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AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING IN USING PUNCTUATION IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT (A Study at the
Tenth Grade of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang)
Aldeka Mirela¹,Belindo Analido, M.Pd 2, Dona Alicia, M.Pd 3
*)Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat Aldekamirela21@gmail.com
**)Staf Pengajar Program studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat Tataceria86@gmail.com
***)Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat Aliciadona21@yahoo.co.id
ABSTRACT
The background of this research was difficulties faced by the student in using punctuation. The objective of this research was to know the understanding of students in using punctuation at tenth grade of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang. The design of this research was descriptive. The population of this research was the tenth grade students‟ of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang. The total number of the sample was 30 students.The data were gathered by analysis students‟ writing of descriptive text. The result of analysis showed that the students had understanding in using punctuation in descriptive text especially in using comma and full stop.
It was proved that 14 students had understanding in using punctuation. Based on the result above, the teachers were suggested to give more attention and exercises in using punctuation, and for the students were suggested to use punctuation correctly. The punctuation can give the main meaning and give more language style in their writing.
Penelitian ini dilatar belakangi oleh kesulitan siswa dalam menentukan kegunaan tanda baca dalam menulis teks deskriptif pada siswa kelas X SMA Baiturrahmah Padang. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui kemampuan siswa dalam penggunaan tanda baca dalam menulis teks deskriptif pada siswa kelas X SMA Baiturrahmah Padang. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif dengan pendekatan kualitatif yang bermaksud untuk menganalisis tentang kemampuan siswa dalam menggunakan tanda baca dalam menulis teks deskriptif. Sumber data penelitian ini adalah dokumen, yaitu hasil dari karangan siswa tentang teks deskriptif yang didapatkan dari guru yang mengajar di kelas X SMA Baiturrahmah Padang. Data dikumpulkan dengan cara mengambil seluruh data (total sampling) yaitu peneliti mengambil 30 buah karangan siswa dari jumlah semua karangan siswa yaitu 30 buah karangan, karena di SMA Baiturrahmah Padang kelas X hanya satu lokal. Dari 11 tanda baca yang di bahas oleh para ahli, 2 di antaranya di temukan sebagai tanda baca dalam tulisan siswa kelas X (koma dan titik). Secara keseluruhan, ditemukanan bahwa siswa mempunya pemahaman yang bagus dalam penggunaan tanda baca ini. Ini dibuktikan dengan 14 siswa menggunakan tanda baca yang tepat dalam tulisan mereka. Kesalahan yang terjadi hanya terjadi pada beberapa siswa. Penelitian ini mendeskripsikan pemahaman siswa dalam penggunaan tanda baca, sebagai informasi bagi guru, pembaca dan siswa lainnya untuk memperhatikan penggunaan tanda baca yang baik dan benar dalam menulis sebuah tulisan. Karena keakuratan makna dan keindahan sebuah tulisan juga di pengaruhi oleh tanda baca.
Keyword: Punctuation, Writing, Descriptive text.
INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of the productive skills that should be learn by the students in learning English. It is one way to communicate besides speaking. In English communication,
students do not just have to be able to talk, but also can write well content into a text about the object that they want to describe or convey and how to organize the ideas which is supported with relevant supporting sentences.
2 To write a good text espesially in descriptive text, the students must understand and know the important parts in the text such as
; (Generic structure, and language features).
Generic structure means that how a text is organize to help the readers or listeners understand about the information present in the text. Language feature means the students must understand and know the component of writing skill likes content (ideas), organization, language use, mechanic.
One of the mechanical part in writing is punctuation. Punctuation is very important in a sentence or text, because the punctuation gives the meaning of the word to word. In other words, punctuation assist the reader to understanding the sentence that will be read.
After the researcher did pre- observations at SMA Baiturrahmah Padang at 2 January 2015. The students had difficulty in determining the location and purpose of each punctuation, those students just focus on their writing without regarding to its punctuation.
Based on the reason above, the researcher want to analysis about students' understanding in using punctuation in writing descriptive text of the tenth grade students‟ at SMA Baiturrahmah Padang.
RESEARCH METHOD
The design of this research was descriptive research and the approach of this research was qualitative. According to Gay and Airasian (2000:275), descriptive research determines and describe the things are. It means that descriptive research only focused on describing the phenomenon without giving treatment to the students. On the other word the characteristic of descriptive research was to described the situations or real conditions.
Based on the theory the researcher used descriptive design because the researcher wanted to analyzed and described about the students understanding in using punctuation in writing descriptive text at the tenth grade students of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang.
Source of the Data
In answering the research questions in chapter one, the researcher used the students‟ document writing about descriptive text of the tenth grade students‟ of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang as the source of the data.The researcher used total sampling, the number of students is 30 students because at the SMA Baiturrahmah Padang has one class at tenth grade.
Instrumentation
Tool the instrument can be seen as tool in research to collect the data. Refering to Gay and Airasian (2000:145), instrument is tool or something that in using to collect the data. In this research, the researcher used students‟
document writing as the data. To help the researcher analyzing the data easier the researcher used document cheklist as intrumentation. The punctuation in documents consist of comma, full stop, semi colon, colon, question mark, exclamation, hypen, slash, paranthesess, apostrophe, question mark.
A little sign, which is called as
„punctuation‟ has an essential part in technical writing. Its function not only gives a signal how to read sentence, but also clarifies the intention of the writer. Referring to Stilman (1997:53) explains that the word punctuation derives from the Latin for “point”. That is, the marks whitin a sentence point to the various meanings of its words, making sense of what otherwise might be a string of sounds. They serve two functions:
they define how the various elements of a sentence relate to each other, there by ensuring clear and unambiguous communication, and they help to establish the tone.
In addition, Kirkman (2006:5) states punctuation marks are integral parts of the signaling system we call writing. They do two job. One is grammatical, that shows where the boundaries are meant to be between segments of larger statements and how segments of text are meant to relate to one another. Then, rhetorical that shows the emphasis or tone we want to give to a word or word group. It is clear that, punctuation is a piece of writing that has a role not only to give a signal, but also a feeling into the written.
According to Louchman (2010:17) states punctuation is a code, used in writing, that is often necessary for meaning and for emphasis. It means that punctuation is a code to figure out marks in the sentence or paragraph.
Technique of collecting data
1. The first step in analyzing qualitative data are organizing and familiarizing, the researcher read the data from the students‟ document writing.
2. The second step are coding and reducing, the researcher examined the punctuation mark that used and classified the punctuation error in the students‟ document writing.
3. The final step are interpreting and representing, the researcher interpret and represent the students‟ understanding in using punctuation in writing descriptive text based on form of document cheklist.
3 RESEARCH FINDINGS
After the researcher read all of students writing. referring to the eleventh punctuation mark that students‟ writing at tenth grade students at SMA Baiturrahmah Padang only two marks (comma and full stop) that found in students‟ writing. Overall, after read all the theses, researcher did not find any problems in using colon mark. There were 17 students put the punctuation in appropriate in their writing of descriptive text. The other just made mistake one or two in placing punctuation in their writing. Conversely, the students did not use semicolon as functioning of colon mark in their writing that had already mentioned above. Furthermore, there were no any mistakes in using quotation marks in students‟ writing because the students did not use this mark. Nevertheless, most of students did not use quotation mark in writing descriptive text. Then, there were no students in using Exclamation point. Furthermore, slash, Apostrophe, hyphen, parentheses and quotion mark did not find as the mistaken in the students‟ writing because the student did not use this mark in their writing descriptive text.
Discussion
From the data analysis and findings above, the researcher had discussion that tenth grade students at SMA Baiturrahmah Padang had similiar problems in using comma and full stop. In using comma, most of the students have good understanding to use it. It was proved that by 17 students did not mistake in their writing. Even though, there were some of students did not use this mark appropriately. In general, the student are able to put punctuation in correct. It means, they have understanding in placing comma and full top that make their writing to be clear. It supported by Stilman (1997:60), the categories in using comma: Separating the main elements of a sentence from each other, Setting off a parenthetical element from the rest of the sentence, Separating elements in a series, Setting off dialogue or quotations, and Indicating omitted words.
Referring to this problem, the researcher assumed that the students did not check the sentences after wrote the text or just miswriting. Thus, the mistakes can be avoided if the students checked what they had written.
In addition, the students confuse in separating between sentence with the next sentence, resulting had mistakes in using commas.
CONCLUSION
Overall, from the results of the research, the researcher concluded that the answer of the research question had already answered by conducting this research. Then, the findings indicated that the tenth grade students‟
of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang have good understanding in using the punctuation. Even though, the mistakes were found in using full stop and missing comma. In general, their understanding in using punctuation is good. The categories can be found on students mistakes in using comma is separating the main elements of a sentence from each other, setting off a parenthetical element from the rest of the sentence, separating elements in a series, and indicating omitted words. The full stop role is to mark the end of a sentence. Some of students did not put full stop with correctly in their writing. The categories can be found on students mistakes in using full stop sign than position is in the end of the sentence. The researcher did not find mistakes in using semicolon ( ; ), colon ( : ), quotion mark ( ? ), exclamation point (!), hyphen(-), slash(/), parentheses ( ), quotation marks (" "), and apostrophe („) because the students did not use this mark in their writing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Alhamdulillahirobbil’alamin. First of all, the researcher would like to express her deepest gratitude to Allah SWT who has given him mercy, chance and health in completing this thesis. In addition, thanks to Prophet Muhammad SAW as her inspiration to keep fighting to finish this thesis entitles “An Analysis of Students’ Understanding in Using Punctuation in Writing Descriptive Text (A Study at the Tenth Grade Students of SMA Baiturrahmah Padang)”. This thesis was aimed at fulfilling to one of the requirements for the S1 Degree of English Department, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat.
A very special thanks, the researcher also expresses her gratitude to her advisors;
Belinda Analido, M.Pd and Dona Alicia, M.Pd, for their valuable time, guidance, motivation, immense knowledge during the process of writing this and correcting the draft till become a thesis. Then, the researcher would like to thank you very much for contributors, Yendra, S.S , M.Hum , Willy Satria, M.Pd , and Dian Noviani Syafar, S.S , M.A, who have given valuable contribution and suggestion for this thesis.
The teacher has big responsibilities in teaching students well. The English teachers at Senior High School have a good opportunity to make students feel comfortable and
4 enjoyable in learning English especially in writing punctuation. Dealing with the researcher finding, the following suggestion as the outcomes of the study is to put forward.
Those are expected to be useful for coming researcher, the teacher of English, and for whom that may be concerned with English education, particularly and teaching punctuation.
Therefore, the researcher has some suggestions. First, to the English teachers should be more pay attention on the students understanding in punctuation because the students who have weakness in every part punctuation, the teacher can improve students understanding in punctuation with mire practice with writing a text. It is also suggest that the teacher should teach part of punctuation to their students. Meanwhile, for the students it is expect pay more attention in writing punctuation after the teacher give correction using all of part punctuation, especially for the teacher who teaches at tenth grade. Second, for the students. The students were suggested being careful and keep on improving their understanding in using punctuation, because punctuation is more important one when the students writing.
The researcher also thanks to Armilia Riza, M.Pd as the head of English Department and Mayuasti, M.Pd as the secretary of English Department STKIP PGRI West Sumatera who have helped him in preparing any kinds of letters needed. Then, the researcher expresses gratitude to Suharni, M.Pd as Academic Advisor. Next, her gratitude is also expressed to all of English lecturers for their support and their patience in educating him since the first year of her study at STKIP PGRI West Sumatera. The researcher also expresses her gratitude to Elmiati, M.Pd for help as validator for research.
Furthermore, the researcher also express gratitude to her beloved father and beloved mother, and all my big family who have given their loves, prays, cares, supports, attention, for him. The researcher hopes this thesis will be useful for other researcher, all elements and especially, students.
REFERENCES
Gay, L. R, and Peter Airasian. 2000. Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Application. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
King, Graham. 2004. Collin Good Punctuation.
Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers
Kirkman, John. 2006. Punctuation Matters: Advice on Punctuation for Scientific and Technical Writing Fourth Edition. New York: Routledge.
Lauchman, richard. 2010. Punctuation at Work:
Simple Principles for Achieving Clarity and Good Style. New York: AMACOM, American Management Association.
Stilman, Anne. 1997. Grammatical Correct: The Writer’s Essential Guide to Punctuation, Spelling, Style, Usage and Grammar.
Ohio: Writer‟s Digest Books.
