers to supplier. The cause of problem come from bad service, quality, wrong product, incomplete product, delay delivery and the quality of product\
In additional, according to Geffner (2007:67), complaints that calls upon the company to make recitation is called claim.
The company responding the claim will write a letter adjustment. The claim letters are the
3 letter when costumer is satisfied with goods service, a complain letter will inform the company or organization of the problem. It means that complain letter can write when the cutomers do not satisfied about the service of the company or organization.
Moreover, refering with Naterop in stankov (2002:20), denotes the letters of complaint as the way to solve a problem or to deal with difficult situations. It means that the purpose of business letters to solve the problem that happen from the writer to the reader. The problem come from of the various situation include; complain about delay delivery, quality, price, bad packing and wrong good from the customers to the supplier. So the purpose of complaint letters is to solve the problem and the writer conveys their problem by using letter and need the problem to be solved.
Component of complaint letter
Components of complaint letter have some section, it is important to arrange the sentence more profesional on writing the component of complaint letter. The organize of complaint letter can make the letter effective and more professionalism.
According to Sarmiento (2013:36), the components of complaint letters include:
1. Header
Header a complaint letters is written with header incude; name, phone number,address as well as a business physical address if choose to include one.
2. Address/Salutation
Address/Salutation should be addressed to the appropriate person, whether this is a hiring manager, human resources manager, or director of admissions. The salutation should appropriate to the reader.
3. Opening Paragraph
The opening paragraph of the letter should state the purpose for sending the letter. In this case the letter should include the name of requestor and explain what the body of your letter is going to support in detail.
4. Body
The body of this letter writer should select a few key highlights to
point out about the subject and focus on those. The paragraphs in the body of the letter can include personal a stories that writer feel communicate the value of the persons that recommending.
5. Closing Paragraph
The closing paragraph should reiterate recomendation or endorsement of the candidate.
6. Signature
When signing the letter, the writer use typed and handwriten signature. Make sure they match your name as is presented in the header of the letter.
Furthermore, according to Subburaj (2013:5), there are parts of complaint letter include;
1. Heading of letter consist of the house number and name of the street or road, location city and state.
2. The date line, the date line is provided for the date just below the address, as shown under the heading.
3. Inside Address, it refers to the address of the firm for whom the letter is to be dispatch edit right place is in the left hand side, just above the salutation.
4. The Salutation is written in a complaint letter in a way different from that in the ordinary letters. When the salutation is different from the ordinary letters. In private, letter the complimentary term depends upon the degree of intimacy between the writer and the receiver of the letter.
5. Subject and Reference, it will give an indication of the nature or subject matter of the letter and will facilitate further correspondence.
6. Body of The Letter, the body of the letter can normally be divide into three parts.The first part is a striking beginning that can be made by directly referring to the subject matter or purpose of the letter. The writer should give precise and unique vocal terms the idea or the matter under discussion. The conducting paragraph may give a hint to the addressee that you expect a response or a replay or a compliance.
7. The Complimentary close, there will be generally a connection between the nature of the salutation and the complimentary close. These days, the
4 business letter is closed with “Your Faithfully, Yours Sincerely”
8. Signature, the signature of the writer is affixed just below the complimentary close. Just below the signature the name could also typed in case the addresses in unable to decipher the name
9. Enclosure, if there are enclosure like ceruse copies of previous communication certificate etc. They could be listed at the end of the letter, preferably in the same order in which they are pinned or tagged together.
The lastly, the components of complaint letter it is classify according to Asha (2015:
158), the components of complaint letter include:
1. Heading
The heading is very important component of a complaint letter as it contains vital information on the company there are; sender, reference number and the date. The important this information can be gauged from the fact that professional artists are hired specially for the creation of the logo and the formating of the companies name and address.
2. Opening
The opening comparizes the inside address of the recipient, the attention line and the salutation. All of therm are extremly important from the point of view of the reader.
3. Body
While the opening sets the space for the letter, the body of the middle sustains the interest. The body of a complaint letter has two part: subject line and the message.
4. Closing
Normaly, after the complimentary closing put his or her signature with hand writer with the following by identification that is job title and the name of departemen work.
RESEARCH METHOD
In this study, the researcher used descriptive as a research.Airisian (2000:275), descriptive research determines and describe things are. The researcher chose the design because the researcher want to analyze the students’ writing complaint letter at third grade of students SMK Nasional Padang.
Moreover, by conducting descriptive
qualitative in this research, the researcher described deeply the factual information about the students ability on writing complaint letter; heading, opening, body and closing.
To get data in this research, Creswell (2009:182), defines that document is one of qualitative data collection approaches come from participants the researcher chose document as the data which consist of students, writing complaint letter and third grade students who writed complaint letter as the source of the data. The data in this research will be taken from the students of administration officer at third grade SMK Nasional Padang. The researcher only analyze the students who learn about business letter. The total of students who learn secretary are 22 students the researcher was taken all of participant.
In this research the researcher used document checklist as instrument to know how the students ability on writing complaint letter. The form of document checklist based on components of complaint letter by the expert.
In gathering the data, the researcher used analysis of documents technique. Yusuf (2007:252), documents analysis is one of techniques to collect the data or information in research The researcher want to know how the students in writing complaint letters in collecting data. The researcher did several steps to collect the data. First, the researcher collected the document that is needed in the research from teacher who teacher English subject. The document consisted of third grade students exercise of SMK Nasional Padang. Second, after researcher found students’ exercise about complaint letters, the researcher read the students writing complaint letters. To make sure that the data is needed in this research. Third, the researcher collected the data of students’
writing complaint letters that have made by sample of the research. Then, from the students writing the researcher was described the students’ writing complaint letters at third grade of SMK Nasional Padang.
After collecting the data process,. The researcher did analysis toward the data based on the document that was collected by researcher. When the researcher analyze the data the researcher use technique Gay, Mill and Airisian reading/memoing, description,
5 classifyng and interpreting. To find percentage of each data the cresearcher used formula from Neuman. Then, the researcher describe the general and specific description about the data.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
a. Students’ ability on writing complaint letter on writing the components of heading complaint letter.
No Statement Amount of students
P (%) Yes
P (%)No
Yes No 1. Name of
Company
22 - 100% -
2. Address of Company
15 7 86,4% 13,6%
3. Phone, fax and email
12 10 18,2% 81,8%
Total 68 .2% 31.8%
It can be seen that not all students can complete each component. It can be seen on the table above the students’ percentage (100%) students is able completely the name of company, on writing address of company is 19 of 22 students can write with percentage (86.36%) students can complete it. Then, on writing the phone number, fax and email is 4 of 22 students can write it with percentage (18.18%) the students who can complete the phone number, fax and email. In this part,the researcher analyze most of the students at third grade students at SMK Nasional Padang.
b. Students’ ability on writing the component of opening complaint letter
No Statement Amount of students
P (%) Yes
P (%) No
Yes No
1. Inside address
4 18 18.2% 81.8%
2. Date line 11 11 50% 50%
3. Attention line
- 22 - 100%
4. Salutation 13 9 59.1% 40.9%
Total 44.4% 55.6%
Based on the table above, it can be seen the students did not complete on writing opening the complaint letters. In writing inside address only 11 of 22 students with percentage (50%) can write it. Then, 20 of 22 students with percentage (90.90%) students can write the date line. Then, there are no students (0%) students can write attention line. Finally, 8 of 22 students with percentage (36.36%) students can write the appropriate salutation
c. Students’ on writing complaint letter on writing the component of body complaint letter
It can be seen that all the students cannot complete to write the subject line.
Then, in writing introductory paragraph, message of paragraph and concluding paragraph 22 students can write them well with percentage (100%). The students’ only can write the introductory paragraph, message of paragraph and concluding of paragraph.
d. Students’ ability on writing the closing of complaint letter
No Statement Amount of students
P (%) Yes
P (%) No
Yes No
1. Compliment ary close
22 - 100% -
2. Signature 22 - 100% -
3. Enclosure - 22 - 100%
Total 66.6% 33.4%
It can be seen percentage students on writing closing. On writing complimentary
No Statement Amount of students
P (%) Yes
P (%) No Yes No
1. Subject line 0 22 - 100%
2. Introductory paragraph
22 0 100% -
3. Message of paragraph
22 0 100% -
4. Concluding paragraph
22 0 100% -
Total 75% 25%
6 close and enclosure is 22 students with percentage (100%) they can write it well CONCLUSION
Writing complaint letter is kind of business letter form. Complaint letter is the letter that purpose to solve the problem related economic activity. Complaint letter also dissatisfaction about a service or item that the reader provided. Writing complaint letter the writer should understant how to organize each components of the complaint letter. Because the profesionalism how to organize the complaint letter also to be judgment and make the letter more clear and easy to the understood.
Based on explanation above, it can be seen what the students problem on writing complaint letter in making heading, name of company with total percentage (100%). The students can complete bicause students only seen the example from the teacher. In writing address of company with percentage (86.4%) of students complete it. Phone number, email and fax with percentage (18.2%) can complete them. The researcher indicated the percentage the students have problem in completing the address and phone, email, fax.
Therefore, the students need to improve their comphrehence in writing complaint letter and completely the component of each part so that the heading of complaint letter is complete and apropriate.
Then, on writing opening of complaint letter. Inside address with percentage (50%) students can complete it. On writing date line with percentage (90.9%) can complete it. On writing attention line all the students can not write the appropriate attention line with percentage (100%). On writing salutation with percentage (36.4%) can complete it. In this part most of students had weakness on writing opening. Before the students write the complaint letter, the teacher explains how to write complete opening and the appropriate position in opening the letter. Therefore, before the students write the complaint letter they should learn more about the component and how to arrange the posisioned correctly.
The teacher also give correct example to easy understood.
Next, on writing component body of letter consist of some part. On writing subject
line with percentage (100%) can not write the subject line. Introductory paragraph with percentage (100%) complete it. Message of paragraph with percentage (100%) complete and also concluding paragraph with percentage (100%) complete it. Therefore, the students can completely on writing subject line and learning about part of body of the letter.
The last components is closing they are complimentary close with percentage (100%) all of students can complete the complimentary close. Then, on writing inside the signature with percentage (100%) can complete the signature. On writing enclosure with percentage (100%) can not complete making the enclosure. Therefore, in this part the students can complete the complimentary close and signature but they do not complete the enclosure. They also must learn more the components of closing and find another example to understand it.
As stated previously, it describe the writing complaint letter at third grade students of SMK Nasional Padang. Based on the research finding and conclusion in this study, the researcher would like to give the several suggestion:The reearcher suggests to the teacher in teaching complaint letter that give more explanation to the students before asking the students to write the complaint letter. The teacher can introduce the purpose of the letter, after that the teacher teach how to write the complaint letter. Then, the teacher give information and complete example about the component of the letter and also how to arrange each part of component complaint letter. The last, the teacher to held the remedial on writing complaint letter tentang component complaint letter. For the students, they should learn more about complaint letter and find another source how to write the complaint letter to avoid the mistake to arrange part of components of complaint letter. Because the components of compalint letter is the main point to make the letter more profesional.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Alhamdulillah, thanks to Allah for blessing, so that the writer can finish in writing this thesis with the title “An Analysis of Components of Complaint Letter Written by Third Grade Students of SMK Nasional
7 Padang”. This thesis is written to fulfill one of main requirement to get under graduate degree (S1) from English Department of STKIP PGRI West Sumatera.
A number of people have contributed their help in complimenting this thesis. The researcher would like to express her gratitude to her advisor Syayid Syandi Sukandi, SS.MA and Rika Afrianty,M.Pd who has given her best guidance time and throught in completing this thesis. Also her gratitude presented to Mrs. Sri Imelwati, Ph.D, Dr. Martin Kustati, M.Pd, Melati Theresia, S.S, M.Hum as the examiners who have given the correction and clarification for this thesis. The researcher was also gratitude once more to Armilia Riza, M.Pd as the head of English Department. Then, thanks to Mayuasty, M.pd as secretary of English Department. Finally, thanks for all teaching staff of English Department. The Researcher Express specially to lovely her parents, sister and all friends for giving affection support and prays.Finally, the Researcher hopes that thesis is going to be useful for the reader and hopes for critic and suggestion in order to make this thesis become a perfect research.
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