plagiat merupakan tindakan tidak … tujuan hidupmu capailah itu dan jangan pernah berhenti sebelum...

COHERENCE PROBLEMS

IN ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING

A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree

in English Language Studies

by

Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali

Student Number: 12 6332 045

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2014

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

i

COHERENCE PROBLEMS


A THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

to Obtain the Magister Humaniora (M.Hum) Degree

in English Language Studies

by


Student Number: 12 6332 045

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2014


ii

A THESIS

COHERENCE PROBLEMS


by


Student Number : 12 6332 045

Approved by

F.X.Mukarto, Ph.D. _________________________

Advisor Yogyakarta, 27 January 2014


iii

A THESIS

COHERENCE PROBLEMS


Presented by


Student Number : 12 6332 045

Defended before the Thesis Committee

and Declared Acceptable

THESIS COMMITTEE

Chairperson : Dr. B.B. Dwijatmoko, M.A. _______________

Secretary : F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D. _______________

Members : 1. Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A. _______________

2. Dr. J. Bismoko _______________

Yogyakarta, 7 February 2014

The Graduate Program Director

Sanata Dharma University

Prof. Dr. Agustinus Supratiknya


iv

Temukan tujuan hidupmu

Capailah itu

dan

JANGAN PERNAH BERHENTI

Sebelum kamu mencapainya...

This thesis is dedicated for my family members; “PAPA” YAKOBUS YOHANES MALI

“MAMA” LUSIA KRISTIANI “KAKAK” PETER CHRYSOLOGUS LANDO MALI

-They are my great family, faithful friends, and nice listeners-


v

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that all ideas, phrases, sentences, unless otherwise stated, are the

ideas, phrases, and sentences of the thesis writer. The writer understands the full

consequences including degree cancellation if he took somebody else’s ideas,

phrases, or sentences without proper references.

Yogyakarta, 27 January 2014



vi

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali

Nomor Mahasiswa : 12 6332 045

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan

Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

COHERENCE PROBLEMS


beserta perangkat yang diperlukan. Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada

Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan

dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data,

mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media

lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun

memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai

penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal : 27 Januari 2014

Yang menyatakan



vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deepest gratitude for my Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has given His grace and love, so I could finish this thesis. I thank you Lord!

Then, I would like to express my million thanks to people who have helped me a

lot during the accomplishment process of this thesis.

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis advisor,

F.X. Mukarto, Ph.D. I thank him for his time, guidance, and advice given to me

during the writing process of this thesis. Besides, he encouraged me to finish this

thesis soon and told me not to much worry about this long process. Without his

help, I would have never been able to finish this thesis.

Secondly, I would like to thank lecturers in the Graduate Program of

English Language Studies, Sanata Dharma University. I thank Dr. B.B.

Dwijatmoko, M.A, Dr. J. Bismoko, Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd., M.A., Fransiscus

Widya Kiswara, S.Pd., M.Hum., Prof. Dr. C. Bakdi Soemanto, Dr. Patrisius

Mutiara Andalas, SJ. In fact, I have learnt a lot from everything they have shared

and discussed during my study in this Graduate Program.

Thirdly, I am greatly indebted to C. Tutyandari, S.Pd., M.Pd, the

Chairperson of English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma

University. I thank her for giving me the permission to conduct this research in

the Study Program. My gratitude also goes to the lecturer of class D of Academic

Essay Writing, Fidelis Chosa Kastuhandani, S.Pd., M.Hum. He gave the

permission to access the data I needed and helped me a lot during the data

gathering process for this research.


viii

Fourthly, I am also greatly indebted to Drs. Concilianus Laos Mbato, M.A.

and Dr. Patrisius Mutiara Andalas, SJ for their willingness to fill in the inter-rater

form of this research. Their participation and constructive suggestions for this

research helped me a lot in finishing the data analysis process.

Fifthly, I would like to send my deep appreciation for Mbak Lely. She

helped a lot to process the permission letters that I used to conduct this research. I

also thank Mas Mul for his assistance and sincere warmth.

Sixthly, my deepest gratitude and love go to my beloved family members.

I thank Papa Yakobus Yohanes Mali and Mama Lusia Kristiani, for their

magnificent love, never-ending support, and motivation. I also thank them

because they always ask me to finish my study as soon as possible and boost my

motivation when I sometimes want to discontinue this study. Without them, I

could not achieve this dream. I also thank my beloved brother, Peter Chrysologus

Lando Mali, S.E. I thank him so much for his advice and financial support for my

study. Then, my sincere appreciation goes to my aunt, Jessica Christiana

Pattinasarany, M.A., for her sharing and some references that really supported my

thesis. Profound gratitude is also addressed to Om Florentinus Ari Mursodo. I

thank him very much for his precious help and valuable advice.

Seventhly, my prayers go to my grandfathers (r.i.p), Gabriel Gai and Liem

Siok An (Santoso), as well as to my grandmothers (r.i.p), Martina Ngura and

Liem Kiok Nio (Wiasih). Even though we are now apart, I do believe that all of

you there always support me without your prayers. This thesis is to show my

never-ending love to you.


ix

Eighthly, my special thanks go to all my beloved friends in KBI: Ms.

Ririn, Deny, Mbak Delfin, Mas Karman, Mbak Dinar, Botie, Leonie, Pak Yoseph,

Pak Yulianus, Mbak Sofie, Mbak Yustin, Mbak Ades, Mas Wawan, Mbak Lesly,

Mbak Pepy, Mbak Putri, Mbak Paulina, Mbak Indry, Mbak Mayang, Indes, Mbak

Rina. I thank them for the nice togetherness that we have. I do hope our friendship

will last forever.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all people and friends

whose names I could not mention here. I thank them very much for their support

and prayers. Without them all, I could have never reached this dream. Once again,

I personally thank them all!



x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE.......... ......................................................................................... i

APPROVAL PAGE ......................................................................................... ii

DEFENSE APPROVAL PAGE ....................................................................... iii

DEDICATION PAGE ...................................................................................... iv

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ................................................................. v

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI

KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS.......................... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. x

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... xii

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................... xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................... xiv

ABSTRACT...................................................................................................... xv

ABSTRAK............. .......................................................................................... xvi

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................................................... 1

A. Background ................................................................................................. 1

B. Problem Identification ................................................................................. 7

C. Limitation of the Research .......................................................................... 8

D. Problem Formulation ................................................................................... 10

E. Research Goal .............................................................................................. 11

F. Research Benefits ........................................................................................ 11

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................... 14

A. Theoretical Review ...................................................................................... 14

1. Coherence ............................................................................................... 14

a. Definition of Coherence ..................................................................... 15

b. Idea Relationships .............................................................................. 18

c. Coherent Structure ............................................................................. 28

d. Coherence Analysis ........................................................................... 28

e. Ways in Developing Coherence......................................................... 30

f. Importance of Coherence ................................................................... 35

2. Academic Writing ................................................................................... 35

a. Writing ............................................................................................... 36

1) Definition of Writing ..................................................................... 36

2) Key Characteristics of Writing ...................................................... 37

b. Academic Writing .............................................................................. 37

1) Definition of Academic Writing .................................................... 38

2) Key Characteristics of Academic Writing ..................................... 38

c. Academic Writing Class at ELESP.................................................... 40

3. Essay ....................................................................................................... 41

a. Definition of Essay ............................................................................ 41

b. Components of Essay ......................................................................... 42


xi

c. Argumentative Essay ......................................................................... 44

1) Definition of Argumentative Essay ............................................... 45

2) Organization of Argumentative Essay ........................................... 46

3) Importance of Argumentative Writing .......................................... 51

4) Challenges in Argumentative Writing ........................................... 52

B. Theoretical Framework ............................................................................... 53

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ....................................... 62

A. Research Design .......................................................................................... 62

B. Research Setting .......................................................................................... 66

C. Types of Data and Data Sources ................................................................. 68

D. Data Collection Technique .......................................................................... 71

E. Data Analysis Technique ............................................................................. 76

F. Trustworthiness ........................................................................................... 83

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ................ 86

A. Research Results .......................................................................................... 86

B. Discussions .................................................................................................. 92

1. Unclear Idea Relationships ..................................................................... 93

2. Irrelevant Topic Sentences ..................................................................... 103

3. Irrelevant Supporting Evidence .............................................................. 113

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ...................................................................... 127

A. Conclusion.................................................................................................... 127

B. Suggestions................................................................................................... 129

1. For Students in the Academic Essay Writing Class ............................... 130

2. For Lecturers Teaching Academic Essay Writing .................................. 131

3. For Future Researchers ........................................................................... 132

BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 134

APPENDICES ................................................................................................ 139

Appendix A. The Letter of References from ELS ........................................... 140

Appendix B. An Initial Permission Letter Sent to the Lecturer ....................... 141

Appendix C. The Lecturer’s Instructions ......................................................... 142

Appendix D. The Inter-Rater Form .................................................................. 147

Appendix E. An Initial Permission Letter Sent to the Observers .................... 163

Appendix F. The Letter of References from ELS to the Observers ................. 165

Appendix G. The Observers’ Personal Data and Feedback ............................. 167

Appendix H. Samples of the Students’ Essays ................................................ 172

Appendix I. The Distribution of the Coherence Problems ............................... 178


xii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Jointly Constructed of an Analytical Exposition Text ....................... 48

Table 2.2 Jointly Constructed of a Hortatory Exposition Text .......................... 50

Table 3.1 The Abbreviation System in Data Analysis ....................................... 80

Table 3.2 The Criteria in Analyzing Coherence Problems in the Essays .......... 81

Table 4.1 The Distribution of Unclear Idea Relationships in the Essays .......... 87

Table 4.2 The Distribution of Irrelevant Topic Sentences in the Essays ........... 89

Table 4.3 The Distribution of Irrelevant Supporting Evidence within Paragraphs

of the Essays.............. ......................................................................................... 91


xiii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 The Exemplification Relationship in a Written Work ...................... 19

Figure 2.2 The Contrast Relationship in a Written Work .................................. 20

Figure 2.3 The Comparison Relationship in a Written Work ............................ 21

Figure 2.4 The Comparison and Contrast Relationship in a Written Work ....... 22

Figure 2.5 The Enumeration Relationship in a Written Work ........................... 23

Figure 2.6 The Chronology Relationship in a Written Work............................. 24

Figure 2.7 The Causality Relationship in a Written Work................................. 25

Figure 2.8 The Process Relationship in a Written Work ................................... 26

Figure 2.9 A Scheme in a Five-Paragraph Essay ............................................... 28

Figure 2.10 Chain Structure Illustration in a Paragraph .................................... 33

Figure 2.11 A Diagram of Three Essential Parts in an Essay ............................ 44

Figure 2.12 A Suggested Format to Plan an Analytical Exposition Text ......... 47

Figure 2.13 A Suggested Format to Plan a Persuasive Exposition Text ............ 49

Figure 2.14 The Relationships among Coherence, Essay, and Argumentative

Essay................................................................................................................... 57

Figure 2.15 Research Construct Map ................................................................. 61

Figure 3.1 Steps in Sampling ............................................................................. 69

Figure 3.2 The Forwarded Files from the Lecturer ............................................ 74

Figure 3.3 The Analytical Exposition Outline Converted in the Software ........ 78

Figure 3.4 The Text Deconstruction Sample Done in the Software .................. 79

Figure 3.5 The Triangulation Process ................................................................ 83

Figure 4.1 Three Major Coherence Problems Revealed in the Students’

Essays......................................................................... ......................................... 91

Figure 4.2 The Text-Deconstruction Sample of the Ninth Essay ....................... 96

Figure 4.3 The Text-Deconstruction Sample of the Seventeenth Essay ............. 99


xiv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

NNS : Non-native speakers

NS : Native speakers

ESL : English as a second language

EFL : English as a foreign language

ELESP : English Language Education Study Program of Sanata

Dharma University Yogyakarta

ELS : The Graduate Program in English Language Studies

of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta

NLP : Neuro-Linguistic Programming


xv

ABSTRACT

Mali, Yustinus Calvin Gai. 2014. Coherence Problems in Academic Essay

Writing. Yogyakarta: The Graduate Program in English Language Studies: Sanata

Dharma University.

Writing has become an essential part in English language learning.

Dealing with its essential part, people start to concern with the issue on writing as

well as its challenges specifically in the context of academic writing. In that case,

coherence, as a logical arrangement of ideas that can help readers understand

meaning and value of a written work and as the most essential element in an

academic writing, is regarded as the answer toward the challenges. In a local

context, I could observe how coherence in students’ writing becomes an essential

issue to consider, specifically in the teaching and learning process at ELESP of

Sanata Dharma University. It strongly implies that ELESP students should be able

to consider the coherence issue that they have learnt in the study program. It aims

to make them, regarded as future English teachers’ candidate, be able to produce a

good written work, to guide as well as to educate other people or their future

students to do so. Therefore, finding out the coherence problems would

significantly help the students minimize the problems and eventually help the

students achieve those goals.

This qualitative research attempted to answer a research question. It was

what coherence problems do the students’ analytical exposition essays contain?

In order to answer the research question, I employed a document analysis as my

research method. The documents to analyze were the analytical exposition essays

written by students in class D of Academic Essay Writing class at ELESP in the

2013/2014 academic year.

From the data analysis, I revealed three major coherence problems in the

essays written by the students. The first problem was unclear idea relationships,

which revealed the difficulties in recognizing the relationships of ideas in eighteen

essays that I analyzed. The second problem was irrelevant topic sentences to

support the thesis statement stated in the students’ essays. The last problem was

irrelevant supporting evidence. Dealing with this problem, I found the jumping

ideas among the supporting evidence written to support a topic sentence in a

paragraph.

The results of the research would provide both scientific contributions to

the development of theory in English education as well as practical contributions

to the students in the academic essay writing class and me, as a student in the

graduate level and as an English teacher. Scientifically, the results of the research

would contribute to the development of theories dealing with coherence problems

in academic essay writing. Practically, the research would help the students in the

class and me to keep being aware of the occurrence of these coherence problems

in an academic essay. Finally, I proposed suggestions for students in the

Academic Essay Writing class, for lecturers teaching Academic Essay Writing

classes, and for future researchers who are interested in following up this research.


xvi

ABSTRAK

Mali, Yustinus Calvin Gai. 2014. Coherence Problems in Academic Essay

Writing. Yogyakarta: Kajian Bahasa Inggris, Program Pasca Sarjana: Universitas

Sanata Dharma.

Menulis telah menjadi salah satu bagian penting dalam pembelajaran

Bahasa Inggris. Berkaitan dengan hal tersebut, orang-orang mulai memberi

perhatian terhadap pokok persoalan tentang menulis dan tantangannya khususnya

dalam konteks menulis akademik. Dalam hal ini, pertalian-ide, sebagai susunan

logis suatu ide yang dapat membantu para pembaca memahami makna dan nilai

suatu tulisan dan juga sebagai elemen terpenting dalam suatu tulisan akademik,

dianggap sebagai suatu jawaban terhadap tantangan yang ada. Pada suatu konteks

lokal, saya dapat mengamati bagaimana pertalian-ide dalam tulisan siswa menjadi

pokok persoalan penting untuk diperhatikan, khususnya dalam proses belajar

mengajar di Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata

Dharma. Secara meyakinkan, hal tersebut menyiratkan bahwa para siswa di

Program Studi tersebut harus mampu untuk memperhatikan isu pertalian-ide yang

telah mereka pelajari. Hal ini bertujuan untuk membuat para siswa, sebagai calon

Guru Bahasa Inggris, mampu untuk menghasilkan suatu tulisan yang baik,

menuntun dan mengedukasi orang lain atau anak didik mereka di masa mendatang

untuk juga dapat menghasilkan suatu karya tulis yang baik tersebut. Oleh karena

itu, menemukan permasalahan-permasalahan pada pertalian-ide akan secara

menguntungkan membantu para murid untuk meminimalisir permasalahan

tersebut dan pada akhirnya membantu para murid untuk dapat mencapai tujuan-

tujuan tersebut.

Penelitian kualitatif ini mencoba untuk menjawab suatu pertanyaan yaitu

apakah permasalahan-permasalahan pertalian-ide yang terdapat di esei exposisi

analitis para siswa? Untuk menjawab pertanyaan dalam penelitian ini, saya

menggunakan suatu metodologi analisis dokumen dalam penelitian ini. Dokumen

yang dianalisis ialah esei exposisi analitis yang ditulis oleh para mahasiswa di

kelas Academic Essay Writing D pada Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris

di Universitas Sanata Dharma tahun pelajaran 2013/2014.

Dari analisa data, saya mengungkap tiga permasalahan utama yang

berkaitan dengan pertalian-ide di esei akademik yang ditulis oleh para siswa.

Permasalahan yang pertama adalah ketidakjelasan hubungan ide yang

mengungkap kesulitan dalam mengenali hubungan ide pada kedelapan belas esei

yang saya analisa. Permasalahan yang kedua adalah kalimat utama yang tidak

relevan untuk mendukung pernyataan-tesis yang ditulis di esei para siswa.

Permasalahan yang terakhir adalah bukti pendukung yang tidak relevan. Berkaitan

dengan permasalahan terakhir ini, saya menemukan beberapa ide yang tidak

saling berkaitan diantara bukti pendukung yang ditulis untuk mendukung suatu

kalimat utama di suatu paragraf.


xvii

Hasil dari penelitian ini akan memberikan kontribusi keilmuan kepada

perkembangan teori pendidikan Bahasa Inggris dan juga memberikan kontribusi

praktis kepada para siswa di kelas akademik esei dan kepada saya sebagai seorang

siswa program Pasca Sarjana dan seorang guru Bahasa Inggris. Secara keilmuan,

saya berharap bahwa hasil dari penelitian ini akan berkontribusi kepada

perkembangan teori yang berhubungan dengan permasalahan-permasalahan yang

terkait pada pertalian-ide di esei akademik. Secara praktis, penelitian ini akan

membantu para siswa di kelas dan juga saya untuk tetap sadar akan adanya

permasalahan-permasalahan pada pertalian-ide ini dalam suatu esei akademik

yang ditulis oleh para siswa. Akhirnya, saya mengusulkan beberapa rekomendasi

bagi para siswa di kelas Academic Essay Writing, bagi para dosen pengajar kelas

Academic Essay Writing, dan bagi para peneliti di masa yang akan datang yang

ingin melanjutkan penelitian ini.


1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This introductory chapter presents the background of the research, the

problem identification, and the problem limitation. Afterwards, it states the

problem formulation and the goals of the research. Finally, it explains the benefits

of conducting the current research.

A. Background

Writing has become an essential part in English language learning (White,

1986; Hughey, Wormuth, Hartfiel, & Jacobs, 1983). White (1986) believes that

writing becomes a way of learning that can improve our academic performance. In

that case, “we can actually achieve deeper insight into any subject by writing out

our thoughts” (White, 1986: 18). Then, for English as a second language (ESL)

students, “writing is also an efficient tool to facilitate and to reinforce other

language skills” (Hughey, et al, 1983: 6). For instance, students need to read, to

observe, and to talk to other people in order to collect information for their writing

on a particular topic. They also need to think about suitable words and grammar

forms for their writing. In a speaking class, it is also observed that students

sometimes need to write down a script for their speaking performance and

memorize it in order to help them speak more fluently and confidently. In a

reading class, teachers possibly ask their students to summarize a short story or an


2

article that the students have read in order to check their understanding towards

the reading text.

Some other experts are also concerned with the issue on writing

specifically in relation to academic writing (Coffin, Curry, Goodman, Hewings,

M. Lillis, & Swann, 2003; Jones, 2011; Bailey, 2011; Johns, 1997 as cited in

Hinkel, 2004). Coffin et al (2003) assert that students’ academic writing is at the

center of teaching and learning in higher education because students are mostly

assessed by what they write. Academic writing in English is also equally essential

for both native-speaker (NS) and for non-native speaker (NNS), students who

hope to be successful in English-medium higher education since assessment is, in

most disciplines, mainly by writing (Jones, 2011). Similarly, Bailey (2011)

informs that written assignments are mostly used to assess students in most

academic courses. Undeniably, Johns (1997) as cited in Hinkel (2004) found that

after obtaining ESL training for a number of years, many NNS graduate and

undergraduate students write academic papers and essays that are said to be vague

and confusing. It is because the students find it difficult to recognize as well as to

apply properly the convention and features of academic writing.

Even though some factors possibly cause the challenges (Johns, 1997 as

cited in Hinkel, 2004) especially when the students write their academic writing,

coherence in a written work could become a possible answer toward the

challenges. It is because coherence is regarded as the most essential element in

academic writing. Besides, it is also said to be logical arrangement of ideas that


3

can help reader understand meaning and value of written work, as it is believed by

Murray and Hughes (2008: 45):

Coherence is perhaps the single most important element in any kind of

writing. However, it is particularly crucial in academic writing, where

success of failure may well depend upon on how clearly you have

managed to communicate your ideas and line of arguments to your readers.

No matter how insightful or original those ideas may be if you are not able

to present them in a clear and logical way, their meaning and value is lost.

Considering coherence as an essential concept in academic writing, a

number of researchers conducted further studies on coherence in students’ written

work, specifically on coherence problems in the written work. Jones (2007), in his

small-scale classroom-based research, investigated the nature of non-coherence in

three different argumentative essays regarded as homework tasks and written by

NS and NNS university students. In analyzing the essays, he firstly restated the

definition of coherence used in his research. Secondly, he showed three students’

essays, as the evidence of his analysis. Thirdly, he started to provide his

descriptive analysis toward some coherence problems he found in the essays.

His investigation on the essays, whose topic was about the extent that

globalization has in threatening the traditions and values of some countries,

concluded that the students did not find any difficulties with their grammar. The

students also did not have any difficulties in dealing with their sentence structure.

Nevertheless, they had some problems in fashioning “a coherent argument where

sentences and ideas relate to one another without any missing links of meaning”

(Jones, 2007: 145).

In that case, the incoherent argument problems were because of some

factors. One of them was lack of transitions between two sentences in a


4

paragraph. The other factor was unclear link in theme between paragraphs. For

instance, he observed two paragraphs written by a student. In the first paragraph,

the student wrote the effect of globalization on a particular traditional society in

Africa. On the contrary, the student wrote about threat to Australian society of the

new technology in the subsequent paragraph.

In 2011, taking an Australian university as the context of his research,

Jones conducted another research to analyze an essay written by the first-year

NNS coming from South America using a similar writing topic to his previous

research. In analyzing the coherence in the student’s written work, he believes that

“criteria for analysis of the text derive from the definition of the genre essay itself

and of coherence, as set out earlier” (Jones, 2011: 5). Accordingly, his analysis

focuses the extent to which the writing shows logical order, in which its ideas

should hang together. Then, similar to his previous research in 2007, Jones (2011)

provided the descriptive analysis toward the student’s essay.

The findings of the research conducted in 2011 supported the findings of

his previous research in 2007. Jones (2011) revealed that the students faced

difficulties in constructing a coherent argument. As an example, he found that in a

paragraph in the essay written to explore the extent that globalization has in

threatening the traditions and values of some countries, there were four sentences

that were not connected to one another (Jones, 2011: 12):

Akande (2002) argues that such a radical undermining of individuals’

existing cultural and traditions values have a corrosive threat and impact of

who they are, what they want, and what they respect. The threats of

globalizations are more evident because attacks spirituality, values and

faint and cultural and traditional values worldwide. Globalization is driven

by western adventurers had made a conscience efforts to undermine the


5

cultural and traditional heritage of various countries around the world. The

extent of the threats of globalization is not only for African societies but

also to countries like Australia.

According to Jones (2011), the disconnection occurred between the second and

the third sentences. He also observed that the last sentence of the paragraph even

tried to introduce a new subtopic or a different idea from the previous sentences.

Another research focuses on the organizational problems that Egyptian

student teachers of English encounter when they write an English essay (Ahmed,

2010). The research particularly would try to reveal the problems that Egyptian

student teachers of English have in the cohesion and coherence of their essays. In

his research, Ahmed (2010) used a questionnaire, a semi-structured interview as

research instruments to collect the data as well as an interpretive approach to help

him reveal the problems. The findings of his research, in relation to coherence,

revealed that Egyptian student teachers of English experienced some coherence

problems in their English writing. The problems covered the difficulty in writing

the introduction, the thesis statement, the topic sentence, and the conclusion.

In her paper, Brostoff (1981: 278) suggests an idea that incoherence in

writing can occur because “separate or unrelated ideas appear to be juxtaposed,

which means that they are next to, but not connected to each other.” Therefore,

readers find it difficult to follow sequences of sentences and paragraphs in a

written work. In addition, Brostoff (1981) believes that students could encounter

some failure that eventually resulted in incoherent writing. More specifically, the

failure covered some problems “to make logical relationships, as well as to put


6

together a series of relationships in a consistent way, specifically to form a well-

structured sequence or hierarchy of relationships” (Brostoff, 1981: 279).

In a local context, writing as an essential part in English language learning

is actualized in teaching and learning process in English Language Education

Study Program of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta, henceforth called

ELESP. It is because English writing becomes one of four skills learnt by ELESP

students. The students will learn the skill in writing courses offered by the study

program. More specifically, they will learn the skill in five initial and compulsory

writing courses held in semester one up to semester five. Those courses are Basic

Writing in semester one, Paragraph Writing in semester two, Critical Reading and

Writing 1 in semester three, Critical Reading and Writing 2 in semester four, and

Academic Essay Writing in semester five (Dosen-dosen Program Studi

Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011). These courses

become prerequisites to the students to continue their writing courses held in

upper semesters. The writing courses are their thesis proposal and eventually

undergraduate thesis courses.

In addition, based on the learning overview that each writing class has, the

study program is clearly concerned with the coherence issue in students’ writing.

It is observed that starting from semester two, based on the learning overview of

Paragraph Writing class, the students have already started to discuss the concept

of topic sentences, supporting sentences, concluding sentences, and essentially the

concept of unity and coherence in a paragraph. In other words, the learning

overview clearly indicates that since semester two, the concept of coherence has


7

been emphasized. Therefore, coherence certainly becomes an essential part in the

students’ written work.

ELESP also aims to prepare its students to become both English language

users in professional fields and future English teachers. Therefore, besides

mastering English reading, speaking, and listening skills, ELESP students surely

should be able to write various English written works that cover essential writing

concepts they have learnt. It aims to make them be able to produce a good written

work, to guide as well as to educate other people or their future students to do so.

In that case, writing a coherent written work, considered as a fundamental concept

in academic writing (Murray & Hughes, 2008) will therefore become an essential

concept to consider by the students.

The elaboration and all aspects stated in the previous paragraphs certainly

indicate that coherence in writing indeed becomes an essential issue to investigate

further. Therefore, this research specifically aimed to investigate coherence

problems in academic essays written by students in an Academic Essay Writing

class. Eventually, the findings of the research were expected to provide both

scientific contributions to the development of theories in English education as

well as practical contributions to the students, the lecturer in the Academic Essay

Writing class and me, as a student in the graduate level and as an English teacher.

B. Problem Identification

Hyland (2002) points out that in many schools, students are asked to write

merely to demonstrate the knowledge that they have in expressing facts, but they


8

only have little awareness of a reader. In that case, he asserts that grammatical

accuracy and clear exposition become the main criteria of good writing. In dealing

with academic writing, the grammatical accuracy as well clear exposition

(Hyland, 2002), however, will not become the only one-aspect that students need

to consider. As it is stated previously, the concept of coherence becomes an

essential aspect that students need to consider when they produce their academic

writing (Murray & Hughes, 2008).

Reflecting the importance of coherence in a written work, to the roles that

the students have both as an ELESP student and as a future English teacher, the

fact that students still encountered some coherence problems in their written work

as revealed by the previous related studies, this research asserts that coherence

becomes an important issue to investigate further. Specifically, this research

addressed the same fundamental ideas as what the previous related research did. It

was to investigate the coherence problems in students’ written work.

Nevertheless, unlike the previous research, this research focused its analysis on

argumentative essays, which were in the form of analytical exposition, written by

twenty students in an Academic Essay Writing class using a qualitative method,

specifically a document analysis.

C. Limitation of the Research

The limitation of the research covered four main aspects. The first aspect

dealt with approaches in researching writing. In relation to the approaches to

conduct a research in writing, Hyland (2002) suggests three different approaches,


9

namely texts, writers, and readers. The first approach aims to focus its analysis to

the products of writing. It specifically aims to see writing as a textual product, a

coherent arrangement of elements structured based on a system of rules and either

to examine the formal surface structure or the discourse structure of particular

texts. The second approach focuses its analysis on a writer rather than on the texts.

It addresses the general issue of what good writers do when they are challenged

with a composing task as well as the methods that will help them obtain the skills.

The third approach discusses the role that readers play in writing and elaborates

how writers engage with an audience in creating a text. Considering the

approaches (Hyland, 2002), this research would only focus its analysis on

particular texts, as stated by the first approach. More specifically, it would analyze

the argumentative essays written by the students and subsequently investigate the

coherence problems in the essays based on the related theories of coherence that I

wrote in Chapter II.

The second aspect was related to the selection of the research setting. The

limitation was due to such considerations as flexibility to conduct the research and

accessibility to obtain the data to analyze. In that case, this research was

conducted at ELESP. Then, one Academic Essay Writing class held in semester

five in the academic year 2013/ 2014 was chosen. The fact that I was an alumnus

of ELESP facilitated me to obtain a permission to conduct this research as well as

to access the needed data effortlessly.

Meanwhile, the third aspect was related to types of essays to analyze.

Based on the syllabus in the writing class (Iswandari 2013), the students in


10

semester five at ELESP are required to write three different types of academic

essays. They are argumentative, comparison and contrast, and eventually problem

and solution. In that case, I admitted that my position as a novice researcher as

well as the time limitation to conduct the research would not enable me to analyze

those three types of essays. Therefore, this research would only analyze the

argumentative essay written by students in the Academic Essay Writing class. The

essays were specifically in the form of analytical exposition. Besides, the essays

would be the final version of the students’ writing. In other words, the essays to

analyze were those that have passed a drafting and revision process and have been

submitted to the lecturer in the writing class.

The last aspect was concerned with numbers of academic essays to

analyze. In this research, only twenty argumentative essays were analyzed. The

ground for the limitation was that the selected twenty essays were considered able

to provide rich data dealing with the coherence problems in the students’ essays.

D. Problem Formulation

This research aimed to analyze the students’ essays, specifically in the

form of analytical exposition. It also aimed to investigate the coherence problems

in the essays. Therefore, the question addressed in this research was: what

coherence problems do the students’ analytical exposition essays contain?


11

E. Research Goal

This research intended to investigate the coherence problems in the

students’ essays. As the result of its investigation, this research would be able to

reveal the coherence problems in the essays. Specifically, the research would

provide descriptive analysis toward the coherence problems. The analysis would

cover the real examples of the problems taken from the students’ essays and

explanations dealing with why they could happen and why they were related to

coherence. The explanations were also supported by the related theories of

coherence. The analysis would also discuss the relations of the problems revealed

by the current research to those revealed by previous related studies.

F. Research Benefits

The research, investigating the coherence problems in the students’ essays,

was expected to provide both scientific contributions to the development of

theories in English education as well as practical contributions to the students in

the Academic Essay Writing class and me, as a student in the graduate level and

as an English teacher. Scientifically, because the current research revealed

coherence problems in students’ academic essays, the findings of the research

would contribute to the development of theories dealing with the coherence

problems especially in the context of academic essay writing. In that case, English

teachers were expected to be more aware of challenges, specifically toward

coherence problems encountered by students when they write their academic


12

essays. The teachers were also expected to be able to take a role in helping their

students minimize the problems and produce a coherent academic essay.

In practice, the findings of the research were expected to be beneficial to

students in the Academic Essay Writing class. The findings would show as well as

explain the coherence problems found in their essays. This would possibly reveal

the pattern of the coherence problems encountered by the students. Therefore, the

students were expected to see the problems in their essays, to recognize the

pattern of the problems, to realize the occurrence of the problems, to learn from

them, and eventually to minimize them when they write their future academic

essays. When this research could help the students do all of those things, this

research would significantly make an effort to help students make any positive

improvement in their writing, which is said to be “a means for self-actualization”

(Hughey et al, 1983: 35). Moreover, writing also enables us “to continually grow

and develop because we can willfully project goals for ourselves and can more

clearly define our expectations” (Hughey et al, 1983: 35). Therefore, by helping

the students make the improvement in their writing, this research would also help

the students achieve their self-actualization and human progress.

Additionally, the findings of the research were expected to enhance the

students’ understanding on the concept of coherence in academic essay writing

and its related problems. It was because this research would possibly become one

of many suggested models whose theories, findings, and discussion can be

adopted and regarded as a guide by the students when they write their academic

essay, specifically their argumentative essay. The students, considered as English


13

language users in professional fields and future English teachers, were therefore

expected to be able to learn how to write a coherent academic essay, to teach and

finally to guide their future students to do so.

This research was also expected to provide practical contributions for the

lecturer at the writing class. In that case, this research would provide information

about coherence problems in his students’ written work. Accordingly, the lecturer

could possibly regard this research as a significant and constructive suggestion in

developing the existing teaching materials, learning activities, and possibly the

existing writing assessment criteria in his writing class.

Finally, this research, in practice, was expected to benefit me, as a student

in the graduate level who will possibly write a number of academic written works

in which coherence becomes one of essential and emphasized requirements. It is

because this research has helped me, as the student, relearn and understand deeply

the concept of coherence in a context of academic writing. As a result, I could

keep being aware of the coherence concept in my written work, so I could make

an effort to keep producing a coherent academic writing. Then, the findings of the

research have provided me, as an English teacher, the information on what I

should do in order to produce a coherent written work. This research also enables

me to explain, to transfer the information to my students, as well as to guide them

in writing a coherent written work.


14

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses two main parts, namely theoretical review and

theoretical framework. The theoretical review will present theories of coherence,

academic writing, and eventually essay. Subsequently, all constructs and concepts

synthesized from the discussed theories will be presented in the theoretical

framework.

A. Theoretical Review

The discussion of the theoretical review will support the accomplishment

of the research. Accordingly, the theoretical review covers three fundamental

sections. They are coherence, academic writing, and essay. The first section,

coherence, discusses definition of coherence, idea relationships, coherent

structure, coherence analysis, ways in developing coherence, and importance of

coherence. The second section, academic writing, discusses writing, academic

writing, and academic writing class at ELESP. The last section, essay, clarifies the

definition of essay, components of essay, and argumentative essay.

1. Coherence

This part reviews some related theories of coherence. More specifically, it

discusses definition of coherence, idea relationships, coherence structure,


15

coherence analysis, and ways in developing coherence. This part also clarifies

importance of coherence.

a. Definition of Coherence

The term coherence can be defined into some similar ideas. Initially, the

word coherence has the same meaning as sticking together in a logical way

(McCrimmon, 1984; White, 1986). Then, Jones (2007: 134) believes that “writing

is coherent if the ideas flow smoothly from one sentence to the next sentence and

the parts of the text logically relate to one another.” Similarly, Oshima and Hogue

(2006: 21) believe that:

For coherence in writing, the sentences must hold together, that is, the

movement from one sentence to the next must be logical and smooth.

There must be no sudden jumps. Each sentence should flow smoothly into

the next one.

Harmer (2007: 276) also believes that “a coherent writing makes sense because

you can follow the sequence of ideas.”

Considering the definitions of coherence (McCrimmon, 1984; White,

1986; Jones, 2007; Oshima & Hogue, 2006; Harmer, 2007), this research states

that coherence is a logical arrangement of ideas within a written work in which

every stated idea is connected one another. The logical arrangement and

connection of ideas would help readers understand as well as follow the ideas

stated in a written work easily.

The term coherence in a written work is also related to a paragraph level.

Clearly, McCrimmon (1984: 209) points out that:


16

A paragraph is coherent when the sentences are woven together in such

away that our readers can move easily from one sentence to the next and

read the paragraph as an integrated whole, rather than a series of separate

sentences.

Identically, Smalley and Ruetten (1986) also mention that a paragraph is coherent

when it contains sentences that have logical arrangement and flow smoothly. A

coherent paragraph will make readers see a continuous line of thought flowing

from a particular sentence to its subsequent sentence (Heffernan & Lincoln,

1990). Reviewing the coherent theories in a paragraph level, this research

underlines that a coherent paragraph consists of integrated sentences whose

relation among one sentence to other sentences should give a continuous line of

thought, have a logical arrangement, and not be seen as a series of separate

sentences.

Based on the ideas about a coherent paragraph, the concept of coherence in

a paragraph is closely related to the unity in a paragraph (Bram, 1995; Oshima &

Hogue, 2006). Bram (1995) believes that writers can unify their paragraphs by

writing mutually supported sentences in their paragraph. In this point, he asserts

that in achieving the unity, writers should write a good and clear topic sentence,

so they can control the flowing of information written in a paragraph and avoid

writing irrelevant some information into the paragraph they write. Example [1]

would illustrate the explanation (Bram, 1995: 20):

Melisa has chosen five possible future careers. Firstly, she wants to

become a journalist for an English magazine. Her friends at campus plan

to do much more challenging jobs, anyway. Secondly, she might

become a dress designer. Finally, she could possibly be a tourist guide.


17

The paragraph shown in example [1] does not try to explain what the paragraph

should explain. Obviously, example [1] consists of a series of separate sentences.

In that case, Bram (1995: 20) believes that “if the topic sentence states that Melisa

has five choices, the paragraph has to inform the readers about the five choices.”

The example would clearly reflect that the logical arrangement and connection of

ideas becomes the key of achieving coherence in a paragraph.

In terms of unity in a paragraph, Oshima and Hogue (2006) propose a

similar idea to that proposed by Bram (1995). They believe that in achieving

unity, writers should also discuss only one main idea from the beginning to the

end in their paragraph (Oshima & Hogue, 2006). If the writers write about the

advantages of owning a car in their paragraph, they should also discuss the

advantages of it. If they write about the disadvantages of owning a car in their

paragraph, they will break the unity in the paragraph. In addition, writers should

ensure that “every supporting sentence must directly explain or prove the main

idea” (Oshima & Hogue, 2006: 18). Example [2] can illustrate the explanation on

the topic sentence (Oshima & Hogue, 2006: 19):

In a paragraph about the high cost of prescription drugs in the United

States, you could mention buying drugs from pharmacies outside the

United States as an alternative, but if you write several sentences about

buying drugs outside the United States, you are getting off the topic,

and your paragraph will not have unity.

Finally, the close relation among coherence and unity in a paragraph with

the coherence in a written work would firmly show that a coherent written work

should consist of united paragraphs as the components of the written work.

Therefore, the relation between unity and coherence cannot be separated and


18

should always stand together to write a coherent written work. It is confirmed by

the ideas that “coherence is the overall unity of a text” (Spencer & Fitzgerald,

1993: 212) and is the sense of unity and flow that exists between the ideas

expressed in a piece of writing” (Murray & Hughes, 2008: 197).

b. Idea Relationships

This section clarifies idea relationships within a written work. In that case,

Arnaudet and Barret (1984: 28) believe that we need to:

recognize the way in which pieces of information, which are the text’s

supporting ideas are related. Major supporting ideas usually represent one

or more major thought relationships.

In a sense, the idea relationship is closely related to the idea of a logical order as

stated by Oshima and Hogue in 2006. They believe that arranging sentences in

some kind of logical orders becomes one way to achieve coherence in a written

work.

The major idea relationships could be divided into eight types of

relationships. They are exemplification, contrast, comparison, enumeration,

chronology, causality, process, and eventually spatial order (Arnaudet & Barret,

1984: 28-66). The subsequent paragraphs would discuss each type of those

relationships.

The first idea relationship is exemplification. In a written work,

exemplification deals with providing examples in order to represent particular

realizations concerning more broad ideas (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). Examples

can be specifically defined as “ideas which represent specific realizations of more


19

general ideas” (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 28). In that case, writers provide

examples in their written work in order to clarify their abstract ideas, so that

readers can understand their ideas clearly.

For instance, human motivation can be divided into three common types.

One of them is called physiological motives, which is defined as “basic unlearned

motives by which humans and other animals maintain life” (Arnaudet & Barret,

1984: 28). Its definition seems to be abstract as well as difficult to understand. In

that case, we need to provide examples stating that hunger, thirst, and sleep are

some particular instances of the motives. Figure 2.1 visualizes the exemplification

relationship in a written work.

Figure 2.1 The Exemplification Relationship in a Written Work

(Adapted from Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 29, 31)

Based on Figure 2.1, readers will possibly understand the general ideas of body

movements, facial expression, and physical distance more clearly and easily. It is

done by considering the specific and real examples, which become a fundamental

key of exemplification relationship, given to each general idea.

In addition, Figure 2.1 could possibly help readers recognize the pattern of

ideas in this exemplification relationship. In that case, writers can start from a


20

general idea, which is non verbal clues. Then, they provide some examples to

come to less general ideas, which are body movements, facial expressions, and

physical distance, of non-verbal clues. Finally, they provide other examples to

come to such more specific ideas as arrogance, fear, lifting one eyebrow for

disbelief. Another important thing is that the use of some verbs, which are

illustrated and exemplified, and some transitions, which are for example and for

instance can help writers establish this exemplification relationship in their

written work (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984).

The second idea relationship is contrast. Writers possibly use the contrast

relationship when they aim to see the differences that happen among things

(Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). In order to achieve that purpose, they should be able

to understand clearly the area in which particular items are said to be different.

For instance, readers may see the differences in a function, historical

development, a physical appearance that those particular items have. Arnaudet

and Barret (1984) believe that this contrast relationship can become a focus in a

whole paragraph, in a series of paragraphs, as well as in longer text. Figure 2.2

visualizes the contrast relationship discussed in this paragraph.

Figure 2.2 The Contrast Relationship in a Written Work

(Adapted from Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 33-34)


21

Writers can also use some prepositions, which are in contrast to, as opposed to,

unlike, verbs, which are contrasts with, differs from, conjunctions, which are but,

however, on the other hand, in order to help them establish the contrast

relationship in their written work (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984).

The third idea relationship is comparison. In a comparison relationship,

writers need to state the similarities either between or among things. Then, similar

to contrast, this type of relationship can possibly be given a focus by writers in

their written text. Figure 2.3 illustrates the comparison relationship clarified in

this paragraph.

Figure 2.3 The Comparison Relationship in a Written Work

(Adapted from Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 37)

Writers can also use some adjectives, which are similar and both, conjunctive

adverbs, which are similarly, likewise, in the same way, in order to help them

develop the comparison relationship in their essay (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984).

They can also possibly combine both contrast and comparison relationships when


22

they write their written text depending on the purpose they aim to achieve. Figure

2.4 illustrates the combination between contrast and comparison relationships.

Figure 2.4 The Comparison and Contrast Relationship in a Written Work


The fourth idea relationship is enumeration. Writers can relate ideas in

their written work by enumerating them. In that case, writers can take particular

items that have same general ideas and subsequently arrange them one after the

other (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). This enumeration process can be divided into

some specific types.

They are informal enumeration, classification, and partition. When writers

apply the informal enumeration, they simply write “a simple list of any number of


23

some related items” (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 46). For instance, they may write;

“a third skill involves conceptual ability...”(Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 47). When

writers apply the classification, they aim to divide a common category into its

total amount of natural parts. For instance, when writers of linguistics textbook

write that romance languages can be further classified into eight particular

languages, they are trying to arrange their ideas based on classification. Then,

when they list parts of a single object and certainly do not list the members of a

class, e.g. in the case of romance languages, they follow another type of

enumeration, namely partition. Overall, Figure 2.5 visualizes the enumeration

relationship discussed in this paragraph.

Figure 2.5 The Enumeration Relationship in a Written Work


The use of there is and there are, some nouns, which are several types, three

kinds, verbs, which are classified, divided, conjunctive adverbs, which are finally,

in addition, would help writers develop the enumeration relationship in their

written work.


24

The fifth idea relationship is chronology. Writers will apply chronology or

chronological order relationship in their written work when they write a list

consisting of events arranged based on a time sequence (Arnaudet & Barret,

1984). In addition, chronology could possibly become a kind of enumeration in

which writers order the content of their written work around a list of events or

periods. It is also confirmed that chronology can be categorized into a kind of

enumeration when writers formally divide time into measurable periods, such as

middle ages, the reformation, and so on. Figure 2.6 visualizes the chronological

idea relationship discussed in this paragraph.

Figure 2.6 The Chronology Relationship in a Written Work



25

The sixth idea relationship is causality. This relationship aims to create a

time relationship between two actions or events. Essentially, it proposes an idea

that one action either will, should, or may lead to the other through the way of

causing it (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). When writers try to organize the

information in their written work using this kind of relationship, they will explain

the reasons, causes, sources, motives, objective of something. In that case, they

can use some verbs, which are cause, lead to, create, result in, conjunctions,

which are because, so, and transitions, which are therefore, consequently

(Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). In addition, they will possibly explain either the effect

or result of something. Figure 2.7 illustrates the causality relationship clarified in

this paragraph.

Figure 2.7 The Causality Relationship in a Written Work


Cause of X

Result of X X

X


26

The seventh idea relationship is process. In a written work, writers

possibly list numbers of stages or steps in order to perform some action (Arnaudet

& Barret, 1984). In that case, the relationships among the different stages or steps

listed by the writers could form a process relationship. Generally, this relationship

is closely related to the chronology because either the stages or the steps follow

one (before) another in a particular time. Besides, it is also stated that this

relationship is closely related to the enumeration relationship since it also shows

the enumerative type of process. Figure 2.8 visualizes the process relationship

discussed in this paragraph.

Figure 2.8 The Process Relationship in a Written Work



27

The last idea relationship is spatial order. This relationship requires writers

to organize information in their written work based on a physical location or

spatial sequence (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). In that case, writers organize the

information from one place to another, from one part of particular things to

another part. In addition, they try to describe the relation among those places or

parts within a space. This kind of relationship commonly occurs when the writers

aim to provide a physical description of something.

Based on the theories on idea relationships discussed in this section, three

essential points could be considered in order to recognize a particular idea

relationship in a written work. First, a particular idea relationship in a written

work can be easily recognized by observing the written cohesive devices. Second,

we can recognize the pattern of ideas based on the definition that each relationship

has. For instance, considering the pattern of exemplification relationship, we

could recognize that writers start from a general idea in their written work. Then,

they provide some examples to come to a less general idea. Eventually, they

provide other examples to come to a specific idea. Third, ideas written in all

elements in a written work should be related to the topic of the written work. For

instance, when the topic is about Flores Island in Indonesia, all parts in the written

work should also discuss about the island and not talk about another island in

Indonesia. Otherwise, recognizing the idea relationship will be difficult to do.


28

c. Coherent Structure

According to White (1986), a coherent structure becomes one of four

pillars of good writing. Therefore, whenever writers start to write, they should

have some kinds of organizational schemes. White (1986) introduces a scheme

with which we are familiar, namely the five-paragraph essay. More specifically,

one paragraph introduces the topic, three paragraphs discuss three different

aspects of the topic, and the other aims to summarize and to propose a conclusion.

Figure 2.9 below will show the scheme.

Figure 2.9 A Scheme in a Five-Paragraph Essay (White, 1986: 8)

The scheme described in Figure 2.9 can tell a quick sense on how an essay can be

structured into three essential parts, namely beginning, middle, and end.

d. Coherence Analysis

This part reviews some previous related studies in order to find out ways

in analyzing coherence in a written work. Jones (2007) investigated the nature of

non-coherence in three different argumentative essays written by NS and NNS

university students. His analysis on the students’ essays covered three main

Title How to improve your reading habits

Introduction (Paragraph 1) Many bright people become frustrated with learning because (Paragraph 1)they have poor

reading habits (Typical example) But is surprisingly easy to get rid

of these poor habits by practicing three techniques. (1......,2.....,3.....)

Body (Paragraphs 2,3,4)

Description of Technique 1 Description of Technique 2

Description of Technique 3

Conclusion (Paragraph 5)

Importance of practicing regularly so that the good habits can become ingrained.

It is easy once you set your mind to it.


29

activities. First, he started his analysis by restating the definition of coherence

used in his research. Second, he showed three students’ essays, as the evidence of

his analysis. Third, he provided his descriptive analysis toward the coherence

problems he found in the essays. Below is the example of his descriptive analysis

(Jones, 2007: 138):

Text 5 illustrates loss of coherence within and between paragraphs. There

is no clear link in theme between the first and second paragraphs: the first

is about the menacing effect of globalization on traditional society, African

in particular; the second on the threat to Australian society of the new

technology. However, the writer does form a bridge between the two

paragraphs with the last sentence of the first paragraph (which would be

better placed at the start of the next).

Jones (2011), similar to his previous research, did quite similar activities

in analyzing a student’s essay. In his analysis, he provided a descriptive analysis

towards the student’s essay (Jones, 2011: 6):

But her skill fails her in Paragraph 4, where the four sentences are not

explicitly connected to one another. The disconnection is especially abrupt

between the second and third sentences, the latter introducing a new

subtopic. These separate sentences may be “chunks” that Maria has

imported from her reading and does not know how to integrate.

Jones (2011: 5) believes that “criteria for analysis of the text derive from the

definition of the genre essay itself and of coherence, as set out earlier.”

Accordingly, his analysis focuses the extent to which the writing shows a logical

order, in which its ideas should hang together. This can clearly imply that in this

research, the related theories of coherence can be used in order to develop the

criteria in analyzing coherence problems in the students’ essays. Further, the

criteria was clarified more completely in Data Analysis Technique in Chapter III.


30

e. Ways in Developing Coherence

Harmer (2004); Bram (1995); Heffernan & Lincoln (1990) suggest ways in

developing coherence. Initially, Harmer (2004: 25) states that:

Coherence is frequently achieved by the way in which a writer sequences

information, and this brings us back to the issue of genre and text

construction. It is precisely because different genres provoke different

writing that coherence is achieved. When writers stray outside text

construction norms, coherence is one of the qualities that is most at

risk.

This indicates that understanding completely the construction of written text based

on a particular genre is considered as a way that writers can use to enhance the

coherence in their written work. In relation to the analytical exposition essay, as

the focus of this research, the students should understand completely the text

construction in an analytical exposition essay.

It is also essential for writers use transitions in order to achieve coherence

in their paragraphs. By using appropriate transitions, their ideas will flow

smoothly one after the other (Bram, 1995). In relation to transitions, Ellison

(2010:112-119) writes types of transitions that may serve different purposes.

The transitions are phrases for comparisons, transition phrases for contrast,

transitions phrases to show a process, phrases to introduce examples, transitions

phrases for presenting evidence, and eventually phrases for conclusions. Some

examples of transitions phrases for comparisons are similarly, identically, for

example, in other words, we also see, in addition to. Some examples of transition

phrases for contrast are by contrast, however, nevertheless, one hand...on the

other hand. Some examples of transitions phrases to show a process are first,

second, third, next, later we find..., with this in mind. Some examples of phrases to


31

introduce examples are for example, for instance, specifically, particularly. Some

examples of transition phrases for presenting evidence are consequently,

especially, another important point is..., therefore. Eventually, in summary

(summarize the findings), this analysis reveals that, to summarize, we come to the

conclusion that become some examples of phrases for conclusions.

In a paragraph level, Heffernan & Lincoln (1990) believe that writers can

also strengthen coherence of their paragraphs by learning some ways of

developing it, namely list structure, chain structure, and strengthening weak

connections. According to Heffernan & Lincoln (1990: 182), list structure is:

a sequence of sentences that uses the same basic pattern to develop a

general point with specific examples. Then, in list structure, each new

sentence becomes an item on list.

The explanation can be visualized in example [3]:

They were a diverse group. There were priests who had brooded over the

problem of a world in eternity and made the startling discovery that a holy

mission summoned them away. There were noblemen in the great courts

who stared out beyond the formal lines of the garden and saw the vision of

the new empires to be won. There were young men without places who

depended on daring and their swords and were willing to soldier for their

fortunes...” (Oscar Handlin, Race and Nationality in American Life, as

cited in Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 182).

In example [3], we may see that the first sentence states the main point of

the paragraph and the following examples develop the point by using a series of

examples. In addition, it is also pointed out that the repetition of there were...who,

as shown in example [3], significantly makes all examples parallel in a form

(Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990).


32

Concerning the list structure paragraphing, writers are also suggested to

use a particular structure repeatedly to generate a series of examples, which can be

illustrated in example [4]:

It is a misunderstanding of the American retail store to think we go there

necessarily to buy. Some of us shop. There’s a difference. Shopping has

many purposes, the least interesting of which is to acquire new articles.

We shop to cheer ourselves up. We shop to practice decision-making.

We shop to be useful and productive members of our class and

society. We shop to remind ourselves how much is available to

us...(Phyllis Rose, Shopping and Other Spiritual Adventures, as cited

in Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 182-183).

The idea of list structure in example [4] is clearly seen when the writer explains

some reasons for shopping and frequently uses the words we shop to in order to

generate each new sentence in her paragraph (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990).

Next, chain structure aims to make sentences form a kind of chain

structure. In essence, when each new sentence is linked in meaning to the one

before it, writers can ensure that readers will be able to follow line of thought of

their sentences (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990). Example [5] illustrates the

explanation.

The process of learning is essential to our lives. All higher animals seek it

deliberately. They are inquisitive and they experiment. An experiment is a

sort of harmless trial run of some action, which we shall have to make in

the real world; and this, whether it is made in the laboratory by scientists

or by fox-cubs outside their earth. The scientist experiments and the cub

plays; both are learning to connect their errors of judgment in a setting in

which errors are not fatal. Perhaps this is what gives them both their air of

happiness and freedom in these activities (Jacob Bronowski, The Common

Sense of Science, as cited in Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 183).

Figure 2.10 shown in the subsequent page illustrates how the sentences in the

paragraph shown in example [5] are like the links in a chain.


33

Figure 2.10 Chain Structure Illustration in a Paragraph

(Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 184)

Significantly, by implementing such kinds of chain structure, writers can also

ensure that each sentence they write tends to suggest or to generate the next one.

Accordingly, in Figure 2.10, Heffernan and Lincoln (1990) note that the idea of

animals leads to a comment on what they do. Meanwhile, the idea of experiment

leads to a definition for that term.

The concepts of both list and chain structures could possibly develop a

sense of coherence. It is “the ability to see at once whether or not a set of

sentences makes continuous sense” (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 186). Example

[6] contextualizes the explanation: “I enjoy watching my son grow up. Children

are a tremendous challenge. I read to him and try to let him be as creative as

possible” (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 186).

In example [6], a chain of connections tries to relate my son in the first

sentence to children in the second sentence as well as to indicate the concept of

particular-general based relations. Unfortunately, the third sentence returns to the

particular. Simply, when we try to understand what him refers to, we have to look


34

back to the first sentence to pass freely the second sentence. In essence, the link

between him and my son is broken.

Heffernan and Lincoln (1990) suggest writers to rearrange the sentences as

an attempt to improve the link in the paragraph shown in example [6]. For that

reason, example [7] is used in order to show the new arrangement of sentences in

the paragraph: “Children are a tremendous challenge. I enjoy watching my son

grow up. I read to him and try to let him be as creative as possible” (Heffernan &

Lincoln, 1990: 186).

As it is clearly seen in example [7], him and my son now have a close link.

Nevertheless, the link between the first two sentences is weak because it seems

difficult to connect the ideas between challenge in the first sentence and watching

in the subsequent sentence (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990). Then, it is also

impossible to improve the paragraph shown in example [7] by making further

sentence arrangement.

Essentially, writers may add information in order to connect the idea of

challenge particularly with the son’s growth and creativity. This is shown in

example [8]: “Children are a tremendous challenge. I try to answer all the

questions my son asks. I read to him and encourage his creativity as much as

possible” (Heffernan & Lincoln, 1990: 187). Example [8] shows that there is a

more obvious link between challenge and try to answer as well as son and him.


35

f. Importance of Coherence

This section explains some importance of coherence in a written work.

“Coherence is an important quality of writing” (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986: 21) and

becomes the base of effective writing (Langan, 2011). Murray and Hughes (2008:

45) also believe that:

Coherence is perhaps the single most important element in any kind of

writing. However, it is particularly crucial in academic writing, where

success of failure may well depend upon on how clearly you have

managed to communicate your ideas and line of arguments to your

readers. No matter how insightful or original those ideas may be if you are

not able to present them in a clear and logical way, their meaning and

value is lost.

Proposing his idea on the importance of coherence, Harmer (2007) points out that

a coherent writing will be able to make sense to us because we can follow the

sequence of ideas and points within the written work. In a written work,

coherence deals with arranging ideas in a way that makes the readers understand

the ideas easily (Murray & Hughes, 2008). Essentially, coherence will show the

quality, meaning, and value of our written work because it helps readers follow

the ideas that we write in our written work more easily.

2. Academic Writing

This part clarifies the theories concerning academic writing. It specifically

discusses three essential points of academic writing. The first point is related to

writing. The second point deals with academic writing. Meanwhile, the last point

discusses Academic Writing Class at ELESP.


36

a. Writing

This part explores some theories of writing. The theories cover some

points of view on definitions of writing. The theories are also related to key

characteristics of writing.

1) Definition of Writing

Leki (1998); Brown (2001); Hyland (2002); Ghabanchi and Alavi (2011)

propose their point of view concerning with the definition of writing. Writing is

communicating, so good writing helps readers understand our ideas as clearly as

possible (Leki, 1998). Writing is also seen as a product (Brown, 2001). More

specifically, writing focuses on the final product of writing, e.g. an essay. It also

focuses on what that product should look like. For that reason, Brown (2001)

asserts that a writing composition should be able to perform particular standards

of prescribed English rhetorical styles, to implement grammar accuracy, and to be

organized in agreement with what the audience would consider to be

conventional.

In addition to previous definitions of writing, Hyland (2002) points out

that writing is differently organized and expressed for different purposes and is

said to be generative, in which writers explore and discover ideas when they

write. Writing also involves these three essential things, namely critical thinking,

logical development, and eventually coherence of ideas (Ghabanchi & Alavi,

2011). Clearly, in this research, writing is an activity in which a writer explores


37

ideas in order to make a particular written product, in this case an essay, which

has a logical arrangement of ideas to serve for a particular purpose.

2) Key Characteristics of Writing

According to Johnson (2001); Ur (1991); Brown (2001), there are some

essential characteristics of writing. According to Johnson (2001), writing is

generally said to be more organized because readers cannot depend on repetition

to clarify. Writing is also a skill that needs to be taught and learned (Johnson,

2001; Ur, 1991).

In relation to academic writing, Brown (2001) proposes the concept of

formality. Brown (2001: 342) specifically points out that:

the most difficult and complex conventions occur in academic writing

where ESL students have to learn how to describe, explain, compare,

contrast, illustrate, defend, criticize, and argue.

Essentially, it is clear that writing becomes a skill that needs to be learned as well

as taught to students because in order to argue, which deals with argumentative

writing in this case, is regarded as the most difficult and complex conventions,

especially in the context of academic writing.

b. Academic Writing

This section aims to clarify two essential points. The first point is

concerned with definition of academic writing. Meanwhile, the second point

discusses key characteristics that academic writing has.


38

1) Definition of Academic Writing

Hogue (2008); Bailey (2003) propose their ideas on definition of academic

writing. According to Hogue (2008), academic writing is regarded as a kind of

writing done in a college and aims either to explain or to give information about

something, especially for teachers and classmates regarded as the audience in the

academic writing. Additionally, Bailey (2003) points out that academic writing is

for everyone who is studying at both English-medium colleges and universities

and is for everyone who has to write essays and other assignments for his/her

exams or coursework.

Considering the ideas on definition of academic writing (Hogue, 2008;

Bailey, 2003), this research states that academic writing is a kind of writing that

done in colleges and universities, that is related to essays written for students’

exam or coursework, and whose audiences are teachers and classmates.

Essentially, the discussion on key characteristics of academic writing provided in

the next section would also help to determine the ideas of academic writing used

in this research.

2) Key Characteristics of Academic Writing

Some essential characteristics of academic essays are addressed by Hinkel

(2004); Bailey (2011); Murray and Hughes (2008). First, Bailey (2011: 3)

believes that academic writing aims to achieve these four purposes, which are:

to report on a piece of research the writer has conducted, to answer a

question the writer has been given or chosen, to discuss a subject of

common interest and give the writer’s view, and to synthesize research

done by others on a topic.


39

In this research, the analytical exposition essays written by the students are in line

with the third purpose of academic writing, which is to discuss a subject of

common interest and to give the writer’s view.

Second, a level of formality, which is also called as register, and hedging,

can become one thing that can differentiate academic writing from other types of

written works. Specifically, Murray and Hughes (2008) assert that, in academic

writing, writers are suggested to avoid writing contracted forms, such as they’re,

it’s, and so on. Writers are also suggested to use a gender-neutral language. Then,

Wallwork (2011) states that hedging becomes another key characteristic of

academic writing. In that case, hedging suggests us to express ourself with

honesty, precision, and caution, and to be diplomatic in any criticisms we make of

other authors (Wallwork, 2011).

Third, academic writing can be in some different forms of written works

Essentially, such written works as an essay, a journal article, a thesis, and a book

can be categorized into any piece of academic writing (Murray & Hughes, 2008).

In addition to those written works, Bailey (2011) asserts that a paper and a

dissertation can also be categorized to other forms of academic writing.

Fourth, in relation to academic essays, which become the focus of this

research, Hinkel (2004) points out that the students’ essays meet these criteria.

The essays require the forms of out-of-class assignments. Most of the essays

writing projects also require library research and syntheses of literature and

relevant information from a variety of sources. Then, medium-length essays


40

required as in-class and out-of class assignments are usually between one up to

five pages long.

c. Academic Writing Class at ELESP

This section provides complete information dealing with Academic Essay

Writing class at ELESP. According to the classroom’s syllabus (Iswandari, 2013),

this writing class is designed to enable students to develop such important skills as

methods of citation, conventions of style and organization, and critical thinking

skills required for writing college-level research papers. Then, in this writing

class, the students have to write academic essays based on a contemporary

academic theme provided by their teacher. The themes will be mostly related to

those in English education, English literature, and English linguistics field.

This academic writing class is offered in semester five at ELESP after the

students successfully pass four writing classes held in their former semesters.

Those writing classes are Basic Writing in semester one, Paragraph Writing in

semester two, Critical Reading and Writing 1 in semester three, Critical Reading

and Writing 2 in semester four. This may tell us the fact that the students in this

academic essay writing class are those who have learnt writing theories for four

semesters at ELESP.

Therefore, the students in this writing class are expected to have already

understood the concept of coherence. It is because they have been introduced to

the concept of coherence since they were in their Paragraph Writing class held in

semester two. Clearly, based on the learning overview stated in the Paragraph


41

Writing class, the students have started to discuss the concept of topic sentences,

supporting sentences, concluding sentences, and essentially the concept of unity

and coherence in a paragraph. In other words, the students who are in this

Academic Essay Writing class are those who have been equipped with the concept

of coherence in their former semesters.

3. Essay

Smalley and Ruetten (1986) point out that because a paragraph only

develops one idea, topics being explored in a paragraph have been quite limited.

In addition, it is too complex or broad when writers develop topics in a single

paragraph. In this case, an essay is necessary to be written. In relation to an essay,

this section, therefore, discusses definition of essay, components of essay, as well

as argumentative essay.

a. Definition of Essay

An essay can be defined into some ideas. An essay is an organized

discussion toward a particular subject in a series of paragraphs, but is not simply a

longer version of paragraphs (Meyers, 2005). An essay is also “group of

paragraphs that develops one central idea” (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986: 139).

It is also important to state that how many paragraphs in an essay depends

entirely on the complexity of the topic. Therefore, some essays possibly have only

two or three paragraphs, while others can have more than twenty or thirty

(Smalley & Ruetten, 1986). Clearly, in this research, an essay is a group of


42

paragraphs that aims to develop one central idea, through an organized discussion,

toward a particular subject.

b. Components of Essay

Besides clarifying the definition of an essay, this research also reviews

some key components of an essay. Essentially, Meyers (2005) clarifies those key

components by stating that an essay contains three main parts. They are

introduction, body, and conclusion.

The first part, introduction, becomes the first paragraph of the essay which

attracts readers’ interest, makes a primary claim of the essay in a thesis statement,

as well as introduces the ideas of the body paragraphs (Meyers, 2005). Similarly,

Langan (2011) believes that in the introductory paragraph in an essay, writers

should start with several sentences that can attract readers’ interest. Smalley and

Ruetten (1986) add that introduction is used to introduce the topic to be discussed

and the central idea, which is also called as thesis statement, in an essay.

In relation to the thesis statement, McMurrey and Campman (1983);

Smalley and Ruetten (1986) propose their point of view. The thesis is a sentence

that states the main point, idea for the whole essay and is usually found

somewhere in the first paragraph in an essay (McMurrey & Campman, 1983). The

thesis statement also contains an expression of attitude, opinions, ideas as well as

expresses the controlling idea for the entire essay (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986).

Further, Smalley and Ruetten (1986: 140) mention some essential points

about a thesis statement. First, it should be expressed in a complete sentence.


43

Second, a thesis statement expresses an opinion, attitude, or idea. Nevertheless, it

does not simply express a particular topic that an essay will develop. Third, in a

thesis statement, a writer should express an opinion not a fact. It is because the

thesis statement, as stated previously, deals with an opinion, attitude, or idea about

a particular topic. Accordingly, a thesis statement should be in a form of

statements that someone could disagree with and that needs to be explained or

proven. Last, a thesis statement should only express one idea about a particular

topic. If it consists of two or more ideas, the essay will possibly lack of coherence.

The second part of the essay is called body. It usually consists of three

paragraphs. According to Meyers (2005), this part also aims to develop and to

support the thesis by breaking down it into smaller ideas. Meyers (2005: 38)

points out that in a well-organized essay, each body paragraph “introduces its

supporting idea in a topic sentence, develops the idea in the body, and then

concludes with a transition to the next paragraph. Identically, Langan (2011)

asserts that every supporting paragraph in the body of the essay should start with a

topic sentence. Bram (1995: 20) also believes that “it would be wiser for us to

place the topic sentence at the very beginning of the paragraph.” This topic

sentence clarifies the point that needs to be elaborated in the paragraph and

provides a focus toward a supporting paragraph (Langan, 2011). The topic

sentence also tells readers “what they are going to read about” (Hogue, 2008: 38).

Conclusion becomes the last part in an essay. It becomes the last

paragraph in an essay. Then, it usually restates the thesis statement and

summarizes the main idea. Langan (2011) confirms it by stating that in the


44

concluding paragraph, we summarize the essay by briefly restating the thesis and

the main supporting points in an essay. Additionally, Smalley and Ruetten (1986)

state that conclusion becomes a paragraph that concludes the thought developed in

an essay. Overall, those three parts in an essay can be summarized into a diagram

shown in Figure 2.11.

Figure 2.11 A Diagram of Three Essential Parts in an Essay

(Meyers, 2005: 39)

c. Argumentative Essay

Theories of argumentative essays are presented in four different sections.

The first section discusses definition of argumentative essay. The second section

is related to organization of argumentative essay. The third section is concerned


45

with importance of argumentative writing. Meanwhile, the last section deals with

challenges in argumentative writing.

1) Definition of Argumentative Essay

Oshima and Hogue (2006); Pastva (1967); Reinking, Hart, and Osten

(1993 as cited in Zhu, 2001) propose their ideas on definition of argumentative

essay. Clearly, an argumentative essay can be defined as an essay in which writers

agree or disagree with a particular issue and afterwards they uses reasons to

support their opinion (Oshima & Hogue, 2006). In writing an argumentative

essay, writers also need to take a stand on an issue, support their stand with strong

reasons, and eventually support their reasons with strong evidence (Oshima &

Hogue, 2006). In this research, evidence is “the information that supports a claim

and persuades others to believe you” (Fulwiler, 2002: 101).

Essentially, when students write an argumentative essay, they should be

able to provide “the clear and logical presentation of facts (premises) so as to

arrive at valid conclusions” (Pastva, 1967: 30). An argumentative essay is also

defined as "a paper grounded on logical, structured evidence that attempts to

convince the reader to accept an opinion, take some action, or do both" (Reinking,

Hart, & Osten, 1993: 140 as cited in Zhu, 2001).

An argumentative essay also belongs to a type of written text called

expositions (Hardy & Klarwein, 1990). More specifically, expositions become

text that presents a particular point of view or one side of particular issues (Wong,

2003). Expositions are also organized to include such essential things as a


46

statement of positions, arguments, and a reinforcement of positions (Board of

Studies New South Wales, 1998).

There are two types of expositions text, namely analytical exposition and

hortatory exposition. In that case, an analytical exposition text aims “to analyze a

set topic and subsequently to persuade readers that a writer’s thesis is correct,

which is done by developing an argument to support it” (Hardy & Klarwein,

1990: 88). Meanwhile, a hortatory exposition, also called as persuasive exposition

text, aims to persuade the readers to believe particular points of view that a writer

has (Hardy & Klarwein, 1990).

In this research, an argumentative essay is defined as a form of exposition

text that consists of these three essential things. Firstly, it shows our position

stating that we agree or disagree with a particular issue. Secondly, it consists of

strong reasons and evidence arranged structurally and logically. The reasons and

evidence are used to support our position. Thirdly, it should include a restatement

of our position, which aims to reinforce our position. Eventually, these three

essential things should be included and arranged logically in an argumentative

essay in order to make and possibly to persuade readers to believe that our

position stated in the essay is correct.

2) Organization of Argumentative Essay

This section presents an organization of argumentative essays specifically

in types of both analytical and hortatory expositions as stated previously. Hardy

and Klarwein (1990: 88) assert that analytical exposition text is generally divided


47

into three main parts, namely “thesis (point of view/ opinion), arguments (with

substantiating evidence), and restatement of thesis-comment (optional).” More

specifically, Hardy and Klarwein (1990: 90) provide us with a format to plan our

analytical exposition essay. Figure 2.12 is used in order to display the format.

Figure 2.12 A Suggested Format to Plan an Analytical Exposition Text

(Hardy & Klarwein, 1990:90)

The implementation of the format shown in Figure 2.12 above can be possibly

observed in an exposition written text entitled Animals in Cages (Board of Studies

New South Wales, 1998:80). Table 2.1 shows the text.

Introduction or opening comments to attract the reader’s attention.

(Often required in the subject English-but not an obligatory element). ________________________________________________________________________________

Thesis__________________________________________________________________________

Preview (How the writer will develop the essay- a preview of the arguments that follow.)

________________________________________________________________________________

Argument Number One Topic sentence (Point)______________________________________________________________

Supporting evidence/facts (Elaboration)________________________________________________

Argument Number Two Topic sentence (Point)______________________________________________________________


Argument Number Three Topic sentence (Point)______________________________________________________________


Conclusion Restate Thesis____________________________________________________________________

Comment (optional)_______________________________________________________________


48

Table 2.1 Jointly Constructed of an Analytical Exposition Text

(as adapted from Board of Studies New South Wales, 1998: 80)

Text Structure

Animals in Cages

Background

information

Position statement

The children and teachers in Kindergarten at Matraville P.S.

have been discussing animals in cages. We think they

shouldn’t be kept in cages.

Argument 1

Point

Elaboration

(gives evidence to

support point)

Firstly, not all animals are dangerous. A pet cat likes people

and it wouldn’t hurt you.

Argument 2

Point

Elaboration

(gives evidence to

support point)

Secondly, there isn’t enough room for the animals to run

around. They would get bored and it would be bad for their

muscles.

Argument 3

Point

Elaboration

(gives evidence to

support point)

Lastly, the animals have to be fed by the keeper. It is because

they don’t know how to feed themselves and how to find their

food and how to hunt.

Reinforcement of

statement of position

Therefore, we believe animals shouldn’t be kept in cages. It

can be cruel.

Based on the text shown in Table 2.1, we may clearly observe the writer’s

position, which shows that s/he does not agree if animals should be kept in cages.

The position is supported by three arguments. Each argument consists of a topic

sentence and its supporting sentence, considered as the evidence to support the

topic sentence. Then, at the end of the text, the writer restates his/her position

written in the beginning of the text in order to reinforce the position. Significantly,

this jointly constructed of the text as shown in Table 2.1 helped this research in

analyzing coherence in the students’ essays.


49

In relation to hortatory exposition text, Hardy and Klarwein (1990:70)

write that the text is generally divided into three fundamental parts:

thesis (the writer’s point of view/ opinion), arguments (with supporting

evidence), and restatement of thesis as a conclusion (a summary of points

covering a recommendation).

In addition, Hardy and Klarwein (1990: 72) show a format to plan a hortatory

exposition essay. The format is shown in Figure 2.13.

Figure 2.13 A Suggested Format to Plan a Persuasive Exposition Text

(Hardy & Klarwein, 1990:72)

The implementation of the format shown in Figure 2.13 above can be

possibly observed in an exposition written text discussing about skateboard riding

issue in a school activity, which is adapted from Hardy and Klarwein (1990: 71).

The text is elaborated in Table 2.2.

Introduction – optional element but often required in the subject English. Openeing

comments to attract the reader’s attemtion.

Issue

________________________________________________________________________

Thesis/Point of View/ Opinion

________________________________________________________________________

Preview of arguments that follow. (How the writer will develop the argument in the

following paragraphs)

________________________________________________________________________

Argument number one Topic sentence (Point)______________________________________________________

Supporting evidence/facts (elaboration)________________________________________

Argument number two Topic sentence (Point)______________________________________________________


Argument number three Topic sentence (Point)______________________________________________________


(conclusion)

Call for action (optional-not always included)__________________________________

Restate thesis/ point of view/ opinion_________________________________________


50

Table 2.2 Jointly Constructed of a Hortatory Exposition Text

(as adapted from Hardy and Klarwein, 1990:71)

Task: Skateboard riding is not an acceptable school activity. Write an argument for

OR against this statement

Text Structure

Skateboards Riding

Opening Comment

Position statement

Preview of arguments to

follow

Skateboards are cool for school.

School needs to recognize that skateboard riding is a sport

and it should be included in the list of school sports available

to the students.

Skateboard riding requires physical fitness and skills that are

as beneficial to a student’s development as the more

acceptable school sports such as soccer, cricket, and hockey.

Argument 1

Point

Elaboration

Physical fitness is an important aspect of riding a skateboard.

It is necessary to master the many difficult rides such as ollies,

flips, street plants, and rail slides. Regular training to perfect

these styles improves the skateboard rider’s physical fitness.

Argument 2

Point

Elaboration

Three essential skills acquired by rad skaters are necessary in

all sports. These are good balance, a keen sense of timing and

the ability to concentrate while practicing for hours.

Argument 3

Point

Elaboration

Experience in competition is a necessary requirement for the

development of sporting ability. Skateboard riders enjoy

competition, as much as they enjoy trying to improve their own

performance. It is a non-contact sport, but safety gear is worn

at all times to reduce injuries during the competition.

Call for action

Restate the thesis

School need to lift their ban on skateboards. Kids ride

skateboards for fun and competitions. Skateboard riding

should be on list of regular school sports from which students

can make their choice.

Based on the syllabus in the Academic Essay Writing class as well as the

argumentative essays written by the students, the students’ essays belonged to the

analytical exposition text. Therefore, in analyzing the essays, this research would

refer to the analytical exposition format as shown formerly in this part.


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3) Importance of Argumentative Writing

Argumentative writing is said to take an essential part in an educational

world (Pastva, 1967; Newel, Beach, Smith, VanDerHeide, Kuhn, & Andrissen,

2011; Zhu, 2001; California Department of Education, 2013; Menteri Pendidikan

dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2013). Pastva (1967: 29) clearly writes that

“argumentative writing definitely has a place in the educational program of

schools today.” Such idea is still admitted by a more current study (Newel, et al,

2011). In their study, Newel, et al (2011) point out that acquiring argumentative

writing strategies and practices can represent a main component of present

curricular reforms both in schools and in universities around the United States and

even in the world. Zhu (2001) believes that argumentative writing as a mode of

academic writing takes an important part of second-language academic experience

that learners at the college level have in North America. Even, California

Department of Education (2013) points out that there is a growing significance of

argumentation because argumentative writing is emphasized in the writing

standards in most schools in California.

In the newest Indonesian Curriculum 2013, argumentative writing is

regarded as the basic competence that senior high school students, specifically

those who are in grade eleven, in Indonesia have to learn in their school. It is

clearly written in Kerangka Dasar dan Struktur Kurikulum Sekolah Menengah

Atas/ Madrasah Aliyah (Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia,

2013):


52

4.2 Menyusun teks lisan dan tulis untuk menyatakan dan merespon

ungkapan menyatakan pendapat dan pikiran, dengan memperhatikan

fungsi sosial, struktur teks, dan unsur kebahasaan yang benar dan sesuai

konteks (Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia, 2013:

86).

4.2 Arranging oral and written text to give and respond the expressions of

giving opinion and thought, by considering the social function, the text

structure, and the right language element that is appropriate to the contexts

(translated by the researcher)

The fact that argumentative writing becomes an essential part in an educational

world strengthens my choice to select the students’ argumentative essays as the

research data to analyze.

4) Challenges in Argumentative Writing

A number of studies reveal that students still encounter some problems in

writing a coherent argumentative writing (Zhu, 2001; Fahin & Rad, 2012; Perie et

al, 2005 as cited in Newel, et al, 2011; Chambliss & Murphy, 2002; Freedman &

Pringle, 1984 as cited in Newel, et al, 2011; Kuhn, 1991, as cited in Newel, et al,

2011). In her study aiming to examine the difficulties, writing processes and

strategies of a group of Mexican graduate students working on an argumentative

writing assignment in English, Zhu (2001) revealed that organization and

development of arguments become major challenges that the students encounter in

writing their argumentative written work. Then, Fahin and Rad (2012) revealed

that any Iranian EFL teacher who has teaching experience for a number of years

either in institutes or universities has most probably witnessed the failure that the

students make in their writing, especially in their argumentative essays. More

specifically, Fahin and Rad (2012) found that the essays written by the students


53

are typically short, full of grammatical or spelling mistakes, do not have a well

organization, have scattered ideas and usually lack of an interesting start and a

convincing end.

Other studies also revealed the challenges in argumentative writing. It is

stated that only 15% of 12th

grade students performing at the proficient level were

able to write well-organized essays. The students particularly found it difficult to

take clear positions and consistently support those positions, using transitions to

lead the reader from one part of the essay to another (Perie et al, 2005 as cited in

Newel, et al, 2011). Other studies find out that, in writing an argumentative

written work, it is also difficult for the students to recognize, to apply

argumentative text structures (Chambliss & Murphy, 2002; Freedman & Pringle,

1984 as cited in Newel, et al, 2011), as well as to generate evidence (Kuhn, 1991,

as cited in Newel, et al, 2011).

B. Theoretical Framework

This part shows the theoretical framework implemented in this research.

Specifically, the framework synthesizes the relevant theories discussed in the

previous subchapters. The synthesized theories would become the grounds to

support this research and to analyze the data of the research.

The term coherence in a written work is concerned with arranging ideas in

a logical way in which every stated idea in a written work is connected one

another. This firmly implies that there should be connection of ideas among the

elements in a particular written work as well as among sentences written in a


54

paragraph. Therefore, the term coherence in a written work is also closely related

to a paragraph level. A writer should write relevant sentences within a paragraph

and ensure that those sentences are related to the topic sentence in the paragraph.

Essentially, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas would conclude that

the relation between unity and coherence cannot be separated and should always

stand together to write a coherent written work. It is to help readers understand the

ideas stated in a written work easily.

In this research, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas also take

a fundamental part in understanding as well as in analyzing coherence in the

students’ essays. Both the logical arrangement and connection of ideas would

certainly tell that coherence in this research was closely related to the content of

ideas in the students’ essays and not concerned with some particular writing

techniques. Further, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas would also

indicate that recognizing idea relationships in the students’ essays is very essential

since it is regarded as a way to achieve coherence in the essays.

In this research, there were three essential criteria to recognize the idea

relationships in the students’ essays. First, a particular idea relationship in the

essays could be recognized by observing written cohesive devices that the

students have written in their essay. Second, it would be necessary to recognize

the pattern of ideas based on the definition that each relationship has in order to

see a particular idea relationship in the students’ essays. Third, it is also important

to ensure that all ideas written in all elements in the students’ essays should be

related to the topic of the written work. In this case, the elements covered the


55

thesis statement, the argument covering its topic sentence and its supporting

evidence, and the thesis restatement of the essays. These three criteria were used

to determine whether the student’s essay had a clear idea relationship.

This research also aimed to analyze one type of academic writing, namely

an essay. Therefore, it was essential to clarify a definition of essays and

components that an essay has in order to see as well as to analyze the logical

arrangement of ideas in an essay, as the focus of this research. Clearly, an essay is

said to be a group of paragraphs that aims to develop one central idea, through an

organized discussion, of a particular subject. The organized group of discussion is

then divided into three main parts, namely introduction, covering the thesis

statement or the writer’s position, body, and conclusion. Therefore, when an essay

is stated to be coherent, it means that there must be logical arrangements and

connection of ideas among the introduction, body, the conclusion to develop a

particular central idea in the essay.

This research more specifically analyzed an analytical exposition essay,

which is a type of argumentative essays. Similarly, in order to see as well as to

analyze the logical arrangement of ideas in the essay, the definition of

argumentative essays in the context of analytical exposition and their components

need to be clarified. In this research, the argumentative essay is defined as a form

of exposition text that is said to cover three essential things. First, it covered our

position stating that we agree or disagree with a particular issue. Second, it

provided strong reasons as well as evidence to support our position or to convince

readers that our position is correct. Third, it ended with the restatement of our


56

position, which aims to reinforce our position and to convince readers to believe

the position.

Therefore, in order to state that an analytical exposition essay is coherent,

readers should be able to see the logical arrangement and connection of ideas

among writers’ position, arguments, and a restatement of their position to

convince readers that the stated position is correct as well as to help readers

recognize the ideas relationships among them. Besides, every idea in writers’

position should be related to the arguments written by the students and the thesis

restatement written in the essay. Figure 2.14 would illustrate the relationships

among coherence, an essay, and an argumentative essay, which is specifically in

the form of analytical exposition.


57

Ideas Essay Argumentative Essay

Arranged

Logically

Idea 1

Title Title

Idea 2

Introduction Introduction:

covering the thesis statement; students’ position

Idea 3

Body;

Each

paragraph:

one main idea

and its relevant

supporting

sentences

Argument 1:

topic sentence

supporting evidence (elaboration)

Idea 4

Argument 2:

topic sentence


Idea 5

Argument 3:

topic sentence


Idea 6

Conclusion

Concluding

paragraph

Conclusion:

covering the thesis restatement

Figure 2.14 The Relationships among Coherence,

Essay, and Argumentative Essay

The relationships shown in Figure 2.14 clearly point out that a coherent

argumentative essay should have logical arrangement and connection of ideas

among the title, the introduction, the arguments, and eventually the conclusion in

to convince the readers that the

student’s position is correct to create an idea-

relationship in an essay

A COHERENT ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY


58

order to convince readers that the stated position is correct and to help readers

recognize the idea relationships among them.

As clearly seen in Figure 2.14, the introduction part consists of a thesis

statement or a student’s position toward a particular topic. In the context of

argumentative essay, the thesis statement states students’ position whether they

agree toward a particular issue. This thesis statement states a main point as well as

expresses a controlling idea for the whole essay. Accordingly, if students state

their agreement toward a particular issue, other elements in the essay, such as the

topic sentence, the supporting evidence, and the thesis restatement, should be

related and arranged logically to support their position.

As an analogy, if a student writes a topic about Yogyakarta and believes

that Yogyakarta is a nice place to live, his/her topic sentence, supporting

evidence, and the thesis restatement should also talk about Yogyakarta as a nice

place to live. If the student, for instance, writes about Jakarta, or the negative

points of Yogyakarta as a place to live, s/he will certainly write unconnected and

illogical ideas to support his/ her position. Consequently, s/he will not be able to

write a coherent argumentative essay as stated in Figure 2.14.

Figure 2.14 also shows that every argument in the body of the essay starts

with a topic sentence and is subsequently followed by its supporting evidence.

The topic sentence clarifies a point that needs to be elaborated in the argument

and provides a focus toward its supporting evidence. Therefore, the supporting

evidence in a paragraph should be relevant to the topic sentence written in the

beginning of the argument. By doing so, the student can develop a unity in his/her


59

argument and write a coherent argument. For that reason, the students should

ensure that a topic sentence and its supporting evidence support and are relevant

to a thesis statement written in their essay.

In addition, the relationships in Figure 2.14 certainly tell that coherence

analysis in the students’ essays should explain the logical arrangement and

connection of ideas among the introduction, the arguments, and the conclusion

parts of the essays. Specifically, the analysis should explain why the ideas in the

introduction, the arguments stated in each paragraph covering its topic sentence

and supporting evidence, and the conclusion parts are said to be arranged logically

in convincing the readers that the student’s position is correct. Besides, it is also

important to recognize the relationship of ideas in the essay, whether, for instance,

they are in a chronological or in causality relationship, and so on. Finally, if there

are disconnection of ideas or the ideas among parts and sentences in the essay are

not arranged logically to convince the readers as well as it is difficult to recognize

the idea relationships, this research will possibly find out the coherence problems

in the essay.

After discussing the arrangement of ideas, this research informs that the

analytical exposition essays discussed in this research are related to a type of

academic writing. Therefore, in this research, an Academic Essay Writing class at

ELESP was selected as the research setting. It is because the students in the

selected class have been equipped with the concept of coherence and are required

to write an essay, which covers key characteristics of academic writing, based on

a theme of English literature, education, or linguistics. Eventually, English


60

language teachers are encouraged to put their considerable attention to the

students’ argumentative essays because, as it is revealed by a number of previous

studies and a nature of writing, writing a coherent argumentative written work

becomes a difficult and complex thing to do.


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Figure 2.15 Research Construct Map


62

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter addresses the methodology employed in this research. It is to

provide clear information on what I did in the process of conducting the research

as well as to answer the research question. Further, it would discuss seven main

parts. They are research design, research setting, types of data and data sources,

research participants, data collection technique, data analysis technique, and

trustworthiness.

A. Research Design

The discussion in this part covers two essential points. The first point

discusses a qualitative research, regarded as the basic principle underlying this

research. Meanwhile, the second point elaborates document analysis as a type of

qualitative research implemented in this research in order to analyze the students’

essays.

The basic principle underlying this research is a qualitative method that

has some fundamental characteristics as proposed by Creswell (2007); Merriam

(2002); Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen (2010). First, a qualitative research is

conducted in a natural setting. A qualitative researcher accordingly attempts to

collect data in a particular setting where the participants really experience the

issue under the study. In that case, the researcher does not bring research

participants to a lab and typically does not ask them to complete particular


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research instruments (Creswell, 2007). Second, in a qualitative research, a

researcher becomes the main instrument to collect and subsequently to analyze

data (Creswell, 2007; Ary et al, 2010). Third, qualitative research involves an

inductive process. A researcher, in that case, collects data in order to build

concepts, hypothesis, or theories (Merriam, 2002). Inductively, research findings

coming from a qualitative research can be in the form of “themes, categories,

concepts, tentative hypotheses, and even substantive theory” (Merriam, 2002: 5).

Fourth, the result of a qualitative research is richly descriptive. The rich

description covers words and pictures that a researcher uses in order to propose

what s/he has learned about a particular phenomenon. A researcher could also use

the data in the form of quotes taken from documents, field notes, and interviews in

order to present the findings of his/ her study (Ary et al, 2010).

The nature of this research, intended to investigate the coherence problems

in the students’ essays, was in line with the key characteristics of qualitative

research as proposed by Creswell (2007); Merriam (2002); Ary et al (2010).

Clearly, in this research, there were no attempts to construct a particular

instrument dealing with an argumentative essay and to ask the students to

complete a particular instrument. In other words, there were no attempts to

control, to manipulate, as well as to affect the students’ performance in the class

when they wrote their argumentative essay. Then, the characteristic of qualitative

research was obviously implemented since I became the one who collected the

essays and analyzed them in order to reveal the coherence problems in the essays.

For that reason, I could be classified into human as a research instrument. Ary et


64

al (2010) point out that a human investigator may become the main instrument in

order to gather and analyze data. Additionally, Lincoln and Guba (1985) in Ary et

al (2010: 424) clearly write:

Because qualitative research studies human experiences and situations,

researchers need an instrument flexible enough to capture the complexity

of the human experience, an instrument capable of adapting and

responding to the environment. It is believed that only a human instrument

is capable of this task. He or she talks with people in the setting, observes

their activities, reads their documents and written records, and records

this information in field notes and journals. Qualitative inquiry relies on

fieldwork methods (interviewing, observation, and document analysis) as

the principal means of collecting data, avoiding the use of paper-and-

pencil tests, checklists, mechanical instruments, and highly structured

observational protocols.

This research also clearly implemented an inductive process as asserted by

Merriam (2002). In this research, the essays were collected, analyzed, and

eventually deconstructed in order to come to the emergent themes dealing with

coherence problems in the students’ essays. Then, a descriptive analysis was

provided to the coherence problems found in the students’ essays. More

specifically, the analysis provided some explanation for the problems, reviewed

the related theories, and put samples of topic sentences, paragraphs in order to

support the discussions of the problems.

In particular, the research method employed in this research is document

analysis, considered as a type of qualitative research (Ary et al, 2010). Document

analysis could be defined as a research method that is applied to “written or visual

materials, for the purpose of identifying specified characteristics of the material”

(Ary et al, 2010: 457). Patton (2002: 4) also believes that document analysis

attempts to study “excerpts, quotations, or entire passages from organizational,


65

clinical, or program records.” The purpose of document analysis in this research

was closely related to the purposes of document analysis (Ary et al, 2010; Patton,

2002). It was because this research aimed to analyze coherence problems in an

entire students’ argumentative essay and see the organization of ideas in the essay.

In order to have a deeper analysis toward the students’ essays, this

research implemented a text-deconstruction technique (Feez & Joyce, 1998). The

text-deconstruction technique generally aims to “investigate the structural pattern

and language features of a particular model” (Feez & Joyce, 1998: 29-30).

Specifically, the text-deconstruction is regarded as a learning cycle that involves

three fundamental activities. They are text-level activities, clause-level activities,

and eventually expression-level activities (Feez & Joyce, 1998: 29-30). Text-level

activities include such activities as to sort sets of texts, to sequence jumble stages,

to label stages, to set of related lexical items, conjunction, and modality. Then,

clause-level activities are closely related to present and to practice activities

dealing with the grammatical features of a text. Meanwhile, expression-level

activities deal with decoding and spelling activities. The activities also cover

handwriting, or typing practice required for the use of the text-type.

Considering the fundamental activities (Feez & Joyce, 1998: 29-30) and

the goal of this research, this research would only focus on the text-level activities

and intentionally ignore the other two activities. Besides, the idea of text-

deconstruction adopted in this research is completely a technique to analyze a

particular written work and is not related to the text-deconstructionism point of


66

view. Overall, the research design elaborated in this part would become my

fundamental base in discussing subsequent parts written in this chapter.

B. Research Setting

Holliday (2002: 38) proposes some essential points to consider carefully in

establishing a particular research setting. They are “sense of boundary, variety of

relevant and interconnected data, richness, and accessibility.” Explaining those

criteria will help readers of this research understand clearly about what is going

on and sort of context in this research.

The first criterion is related to sense of boundary in this research. It covers

place, time, and culture boundaries. Because this research only focused on

coherence in the students’ written work, it only discussed place and time

boundaries of this research and intentionally ignored the culture boundary. This

research was conducted at ELESP from October to December 2013. More

specifically, I conducted the research in class D of Academic Essay Writing class,

held in semester five, at ELESP in the academic year 2012/2013.

The ground for selecting the class was closely related to these essential

considerations. The first consideration was concerned with the nature of

Academic Essay Writing class in which coherence in students’ essays was given

an emphasis. In other words, students in the class were required to apply the

coherent concept in their essay. The second consideration was the students in the

selected class were regarded as those who have already understood about the

concept of coherence after successfully passing the writing classes held in their


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previous semesters. The third consideration dealt with the fact that the students in

the class were required to write a written work in the form of essay, consisting of

a number of paragraphs. Certainly, these three essential considerations provided

wide opportunities to obtain rich data, which became the essential criterion in

establishing a research setting (Holliday, 2002). In that case, it was possible to

observe the logical arrangement of ideas among paragraphs from different essays

written by the students in the class. The last consideration was that the selected

research setting has already met the nature and characteristics of academic writing

stated in Chapter II.

Secondly, the setting of this research also considers “variety of relevant

and interconnected data” (Holliday, 2002: 38). This research was concerned with

coherence in the students’ essays. The selection of the class, as it was mentioned

formerly, might establish the relevant and interconnected data to analyze with the

nature of this research. It was because the students in the class have been

equipped with the concept of coherence. They were also required to write a

coherent essay in their Academic Essay Writing class. In that case, it would be

relevant to talk about coherence in the selected class as well as to analyze

problems in coherence, regarded as an essential element to apply by students

when they wrote their essays. Then, conducting the research in the selected class,

whose students are regarded as those who have been familiar with the concept of

coherence; I might expect to analyze various logical arrangements of ideas

covering their different idea relationships (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984) in essays

written by different students. Overall, to conduct a research in a classroom where


68

coherence becomes an essential concept to consider and whose students have been

equipped with the concept of coherence showed the variety of relevant and

interconnected data of this research.

Lastly, the setting of this research is concerned with the accessibility in

conducting this research, as what it is believed by Holliday (2002) that a

researcher should have an access to take any necessary role in order to collect

data. In that case, the fact that I was an alumnus of ELESP facilitated me to obtain

permission from the study program to conduct this research as well as to access

the needed data effortlessly. Another fact was I have already had a good relation

with the lecturer in the class since I became one of the students at ELESP. This

fact helped me a lot in accessing the data in his writing class.

The lecturer was also one of the alumni in the Graduate Program in

English Language Studies of Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta, henceforth

called ELS, who has the same thesis advisor as mine. Therefore, having the same

educational background, I, in fact, could obtain permission to conduct my

research in his class easily. Moreover, I could also fearlessly share the problems

that I encountered during the data collection process done in his classroom and

significantly obtained the solutions to overcome the problems.

C. Types of Data and Data Sources

Considering types of data and data sources, this section explains some

essential points adapted from Holliday (2002). They were types and information

about where the research data was obtained. In line with the methodology of this


69

research, the data to analyze were in the form of documents, which become one of

three main sources of data in a qualitative research (Merriam, 2002; Patton, 2002).

Particularly, the documents to analyze in this research were argumentative essays

written by the students. According to Creswell (2003), the selection of documents

as the data to analyze was believed to provide some benefits for me as a

researcher. Firstly, the documents enable a researcher to obtain the language and

words that participants have. Secondly, the documents could be accessed at a

particular time that is convenient to a researcher. Thirdly, regarded as written

evidence, the documents would not make a researcher spend his time to transcribe

them.

Based on the classroom syllabus (Iswandari, 2013) as well as the essays

written by the students, the essays were categorized into one type of exposition

essays, namely analytical exposition. The information concerning with the type of

the essay, covering its purposes and components, was further clarified in Chapter

II. Then, the essays to analyze were gathered from the fifth-semester students in

class D of Academic Essay Writing at ELESP in the academic year 2012/ 2013.

How the essays were selected as the research data would be clarified further in the

subsequent paragraphs.

In determining the essays to analyze, this research followed the steps of

sampling as shown in Figure 3.1.

Figure 3.1 Steps in Sampling (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 2002: 164)

target population accessible population sample findings


70

In this research, the target populations, which are “the large group to which the

researcher wishes to generalize the results of the study” (Ary et al, 2010: 149), of

were argumentative essays written by the fifth semester students in Academic

Essay Writing classes at ELESP. Then, in this research, the accessible

populations, which are “the population of subjects accessible to the researcher for

drawing a sample” (Ary et al, 2010: 149), were twenty-seven argumentative

essays, regarded as the first writing project, in Class D of Academic Essay

Writing.

This research also needed to determine the samples of the research after

stating the target and the accessible populations. In this research, twenty

argumentative essays written by twenty students in class D of Academic Essay

Writing became the samples to analyze. Generally, the samples could be

categorized into probability sampling, in which each participant of the population

has a known probability to be selected as a sample (Ary et al, 2010).

Particularly, the selection of the samples in this research could be

categorized into simple random sampling, in which “all members of the

population have an equal and independent chance of being included in the random

sample” (Ary et al, 2010: 150). In that case, the first twenty argumentative essays

sent to my E-mail account were analyzed. The further clarification on the use of

the E-mail account in collecting the students’ essay could be read in the research

instrument part.

Certainly, the findings drawn from the selected samples would become an

overall picture of the target population in the research. Its underlying reason was


71

that the selected samples shared the same fundamental characteristics as the target

populations. Firstly, both the argumentative essays in the selected samples and

those in the target population were all written by the fifth semester students, who

have been equipped with the concept of coherence, at ELESP in the academic

year 2012/2013. Secondly, all lecturers teaching Academic Essay Writing class

used the same syllabus (Iswandari, 2013) consisting of overview, models of

argumentative essays as well as schedule and learning activities in writing the

essay. This possibly indicated that the argumentative essays written by the

students in the selected samples followed the same general instructions printed on

the syllabus as those written by the students in other writing classes.

D. Data Collection Technique

This section clarified some activities done in order to obtain the data to

analyze. I would firstly explain some activities to do in order to obtain the

students’ essays and the lecturer’s instructions given before his students wrote the

argumentative essays in the classroom. First, I made an initial communication to

the lecturer in the Academic Essay Writing class. The initial communication with

the lecturer was done through an E-mail. On Friday, 27th

September 2013, I sent

an E-mail message (see Appendix B), which overall explained brief introduction

about myself, the research that I was doing, and eventually the need to conduct the

research in his classroom. Thankfully, the lecturer replied it very soon and

informed me that I was admitted to conduct the research in his classroom and

invited me to join his class on Wednesday, 2nd

October 2013 (also see Appendix


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B). As soon as I knew that the lecturer gave me the permission, I, on the same

day, Friday 27th

September 2013, proceeded to the next step. It was to obtain a

letter of references from ELS, whose process would be explained in the

subsequent paragraph.

Second, I tried to obtain letter of references from ELS (see Appendix A). I

initially wrote a letter of references sample on a piece of paper addressed to the

Chairperson of ELESP. The letter aimed to ask the permission to conduct the

research at the study program. After I finished writing it, I went to ELS’

secretariat, gave it to an ELS secretary, asked her help to make the similar letter of

references as that written on the paper I gave. Gratefully, I could obtain the letter

from ELS on Tuesday, 1st October 2013, a day before I met the lecturer.

Therefore, I could show the letter to him on the next day. That was as an attempt

to ensure that the research that I was doing indeed became one of the official

learning processes at ELS.

Third, I met the Chairperson of ELESP in order to give the letter of

references, and subsequently ask the permission to conduct the research in class D

of Academic Essay Writing. Concerning the third activity, on Wednesday, 2nd

October 2013, I met the Chairperson of ELESP at Sanata Dharma University in

order to give the letter as well as to provide brief explanation about the research.

The Chairperson read the letter and asked some questions dealing with the

research, such as how long would I conduct the research?; have you already met

and talked to the lecturer of the writing class?; would you conduct a test in the

class?, and some other related questions. After I provided information toward


73

those questions, the Chairperson permitted me to conduct the research at the

writing class under the time agreement stated on the letter of references.

Fourth, obtaining the permission from the Chairperson, on the same day,

Wednesday 2nd

October 2013, I met the lecturer in order to have a direct initial

communication about my research. In that opportunity, I informed the lecturer

that I needed to access both the hard copy and the soft copy files of the students’

essays. Therefore, I also asked for the lecturer’s permission to borrow and

subsequently to copy the submitted essays on the following week, Wednesday, 9th

October 2013. It was the time when the students had already submitted their

argumentative essays to the lecturer.

Fifth, on Wednesday, 9th

October 2013, after obtaining the hard copy of

the students’ essays, I asked the lecturer’s permission to obtain the soft-copy files

from an E-mail account. In addition, I also met the lecturer to ask for his help in

gathering the soft-copy files of the submitted essays. In that opportunity, I

informed the lecturer that I needed to obtain the soft-copy files of the submitted

essays, which were the final-version one, in order to help me in analyzing the

essays easily.

The lecturer told me that he would help me in gathering the files. In that

case, the lecturer would come to the classroom in the following week,

Wednesday, 16th

October 2013, and in the beginning of the class, he would asked

his students to send the files of their submitted argumentative essays to his E-mail

account. Then, the lecturer told me that as soon as the students sent the files to his

E-mail, he would forward the files to my E-mail account. Within two weeks after


74

I met the lecturer, I received the files forwarded from the lecturer’s E-mail

account. Figure 3.2 showed the forwarded files that I received from the lecturer.

Figure 3.2 The Forwarded Files from the Lecturer

Accordingly, an E-mail account was regarded as an instrument to gather

the students’ essay. I used the E-mail in order to obtain the soft-copy files of the

submitted essays. Obtaining the files was aimed to make me easier in

deconstructing the essay with the use of Mindjet Mind Manager 9 software. In

that case, I would not need to retype the essays when I deconstructed them using

the software. The selection of the software was based on the considerations that

the software could accommodate the analysis on text-level activities (Feez &

Joyce, 1998).


75

Sixth, in order to access the lecturer’s instruction, on Wednesday, 13th

November 2013, I met the lecturer of the class. Importantly, Creswell (2007)

believes that in a document research, what instructions should be provided to

students prior to write their written work becomes an important thing to consider.

Then, I asked him about the instructions he gave to his students in writing the

argumentative essays. The lecturer told me the instructions were given orally to

the students. Gratefully, for the purpose of this research, he would formulate the

instructions and clarify them in the Power Point slides (see Appendix C) and

eventually send the file to my E-mail account. On Sunday, 1st December 2013, I

received the slides from the lecturer consisting the essential instructions.

After reviewing the slides, I could see that the lecturer started his

instructions by giving brief explanation on what argumentative writing is and

steps to write it. In one of the steps, the lecturer put emphasis on the organization

of his students’ essays, so the students could present their position effectively and

make the readers follow their presented arguments, and eventually get the readers

to agree with them. Moreover, the instructions also covered an order to study

samples of argumentative essays and eventually to analyze them. Eventually, the

lecturer asked the students to make an outline of their argumentative essay based

on the topic that is interested to them.

The data collection technique was also related to the distribution of a form.

I called the form as an inter-rater form (see Appendix D). I would like to inform

that the concepts of inter-rater reliability became the base for the form

distribution. The ideas of inter-rater reliability aimed to find out if different


76

observers possibly provide the similar scores to the same behaviors (Ary et al,

2010).

Then, I would like to describe the distribution process of the form. Firstly,

I sent an initial permission letter to the lecturers through an E-mail. In the letter, I

introduced myself, the research that I was doing, and eventually the need to ask

for their help to become the observers for my research. Thankfully, they replied

my E-mail message and informed me that they were willing to help me. We made

an appointment to meet in a particular day in order to discuss further about this

research. I put the initial permission letter as well as its reply message in

Appendix E. After I knew that the lecturers were willing to participate in this

research, I continued to obtain a letter of references from ELS (see Appendix F),

which aimed to prove that their participation in this research was for an official

research purpose. Eventually, the participation of the lecturers in this research

would significantly help me present a trustworthy discussion in Chapter IV.

E. Data Analysis Technique

This section explained some activities involved in analyzing two types of

data gathered in this research. The first data were argumentative essays written by

the students. Meanwhile, the second data were the inter-rater forms that were

given to two lecturers, regarded as the observers in this research. Cohen, Manion,

& Morrison (2007) assert that in analyzing qualitative data, which are in the form

of “text, written, words, phrases, or symbols” (Neuman, 2006: 457), a researcher

should consider carefully the issue of fitness for purpose of his or her research.


77

Essentially, a researcher needs to understand clearly, “what he or she wants the

data analysis to do as this will determine the kind of analysis that is undertaken”

(Cohen et al, 2007: 461).

Accordingly, I followed the data analysis steps asserted by Creswell

(2003: 191-195). The first step was to organize and prepare the data for analysis.

In this first step, I downloaded the files on the students’ essay sent to my E-mail

account and saved to my computer. Afterwards, I compared the files with the

hard-copy of the essays that I had copied from the lecturer. It was to ensure that

the files sent to my E-mail were the final version of the students’ essays.

The second step was to read all data. In this step, I tried to read all the

essays and at the same time to look at the format of analytical exposition essay. It

was done to familiarize myself with the organization of the analytical exposition

essay implemented in the students’ essay. In this step, I also started to open the

soft-files of the essays and subsequently to highlight the thesis statement, the topic

sentence along with its supporting evidence in every argument that the students

wrote, and eventually the restatement of the writer’s position in the essays.

Afterwards, I made an outline of analytical exposition essay, which was the

particular type of argumentative essay written by the students in the classroom. In

making an outline, I looked at the analytical exposition outline shown in Chapter

II and converted the outline in Mindjet Mind Manager 9 software. I used Figure

3.3 in order to show the converted outline I made using the software.


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Figure 3.3 The Analytical Exposition Outline Converted in the Software

(Adapted from Mukarto, 2009 (in press))

The third step was to begin detailed analysis with a coding process. In this

step, I, after making the outline shown in Figure 3.3, started to reread every essay

written by the students and to deconstruct the essay. In that case, I copied the

highlighted thesis statement, the topic sentence along with its supporting evidence

in every argument that the students wrote, and eventually the restatement of the

writer’s position in the essays. Afterwards, I pasted them into the outline made

previously using the software. Figure 3.4 would help illustrate how I did the copy

and paste processes.


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Figure 3.4 The Text Deconstruction Sample Done in the Software


80

As shown in Figure 3.4, I started to develop a particular abbreviation system to

provide attribute for the thesis statement, the topic sentence along with its

supporting evidence in every argument that the students wrote, and eventually the

restatement of the writer’s position in the essays. The overall abbreviation system

was summarized in Table 3.1 below.

Table 3.1 The Abbreviation System in Data Analysis

Code Description

ESY1 An argumentative essay written by the first student

TTL1 The title of the first essay

TWP1 The thesis statement/ position in the first essay

AGM1 The first argument stated by the student

PNT1 The point/ topic sentence of the first argument

PNT2 The point/ topic sentence of the second argument

ERT1.1

The first supporting evidence written for the first point/ topic sentence

ERT2.1

The first supporting evidence written for the second point/ topic sentence

RST1 The restatement of the thesis in the first essay

CNT Connective

After I could clearly observe each element in the essay, I started to

develop some criteria to find out coherence problems in the essay. In that case,

Jones (2011) believes that criteria to analyze a text may derive from the definition

of the genre essay itself and of coherence, as used in a particular research.

Accordingly, in this research, I used the related theories of coherence and essays,

in order to develop the criteria in analyzing coherence problems in the students’

written work. More specifically, I formulated the criteria into a list of questions

that I put in Table 3.2.


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Table 3.2 The Criteria in Analyzing Coherence Problems in the Essays

No Key Terms Analysis Coverage Analysis Questions

1. Coherence;

Unity

In a whole

analytical

exposition essay

Is the thesis statement relevant to the

title?

Is the idea in the topic sentence relevant

to that stated in the thesis statement?

Does the idea in the topic sentence

support the idea stated in the thesis

statement?

Is the idea in the thesis restatement

relevant to that in the thesis statement?

Does the idea in the thesis restatement

support the thesis statement?

2. Coherence;

Unity

In a paragraph

of the analytical

exposition essay

Is the idea in every supporting evidence

written in a paragraph relevant to the

topic sentence in the paragraph?

Does the idea in every supporting

evidence talk about the topic sentence in

a paragraph?

Does the idea in every supporting

evidence support the topic sentence in a

paragraph?

Is every supporting evidence relevant to

other supporting evidence written in a

paragraph?

3. Idea-

Relationships

In a whole

analytical

exposition essay

Do the written cohesive devices help to

signal a particular idea relationship in

the essay?

Can the pattern of ideas based on the

definition of idea relationships be

observed in the essay?

Are ideas written in all elements of the

essay relevant to the thesis statement of

the essay?

Significantly, developing the criteria would enable me to generate some themes

concerning the coherence problems that I possibly revealed during the data

analysis process.

The fourth step was to use the coding process to generate categories or

themes for analysis. This step was obviously related to the deconstructing

processes of the essays as discussed in the previous paragraph as shown in Figure


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3.4. In this case, I would like to inform that the emergent themes would be

regarded as the coherence problems found in the students’ essays.

The fifth step was to advance the description and themes represented in a

qualitative narrative. Creswell (2003) believes that using a narrative passage to

state the findings of the analysis is regarded as the most frequent approach in this

step. Accordingly, I, in this step, started to describe every theme, stating the

coherence problems, which I found when I analyzed the students’ essays.

The last step was to make an interpretation or meaning of the data. In this

step, I tried to convey my personal interpretation on the coherence problems in the

essays, as an attempt to answer the research question. My personal interpretation

also derived from my analysis toward the inter-rater form distributed to some

lecturers. I would end the discussion in this section by explaining how I analyze

the second data of this research in the subsequent paragraph.

In analyzing the second data, the inter-rater forms that were given to some

lecturers, I did these following activities. Firstly, I collected back the inter-rater

form distributed to some lecturers. Secondly, I consulted the comments and

constructive suggestions given by the observers with my thesis advisor. In this

step, my thesis advisor would read the comments and suggested me some

constructions inputs, so I could develop the way I analyzed the data. Eventually, it

would make me be able to present the trustworthy data analysis in Chapter IV.


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F. Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness refers to the idea that “consistency is viewed as the extent

to which variation can be tracked or explained” (Ary et al, 2010: 502). In that

case, some strategies could be used in order to investigate the trustworthiness in a

research. One of the strategies is triangulation, which is clearly defined as “the use

of multiple sources of data, multiple observers, and/ or multiple methods” (Ary et

al, 2010: 435). Neuman (2006) asserts a similar idea stating that triangulation

requires the process of observing something from different viewpoints in order to

get a fix on its true location. Significantly, Neuman (2006: 150) writes this

following illustration.

Observed patient behavior in a hospital by one person-a White 55 year-

old-male who has substantial medical training-may differ if the observer

was female, was 30 years old, was of a different race, or lacked medical

training. Combining data from a variety of observers is more likely to

yield a more complete picture of the setting.

The stated illustration above is subsequently followed by Figure 3.5. The figure

would help to visualize the given illustration.

Figure 3.5 The Triangulation Process (Neuman, 2006: 150)

Based on the proposed ideas on triangulation as well as the nature of this

research, which was to analyze coherence problems in the students’ essay, the

decision was made to use multiple observers, as the triangulation technique in this


84

research. The decision to use the multiple observers was closely related to the idea

of inter-rater reliability. The ideas of inter-rater reliability were to find out if

different observers possibly provide the similar scores to the same behaviors (Ary

et al, 2010). Therefore, it indicated that this research needed to have two or more

observers who independently rate the same behaviors, in this case argumentative

essays written by the students. The use of the multiple observers is also known as

triangulating analysts, in which two or more persons who independently analyze

the same qualitative data, were needed (Patton, 2002).

Prior to involve the multiple observers, I implemented the idea on

triangulation of theory as suggested by Neuman (2006). In that case, he believes

that the idea on triangulation of theory occurs when a researcher uses multiple

theoretical perspectives when he plans the stages of his research or interprets the

data. Therefore, providing theories from various references on the concept of

coherence would help me provide the triangulation of theory for this research,

specifically for the data analysis process of this research.

Accordingly, considering the ideas of the triangulation, I did these

following activities. First, I tried to analyze a student’s essay based on the

multiple theoretical perspectives on coherence, which were taken from various

sources stated in Chapter II. Second, in order to ensure that the way I analyzed the

data was appropriate, I constructed an inter-rater form (adapted from Ary et al,

2010: 597; Kastuhandani, 2011) (see Appendix D), asking two lecturers to provide

comments and constructive suggestions to the way I analyzed a sample of the

students’ essays. Then, I would like to inform that one of the lecturers is a lecturer


85

holding a Doctorate degree from Santa Clara University in Berkeley the United

States of America. Besides, he is also known as a writer who has published a

number of books in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the other lecturer is a lecturer who

holds a Master of Art degree from Griffin University Australia and is now

finishing his Doctorate degree in Australia. Their complete comments for my data

analysis were shown in Appendix G. Then, I would use their given comments and

constructive suggestions to develop the way I analyzed the data, which

significantly aimed to help me present trustworthy discussions in Chapter IV.


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CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter discusses two parts, namely research results and discussions.

The first part presents the results of my analysis on twenty argumentative essays

written by the students. It specifically presents the lists of major coherence

problems in the essays. Meanwhile, the second part discusses each problem

resulting from the data analysis. It covers the discussion on how I could come up

with the problems and how I interpret them from the data. In that case, the relation

between the problems found by this research, the theoretical review, and the

findings revealed by the previous related studies would also be clarified.

A. Research Results

This part aimed to present the results of my analysis on twenty analytical

exposition essays written by the students. The results would become the answer to

the research question stated in this research. It was what coherence problems do

the students’ analytical exposition essays contain?

The results of my analysis found three major coherence problems in the

essays that became the answer to the research question. The first problem was

unclear idea relationships. This problem revealed the difficulties in recognizing

the idea relationships in the students’ essays as well as discussed what idea

relationships that could be recognized in the essays.


87

Dealing with the difficulties in recognizing the idea relationships in the

essays, this research informed that eighteen students’ essays did not meet the

criteria used in order to analyze the idea relationships in the essays. More

specifically, the essays did not include transitions and conjunctions that could

signal a particular idea relationship. In the essays, some irrelevant ideas to support

a thesis statement were also found.

The difficulties in recognizing the idea relationships were also affected by

other two coherence problems revealed by this research, namely irrelevant topic

sentences and irrelevant supporting evidence. In other words, when the students

wrote irrelevant topic sentences and supporting evidence in their essay, they

would have a possibility to have an unclear idea relationship in the essay. In order

to end the discussion in this paragraph, Table 4.1 was used to display the

distribution of the idea relationships’ problems in the students’ essays based on

the criteria used to analyze the idea relationships.

Table 4.1 The Distribution of Unclear Idea Relationships in the Essays

Essays

The Criteria to Analyze the Idea Relationships

Status Cohesive devices

to signal an idea

relationship

A clear

pattern of ideas

Relevant ideas

to a thesis

statement

1 √ - - Unclear

2 - - - Unclear

3 - - - Unclear

4 - - - Unclear

5 - - - Unclear

6 √ - - Unclear

7 - - - Unclear 8 √ - - Unclear 9 √ √ √ *Clear

10 √ - - Unclear

11 - - - Unclear 12 - - - Unclear 13 √ √ - Unclear 14 - - - Unclear 15 √ √ - Unclear


88

Table 4.1 The Distribution of Unclear Idea Relationships in the Essays (cont)

Essays

The Criteria to Analyze the Idea Relationships

Status Cohesive devices

to signal an idea

relationship

A clear

pattern of ideas

Relevant ideas

to a thesis

statement

16 √ - - Unclear

17 √ √ √ *Clear

18 - - - Unclear

19 - - - Unclear 20 - - - Unclear

As it was shown in Table 4.1, two different essays showed clear idea

relationships. The essays were the ninth essay, showing an enumeration idea

relationship and the seventeenth essay, showing an exemplification idea

relationship. Unlike in other essays, the students, writing both the ninth and the

seventeenth essays, wrote relevant ideas to their thesis statement, so the pattern of

ideas in both essays was easily recognized. The use of cohesive devices in both

essays also helped to signal both the enumeration and exemplification idea

relationships.

The second problem was irrelevant topic sentences to a thesis statement in

the essay. In this case, the discussion was concerned with some problems on topic

sentences that could affect the incoherence in the essay. The problems covered

such essential issues as opposing topic sentences to the thesis statement, irrelevant

topic sentences to the thesis statement, and descriptive topic sentences. Table 4.2

showed the distribution of these related problems in twenty essays analyzed in this

research.

.


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Table 4.2 The Distribution of Irrelevant Topic Sentences in the Essays

Essays

The

number of

paragraphs

Irrelevant Topic Sentences

An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence discusses

a different point with

a thesis statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

1 8 -

3 problems

- paragraphs: 3,5,7

2 7 -

2 problems 1 problem

paragraphs: 3, 6 paragraph: 2

3 11

3 problems 2 problems

- paragraphs: 5,6,7 paragraphs: 3,4

4 11 -


paragraphs: 2,5,8,9 paragraphs: 3,4,7

5 9 -


paragraphs: 4,6,7,8 paragraphs: 2,3

6 13 -


paragraphs: 3,5,7,8,9 paragraphs: 2,4,5

7 9 -

2 problems

- paragraphs: 2,5

8 8 -


paragraphs: 2,3 paragraph: 4

9 5 - - -

10 10 -

2 problems

- paragraphs: 3,9

11 14 -


paragraphs: 3,4,5,6,7,8 paragraph: 2

12 8 -

1 problem 1 problem

paragraph: 3 paragraph: 2

13 6 - - -

14 8 -


paragraphs: 5,6,7 paragraphs: 2,3,4

15 5 - - -

16 11 - -

2 problems

paragraphs: 2,3


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Table 4.2 The Distribution of Irrelevant Topic Sentences in the Essays (cont)

Essays

The

number of

paragraphs


An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence discusses

a different point with

a thesis statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

17 11 - - -

18 8 -

1 problem 1 problem

paragraph: 7

paragraph: 2

19 14 -

8 problems

- paragraph: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,13

20 10 -


paragraphs: 2,3,7

paragraphs: 4,5,6

TOTAL 3 problems 48 problems 21 problems

72 irrelevant topic sentences

In addition to Table 4.2 above, complete examples of those irrelevant topic

sentences were also shown in Appendix I.

The third problem was irrelevant supporting evidence. This third problem

was also concerned with two other essential issues, namely irrelevant paraphrase

made by the students and the number of sentences written in a paragraph. The

distribution of the irrelevant supporting evidence could be seen in Table 4.3.

Then, dealing with the Table 4.3, this research informed that a paragraph having

an irrelevant topic sentence was excluded from the results shown in the Table. In

other words, the results displayed in the Table were only related to a paragraph

that had a relevant topic sentence, but it did not have relevant supporting evidence

to support the topic sentence.


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Table 4.3 The Distribution of Irrelevant

Supporting Evidence within Paragraphs of the Essays

Essays The number

of paragraphs

Irrelevant

Supporting Evidence

3 11 4 problems paragraphs: 2,8,9,10

5 9 1 problem paragraph: 6 6 13 1 problem paragraph: 12 7 9 2 problems paragraphs: 6,8

10 10 2 problems paragraphs: 2,8 12 8 3 problems paragraphs: 4,5,7 13 6 1 problem paragraph: 4 15 5 1 problem paragraph: 3 16 11 1 problem paragraph: 8 20 10 1 problem paragraph: 8

TOTAL 17 paragraphs with irrelevant

supporting evidence

In addition to Table 4.3 above, complete examples of the irrelevant supporting

were also shown in Appendix I. Finally, considering those three major coherence

problems, I would provide Figure 4.1 below in order to summarize and to

visualize the major coherence problems found in the students’ essays.

Figure 4.1 Three Major Coherence Problems

Revealed in the Students’ Essays

TITLE

INTRODUCTION

Thesis statement

ARGUMENT Topic sentences

Supporting Evidence

CONCLUSION

Thesis restatement

1st problem (unclear idea

relationships within the whole

essay)

2nd problem (irrelevant topic sentences)

3rd problem (irrelevant supporting

evidence)

An Argumentative

Essay (Analytical Exposition)


92

The subsequent part would provide deeper and more detailed discussions on each

stated coherence problem and its relation to the reviewed theories, the findings on

coherence problems revealed by the previous related studies, and the criteria of

coherence analysis displayed in the Data Analysis Technique part.

B. Discussions

This part discussed three major coherence problems stated previously.

Accordingly, this part would cover three main sections. They were unclear idea

relationships, irrelevant topic sentences, and irrelevant supporting evidence.

Each part of the discussions would show samples of thesis statements,

topic sentences, paragraphs, paraphrases, and thesis restatements taken from the

students’ essays and some text-deconstruction samples done toward some essays.

The samples would be as an illustration to support the discussion on each

coherence problem. The samples would also become the evidence that could help

readers follow the discussion easily.

Besides, the discussion in each part was supported by the reviewed

theories in Chapter II and the findings of the previous related studies. They would

also help readers see the position of the current research and help me build my

personal interpretation toward the findings of the research. The discussion in each

part would also clarify how the coherence problems in this research met the

criteria in analyzing coherence problems displayed in the Data Analysis

Technique part.


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1. Unclear Idea Relationships

The first coherence problem was unclear idea relationships in the students’

essays. Before we came to a further discussion on this problem, this research

would review what idea relationships are in order to help readers follow the

discussion in this part easily. In Chapter II, Arnaudet and Barret (1984: 28)

believe that we need to “recognize the way in which pieces of information, which

is the text’s supporting ideas, are related.” Deriving from their belief, this research

could certainly assert that the idea relationships were closely related to the

operational definition of coherence adopted in this research. It is a logical

arrangement of ideas within a written work in which every stated idea is

connected one another. The logical arrangement and connection of ideas would

help readers understand as well as follow the ideas stated in a written work easily.

Clearly, both the idea relationships (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 28) and the

operational definition of coherence in this research emphasized the logical

arrangement and connection of ideas in one’s written work. In that case, Oshima

and Hogue (2006) believe that arranging sentences in some kinds of logical orders

or those relationships significantly becomes one way to achieve coherence in a

written work. Therefore, it would be essential if this research could also recognize

the idea relationships in the whole students’ essays.

Based on the analysis, it was quite difficult to recognize the idea

relationships in eighteen essays. Importantly, Brostoff (1981: 279) also writes an

idea toward the similar problems. The idea states that the students encountered

problems in their written work, which were:


94

to make logical relationships, as well as to put together a series of

relationships in a consistent way, more specifically to form a well-

structured sequence or hierarchy of relationships.

Before coming to a further discussion on the issues, this research would

like to discuss the essential points of both enumeration and exemplification

relationships. In a written work, an enumeration idea relationship would suggest

writers to take particular items that have same general ideas and subsequently

arrange them one after the other (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984). Dealing with the

essays to analyze, this research could specifically observe that the ninth essay

showed the informal enumeration. In that case, when writers apply the informal

enumeration, they simply write “a simple list of any number of some related

items” (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 46).

Meanwhile, exemplification deals with providing examples in order to

represent particular realizations concerning more broad ideas (Arnaudet & Barret,

1984), which aimed to help readers understand the ideas clearly. In that case, the

term, examples, could be defined as “ideas which represent specific realizations of

more general ideas” (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 28). Overall, providing examples

becomes the key point in this enumeration relationship. The brief explanation on

the enumeration and exemplification idea relationships in this paragraph would

significantly help readers follow the discussions in the subsequent paragraphs.

The discussion on the idea relationships would start from the ninth essay

that showed an enumeration idea relationship. In the ninth essay entitled “Outing

Class Activities in Improving Children’s Vocabularies (TTL9),” the student would

like to state her position that outing class activities are seen to be more effective to


95

improve children’s vocabularies rather than using activities done in the classroom

(TWP9). In order to support the position, the student wrote some paragraphs that

could show the enumeration idea relationship in the essay. In that case, this

research would show some paragraphs written in the ninth essay:

First is applying some games in outing class’ activity (ESY9-PNT

1).

Nowadays, a number of teachers have realized that games can be an

important thing in both formal and informal education (ESY9-ERT

1.1).

However, most teachers who teach in the classroom often ignore it (ESY9-

ERT1.2

). Teachers just focus on the materials and do not pay attention

whether students are getting bored during the learning activity or not

(ESY9-ERT

1.3). In outing class, the learning activities can be added as

many as possible through games (ESY9-ERT

1.4)...

Second is reading picture books in outing class’ activity (ESY9-PNT

2).

Teachers who teach in classroom absolutely ever use picture books in the

learning activity (ESY9-ERT

2.1). The thing that makes difference is the

situation while students reading the picture book (ESY9-ERT

2.2). When

teachers do the activity of reading picture books in outing class, teachers

can make students to get closer to them (ESY9-ERT

2.3)...

Third is singing English songs in outing class’ activity (ESY9-PNT

3). In

classroom, it is hard to find some teachers who use singing activity to

improve students’ vocabularies (ESY9-ERT

3.1). The fact is teachers just

ask students to remember all the new vocabularies through some books

(ESY9-ERT

3.2)... In outing class, teachers can use singing activity which

provides the opportunity for vocabulary practice (ESY9-ERT

3.5). The

songs can be decided based on the topic that can provide some lists of

vocabulary learning (ESY9-ERT

3.6).

Considering the title, the thesis statement, and the paragraphs of the ninth

essay, this research would also display the deconstruction sample done towards

the ninth essay in Figure 4.2. It would become an illustration to support the

explanation for this informal enumeration relationship. The Figure would also

help readers see the overall picture of the idea relationship emerged in the ninth

essay.


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Figure 4.2 The Text-Deconstruction Sample of the Ninth Essay

Figure 4.2 helped us recognize the implementation of informal

enumeration relationship, which was writing “a simple list of any number of some

related items” (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 46) in the ninth essay. Firstly, we could

see that the use of first, second, and third in each topic sentence of the ninth essay

signaled the enumeration relationship in the essay. Secondly, we could recognize


97

the pattern of ideas in the ninth essay. In that case, the student wrote some related

ideas, talking about outing class activities in her arguments. The activities were

the implementation of games (ESY9-PNT

1), reading picture books (ESY

9-PNT

2),

and singing English songs (ESY9-PNT

3).

In addition, we could observe that the student arranged the similar ideas to

support the position. Clearly, in each of the paragraphs, the student tried to

explain every outing activity done both inside and outside the classroom. It was

continued by the benefits of doing each stated outing activity written in the

paragraphs. For instance, in Figure 4.2, we could see the student explained singing

English songs both inside and outside the classroom (ESY9-ERT

3.1-3.2) as well as

benefits of singing English songs in outing class activity (ESY9-ERT

3.5-3.6) as the

supporting evidence to support the position. It was outing class activities that are

seen to be more effective to improve children’s vocabularies rather than using

activities done in the classroom (TWP9).

The informal enumeration relationship in the ninth essay could also be

recognized because every stated argument, covering its topic sentence and

supporting evidence, was related to and supported the thesis statement, stating that

outing class activities are seen to be more effective to improve children’s

vocabularies rather than using activities done in the classroom (TWP9).

Eventually, the student ended the essay by writing a coherent thesis restatement. It

was “in conclusion, outing class is an effective way to improve children’s

vocabularies (RST9).”


98

In addition to the enumeration idea relationship, this research could also

recognize another type of idea relationships, namely exemplification, in the

seventeenth essay entitled “School Readiness to Face National Exam (TTL17

).” In

this essay, the student tried to state a position that schools are ready to face a

national exam (TWP17

). Then, the student wrote some paragraphs that clearly

showed the exemplification idea relationship in the seventeenth essay. Some

paragraphs written in the essay were shown below:

In SD Negeri Dinoyo 4 Malang, they conduct religious events started in

one month after the new semester begins (ESY17

-PNT5). For example, they

hold istigonah on every Saturday at 3p.m since the first week until one

week before the national exam (ESY17

-ERT5.1

). They did not only do that,

they did social service such as give religious meal to foster house (ESY17

-

ERT5.2

). Another religious event is dhula pray which they held every

morning at 8 a.m (ESY17

-ERT5.3

).

In SMA Muhammadiyah Solo, they prepare to face the national exam since

November (ESY17

-PNT6). Clinical therapy was specially arranged for

students which their score was lowered (ESY17

-ERT6.1

). Students and

parents will be invited to sit down together to discuss the problems faced

and the solutions that must be taken (ESY17

-ERT6.2

).

Different from SMA Muhammadiyah Solo, SMA Negeri 2 Solo arranges

seminars to motivate their students (ESY17

-PNT7). The motivators were

invited from several universities (ESY17

-ERT7.1

). Just like Ajuandi said,

“Students’ mental is also important to make them stay aware (ESY17

-

ERT7.2

).

Considering some paragraphs above, the title, and the thesis statement

written in the seventeenth essay, this research would display the deconstruction

sample done toward the essay. It would become an illustration to support the

explanation provided to this exemplification idea relationship as well as to help

readers see the overall picture of the idea relationship emerged in the seventeenth

essay. Figure 4.3 would display the deconstruction sample.


99

Figure 4.3 The Text-Deconstruction Sample of the Seventeenth Essay

Based on Figure 4.3, the exemplification idea relationship in the

seventeenth essay was clearly recognized. First, the pattern of ideas in the

seventeenth essay meets the pattern as stated by the exemplification idea

relationship’s definition, which deals with providing examples in order to

represent particular realizations concerning more broad ideas (Arnaudet & Barret,

1984). Writers would also provide examples in their written work in order to

clarify their abstract ideas, so that readers can understand the ideas clearly.


100

Considering the definitions of exemplification stated by the theory, this research

could find that writers start from a general idea in their written work. Then, they

provide some examples to come to a less general idea. Eventually, they provide

other examples to come to a specific idea.

In that case, the student wrote some paragraphs, covering their topic

sentences and supporting evidence, which were regarded as the exemplification

idea relationship’s pattern. Clearly, each topic sentence as displayed in Figure 4.3

could become the examples that explained what SD Negeri Dinoyo 4 Malang

(ESY17

-PNT5), SMA Muhammadiyah Solo (ESY

17-PNT

6), and SMA Negeri 2

Solo (ESY17

-PNT7) did in order to prepare their students to face the national

exam. Then, each topic sentence, as examples, could clarify the student’s general

idea stating that schools are ready to face the national exam (TWP17

).

More specifically, the student wrote supporting evidence considered as

further examples that provide further clarification to each written topic sentence.

The supporting evidence could tell the specific realizations of what those three

schools did in order to prepare their students to face the national exam. For

instance, as the specific realization that SMA Muhammadiyah Solo has prepared

to face the national exam since November (ESY17

-PNT6), the student wrote two

supporting evidence, as further examples to clarify the topic sentence. The

supporting evidence were that SMA Muhammadiyah Solo (ESY17

-PNT6)

arranged a clinical therapy to help the students who still have low scores (ESY17

-

ERT6.1

) and would invite the students and their parents to discuss the national

exam (ESY17

-ERT6.2

).


101

Further, in Figure 4.3, we could also recognize the exemplification

relationship in the seventeenth essay because of these further considerations.

Firstly, every stated argument as the given example, covering its topic sentence

and supporting evidence, was related to and supported the thesis statement, stating

that schools are ready to face a national exam (TWP17

). Secondly, in the end of

the essay, the student restated the thesis statement by writing that “with some facts

that I already given, it is clear schools have their own preparations to face the

national exam (RST17

).” Thirdly, the transition for example written in the

supporting evidence (ESY17

-ERT5.1

) could also signal the exemplification

relationship in the seventeenth essay.

Considering the discussions on both the ninth and the seventeenth essays

in the previous paragraphs, this research would like to state that both essays

clearly met the three criteria in analyzing the idea relationships. More specifically,

cohesive devices to signal a particular idea relationship and a clear pattern of ideas

in the essays were clearly observed. Then, the students could successfully write

relevant ideas in both essays, which covered relevant topic sentences, supporting

evidence, and the thesis restatement to support their thesis statement written in

their essays.

Accordingly, this research could firmly say that in order to have a clear

idea relationship in an essay, students should be able to meet those three criteria.

Otherwise, it was quite difficult to state that a particular written work had a clear

idea relationship. This case happened in some essays as displayed in Table 4.1. As

an example, this research would show the fifteenth essay, entitled “Use of


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Recycled Things for Effective Instruction (TTL15

).” In the essay, the student tried

to convince readers that they could get many advantages when they use recycled

materials as a media in an instructional process (TWP15

). In order to support the

position, the student wrote these three topic sentences:

The first one, recycled materials are inexpensive and simple (ESY15

-

PNT1).

The second advantages are recycled materials can help students and

teacher become more creative (ESY15

-PNT2).

The last advantage of recycled materials as alternative media is to help

teachers to teach children how to live in eco-friendly style (ESY15

-PNT3).

Considering the thesis statement (TWP15

) and those three topic sentences

(ESY15

-PNT1-3

), we could observe the student wrote cohesive devices and a clear

pattern of ideas to signal an enumeration idea relationship, especially the informal

idea relationship. Concerning with the cohesive devices, we could also see that the

use of such adjectives as first, second, and last, could signal the enumeration idea

relationship. Then, dealing with the pattern of ideas, this research could state that

the student wrote some related ideas, talking about the advantages of using

recycled materials, in her topic sentences.

Yet, in order to establish a clear idea relationship in the essay, the student

could be possibly expected to write relevant ideas to support each topic sentence.

However, this research found that the student wrote irrelevant supporting

evidence in order to support the second topic sentence stating that recycled

materials can help students and teacher become more creative (ESY15

-PNT2).

Considering that a topic sentence clarifies the point that needs to be elaborated in

the paragraph as well as provides a focus toward a supporting paragraph (Langan,

2011), the student could be expected to clarify further about the recycled


103

materials. Yet, in one of supporting evidence in the essay, the student wrote a very

different idea with the topic sentence stating that there are some ways to recycle

scraps into something that is valuable (ESY15

- ERT2.6

).

Eventually, the discussion on the idea relationships could help the research

state that each element in an essay significantly has a role to form a clear idea

relationship as it was illustrated by Arnaudet and Barret (1984) in their

explanations and examples of eight idea relationships. Therefore, in writing an

analytical exposition essay, students should pay attention to the thesis statement,

the argument, covering its topic sentence, and supporting evidence, and the thesis

restatement in an essay. Besides, they should ensure whether those elements have

been arranged logically and relevant to each other, so they could form a clear idea

relationship in their essay. It is clear that this idea relationship would become one

way to achieve coherence in a written work (Oshima & Hogue, 2006). In the

subsequent parts, other coherence problems that are also closely related to the

discussion in this part and that could affect the idea relationships problems

encountered by the students would be discussed.

2. Irrelevant Topic Sentences

The second coherence problem revealed by this research was irrelevant

topic sentences. More specifically, the student wrote irrelevant topic sentences in

order to support the thesis statement written in their essays. Before coming to

further discussions on this issue, this research would review briefly the ideas of

topic sentences. That would help readers follow the discussions in this part easily.


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A topic sentence in a paragraph has an essential role both in a general

essay and in an analytical exposition essay. Generally, every supporting paragraph

in the body of essays should start with a topic sentence (Langan, 2011). This topic

sentence introduces a supporting idea in each body paragraph (Meyers, 2005) and

clarifies the point that needs to be elaborated in the paragraph as well as provides

a focus toward a supporting paragraph (Langan, 2011). In a context of analytical

exposition essays, a topic sentence would significantly provide a focus as well as

become the point in every given argument written in a paragraph. Accordingly,

this research would consider every topic sentence written by the students in their

analytical exposition essay and see whether it supports the students’ thesis

statement written in their essay.

In other words, this research should ensure the emergence of connected

ideas among the thesis statement and the presented topic sentence in each

paragraph. Otherwise, the coherence problems would possibly occur within the

essay. It was because coherence in this research was concerned with arranging

ideas in a logical way in which every stated idea in our written work is connected

one another. This aims to help our readers understand the ideas stated in our

written work easily, so we could convince them that the stated position in the

essay is correct. Overall, the irrelevant topic sentences in this case were that an

idea written in topic sentences was not relevant to that written in a thesis

statement. Therefore, the written topic sentences did not support the thesis

statement in the students’ essays.


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After considering the roles of a topic sentence elaborated in the previous

paragraphs and the operational definition of coherence stated in this research, this

research more specifically would discuss three related problems dealing with the

irrelevant topic sentences written in the essays. The first problem was that the

topic sentences written by the student were opposed to a thesis statement in an

essay. The second problem was that the topic sentences discussed a very different

idea with that stated in the thesis statement. Meanwhile, the third problem was

related to the issue of descriptive topic sentences.

The discussions on these irrelevant topic sentences would start from the

first related problem stating that the topic sentences written by the student were

opposed to a thesis statement in the essay. This problem was found in the third

essay entitled “English Monologue for Reading Comprehension” (TTL3). Clearly,

in the thesis statement of the third essay, the student aimed to convince readers

that English monologue text is very effective to improve learners’ reading

comprehension (TWP3). Nevertheless, the student, in some topic sentences, wrote

the negative points and sides of an English monologue text in reading, which

clearly did not support the student’s position:

One of the negative effects of using an English monologue text for reading

is the reader might confront with textual difficulties, such as unknown

words (ESY3-PNT

3).

The length of an English monologue text cannot go hand in hand with the

students’ concentration (ESY3-PNT

4).

Reading an English monologue is dealing with complex interpretations

(ESY3-PNT

6).

Reading the topic sentences above (ESY3-PNT

3-6), readers could possibly say that

why they should believe that the student’s position (TWP3), is right if they were


106

informed that there were negative points of the English monologue text, such as

the textual difficulties (ESY3-PNT

3), problems with the students’ concentration

(ESY3-PNT

4), and complex interpretation (ESY

3-PNT

6).

The second related problem dealing with the irrelevant topic sentences was

that topic sentences were not related at all with a thesis statement written in the

essay. In other words, topic sentences discussed a very different point with that

stated in a thesis statement. Clearly, the data displayed in Table 4.2 indicated that

the students frequently wrote topic sentences that discussed a very different point

from that stated in a thesis statement. The subsequent paragraphs would show

some topic sentences taken from some essays in order to provide illustrations to

this problem.

The first essay was used as the first example. In writing the first essay

entitled “Using Drama Activities in Introducing Indonesian Culture for

Foreigners” (TTL1), the student aimed to convince the readers that drama works

effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and language learning for foreigners

(TWP1). Unrelated to drama, the student, in some of her topic sentences, clarified

further ideas about puppet and story-telling:

One of the techniques, Puppet is very often a foreigners’ entertainment

(ESY1-PNT

4).

The last technique is storytelling (ESY1-PNT

6).

In the first essay, the student should have written, for instance, why and

how the drama works effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and language

learning. It was because puppet and storytelling were different from drama, which

became the focus of the essay. When reading such topic sentences stated in the


107

first essay, readers might possibly expect to read further elaborations on puppet

and storytelling which did not support the thesis statement written by the student.

In addition, writing unrelated topic sentences, which were about puppet and

storytelling as different points from a drama, would not help to convince the

readers that drama works effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and

language learning for foreigners (TWP1).

The similar problem was also found in the fifth essay entitled “Applying

Neuro-Linguistic Programming to Public Speaking Class in University Level”

(TTL5). In a thesis statement, the student wrote about Neuro-Linguistic

Programming, henceforth called NLP that could help students become better

public speakers:

In this paper, I would like to talk about applying NLP to public speaking

class which helps the students become much better public speakers

(TWP5).

In order to convince readers to believe the thesis statement stated by the

student, they could possibly expect the student to clarify reasons or ways NLP

program helped the students become better public speakers, regarded as the thesis

statement of the essay. It was because the thesis statement contains an expression

of an attitude, opinion, idea as well as expresses the controlling idea for the entire

essay (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986). In addition, the thesis is a sentence that states

the main point, idea of the whole essay (McMurrey & Campman, 1983).

Nevertheless, in some of her topic sentences, the student stated the purposes of

public speaking class and even the purposes of giving and receiving feedback:

Public speaking is a course which teaches the students to become good

public speakers (ESY5- PNT

2).


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In public speaking class, students are taught some important things when

speaking in front of people (ESY5- PNT

3).

Giving and receiving feedback is also essential when improving public

speaking skill (ESY5- PNT

6).

Clearly, the thesis statement in the fifth essay focused on NLP to help

students become better public speakers (TWP5). Regarding the theories on a thesis

statement (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986; McMurrey & Campman, 1983), we, as

readers, could expect that the student, in her topic sentences, clarified further

about NLP. Therefore, it would not be relevant to talk about what public speaking

is (ESY5-PNT

2), what students do in a public speaking class (ESY

5-PNT

3) and

giving and receiving feedback (ESY5-PNT

6). In that case, the student could clarify

further about the public speaking class in an introductory part of the essay, which

aimed to attract readers’ interest (Langan, 2011) and to introduce the topic to be

discussed (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986), in this case, applying Neuro-Linguistic

Programming in a public speaking class.

Moreover, writing an irrelevant topic sentence would possibly lead the

student to write an incoherent paragraph. It was because a topic sentence clarifies

the point that needs to be elaborated in the paragraph as well as provides a focus

toward a supporting paragraph (Langan, 2011). Therefore, if the student writes

that students in public speaking class are taught some important things when

speaking in front of people (ESY5-PNT

3) as a topic sentence, clearly the

paragraph will clarify those important things. By doing so, the student would not

be able to write a paragraph that was relevant to and supported the thesis

statement of her essay stating that NLP could help students improve their skills as

a public speaker (TWP5).


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The sixth essay entitled “Improving Reading Skill by Paraphrasing

(TTL6)” would become another example for the second problem. In the essay, the

student tried to convince readers that paraphrasing is effective to improve

students’ reading skill (TWP6). The student wrote:

This essay is going to discuss about the effectiveness of improving reading

skill to students by paraphrasing with their own ideas (TWP6).

Regarding the theories on thesis statement (Smalley & Ruetten, 1986;

McMurrey & Campman, 1983), readers could expect that the student, in her topic

sentences, discuss further about paraphrasing. For instance, the student could

clarify further about how paraphrasing can help students improve their reading

skill. Nevertheless, the student in a topic sentence wrote an idea about reading:

Reading is a good habit that should be taught to children from an early

age due to the reading, a lot of benefits can be gained (ESY6-PNT

1).

Obviously, it was difficult to see how clarifying about reading as a good habit

(ESY6-PNT

1), considered as a different point from paraphrase, helped to convince

that paraphrasing is effective to improve students’ reading skill (TWP6).

The third problem on the irrelevant topic sentences was related to what

was regarded as descriptive topic sentences. In this case, a topic sentence did not

support a thesis statement because the topic sentence provided definitions,

characteristics, and forms of particular terms. In the subsequent paragraphs, some

topic sentences were shown as examples to this problem.

The discussions would start from the second essay entitled “The Role of

Student’s Communication to Develop Writing Skill (TTL2)”. In the essay, the

student believed that student’s communication becomes one way to develop


110

students’ writing skill (TWP2). In order to support her belief, the student wrote

some topic sentences, which one of them was the description of communication:

According to Patil (2011), communication is about how we communicate

with each other human being is using means of verbal and non-verbal for

centuries (ESY2-PNT

1).

Considering that a topic sentence tells readers “what they are going to read about”

(Hogue, 2008: 38), readers (ESY2-PNT

1), would be able to see further

clarification about how people communicate with each other. Nevertheless,

clarifying how people communicate with each other would not be related at all

with student’s communication as one way to develop students’ writing skill

(TWP2). Therefore, the topic sentence showed the disconnection of ideas between

a topic sentence and a thesis statement in an essay, which clearly indicated a

coherence problem in the essay.

Another descriptive topic sentence was also found in the twentieth essay

entitled “Using Color in Learning English for Hyperactive Students (TTL20

)”. In

order to support the thesis statement in the essay stating that using color in

learning English is really helpful for hyperactive students who cannot concetrate

in one thing (TWP20

), the student wrote some topic sentences. One of the topic

sentences dealt with special characteristics of hyperactive children:

Hyperactive students have some bad characteristics, but they still have

some good characteristics (ESY20

- PNT5).

Reading such topic sentence (ESY20

-PNT5), readers might possibly expect

that the students discussed further about those good and bad characteristics. It was

because a topic sentence introduces a supporting idea in each body paragraph

(Meyers, 2005), clarifies the point that needs to be elaborated in the paragraph as


111

well as provides a focus toward a supporting paragraph (Langan, 2011).

Nevertheless, stating that hypercative children have both bad and good

characteristics would not be related to the use of color in learning English and

thus, would not help to convince the readers to believe that using color in learning

English is really helpful for hyperactive students who cannot concetrate in one

thing (TWP20

). This would certainly indicate a coherence problem in the essay.

The fourth essay entitled “Teaching English for Autistic Children in

Indonesia with Role Play (TTL4)” could become another example. In the fourth

essay, the student aimed to convince readers that role-play is a suitable method

that can be used to help autistic children in Indonesia learn English more

effectively (TWP4). Similarly, the student, in some of topic sentences, wrote the

definition and characteristics of autism, which did not provide further clarification

on the use of role-play as a method:

According to Byrness (2011), autism is a developmental disability that

typically involves delays and impairment in social skills, language, and

behavior (ESY4-PNT

2).

Rosenberg (2004) states that there are several universal and specific

characteristics of autism (ESY4-PNT

3).

A topic sentence in the sixth essay could become another example of the

description topic sentence. In the essay, the student tried to convince readers that

paraphrasing is effective to improve students’ reading skill (TWP6). In order to

convince them about the effectiveness of paraphrasing to improve the skill, the

student wrote a topic sentence that clarified four levels in reading:

According to Doren and Adler, 2007, there are four levels in reading;

basic reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and sintopical

reading (ESY6-PNT

3).


112

Reading an argumentative essay, readers should be convinced that paraphrasing is

effective to improve students’ reading skill (TWP6). Clearly, clarifying four levels

in reading (ESY6-PNT

3) was not related to the focus of the essay, which was to

convince the readers about the effectiveness of paraphrasing.

Overall, providing the definition as well as characteristics of a particular

term as a topic sentence would lead the students’ essays to become a description

text, which is to “include characteristic features of the subject, such as physical

appearance, qualities, habitual behaviour, and significant attributes” (Board of

Studies New South Wales, 1998: 163). In that case, the students could put such

topic sentences, covering the definition, characteristics, and forms of a particular

term in the introductory part, which aims to introduce the topic to be discussed

(Smalley & Ruetten, 1986). The discussion on this problem also significantly

informed that writing definitions, characteristics, and forms of a particular term as

a topic sentence to support a thesis statement in an argumentative essay should be

minimized and even not be done.

Then, the findings of the current research, specifically in relation to the

irrelevant topic sentences, supported the claim made by the previous related study

conducted by Ahmed in 2010. In his study on one hundred and sixty five student

teachers of English, Ahmed (2010) similarly aimed to investigate students’

coherence problems in EFL essay writing. Implementing an interpretive

qualitative research, which involved the use of a questionnaire and a semi-

structured interview, he revealed that Egyptian student teachers of English

encountered some coherence problems in their English writing. The coherence


113

problems were similarly because of the difficulties that the students had in writing

a topic sentence.

Unlike the current research, he did not mention about the opposing and

unrelated topic sentences to the thesis statement as well as the descriptive topic

sentences as the further clarification on the topic sentence regarded as the

coherence problems in his study. Therefore, the findings of the current research on

the topic sentence could significantly provide the improvement in the case of topic

sentences as the coherence problem found by Ahmed’s previous study in 2010.

Importantly, the discussions on the irrelevant topic sentences would be

able to show a clear relation between a topic sentence and its supporting evidence.

In that case, when the students wrote an irrelevant topic sentence to the thesis

statement of their essays, their supporting evidence could be automatically

regarded as irrelevant supporting evidence. It was because they would mainly

discuss about the irrelevant idea stated in the topic sentence, which clarifies the

point that needs to be elaborated in the paragraph.

3. Irrelevant Supporting Evidence

The last coherence problem was irrelevant supporting evidence written in

a paragraph to support a topic sentence. The discussions would be started by

firstly explaining the ideas of supporting evidence in an argumentative essay,

particularly in an analytical exposition essay. In the context of analytical

exposition essays, students wrote supporting evidence to meet an essential

purpose that is to support a point or a topic sentence in each paragraph (Board of


114

Studies New South Wales, 1998). Then, each paragraph is regarded as an

argument to support a thesis statement (Hardy & Klarwein, 1990; Board of

Studies New South Wales, 1998) and as a body in an essay to develop and to

support the thesis (Meyers, 2005).

The point was that the supporting evidence written by the student would

be organized and elaborated with a topic sentence in order to form a paragraph.

Then, this paragraph would be regarded as an argument to support a thesis

statement. Therefore, the organization and elaboration of supporting evidence and

a topic sentence as well as among the supporting evidence themselves in a

paragraph would be essential point to consider.

Then, in analyzing the supporting evidence in the essays, which is within a

paragraph level, this research would apply the operational definition of a coherent

paragraph and unity stated in Chapter II. A coherent paragraph consists of

integrated sentences whose relation among one sentence to other sentences should

give a continuous line of thought, have a logical arrangement and not be seen as a

series of separate sentences. Then dealing with the idea of unity, writers can unify

their paragraphs by writing mutually supported sentences in their paragraph

(Bram, 1995). Besides, it can be done by discussing only one main idea from the

beginning to the end of their paragraph (Oshima & Hogue, 2006). For instance, if

the writers write about the advantages of owning a car in their paragraph, they

should also discuss its advantages.

Therefore, the supporting evidence written by the students should be able

to support a topic sentence in a paragraph. It was done by writing the supporting


115

evidence that was relevant to the topic sentence. Simply, when a topic sentence in

a paragraph discussed about, for instance, a reading skill, the supporting evidence

should also talk about the reading skill. Besides, all written supporting evidence in

each paragraph should also be related to each other, so readers do not see them as

a series of separate sentences. Similarly, when there was a topic sentence

discussed about the reading skill in a paragraph, all supporting evidence should

also be related to the reading skill. If in the paragraph, there was supporting

evidence that discussed about speaking skill, the irrelevant supporting evidence

within the paragraph could possibly occur.

In order to support the explanation written in the previous paragraphs, this

research would show some supporting evidence taken from the students’ essays.

The first example was taken from the seventh essay entitled “Pop-Up Book as a

Media to Teach Daily Conversation for Children” (TTL7). This essay, in its thesis

statement, stated that a pop-up book would be the most effective media that

teachers can use to teach daily conversation for children (TWP7). Then, in one of

the paragraphs in the essay to support the thesis statement, the student wrote:

As we remember, that pop – up book provides three – dimensional pictures

that can make the learning process more interesting and fun (ESY7-PNT

7).

By using pop – up book, teacher can teach language easier (ESY7-

ERT7.1

). Moreover, pop – up book is usually used to retell and illustrate a

favorite story or fairy tale, share information from a science lesson or

series of lessons, copy and illustrate the lines of a poem and chant or song

they learnt recently, and showcase their own imaginative stories

(Constantinides, 2010) (ESY7-ERT

7.2).

The topic sentence in the paragraph clearly supported the thesis statement

(TWP7). In that case, the topic sentence stated that pop-up book could provide

three-dimensional pictures that are significant for the learning process (ESY7-


116

PNT7). However, the problem occurred when the student, in the subsequent

supporting evidence, did not elaborate further about those three-dimensional

pictures that can make the learning process become more interesting and fun.

In fact, in the subsequent supporting evidence (ESY7-ERT

7.1), the student,

without discussing the use of three-dimensional pictures, stated that the teacher

can teach the language more easily by the use of pop-up book. Even, the student

wrote the usage a pop-up book itself that was obviously different from, and did

not support the idea of the three-dimensional pictures (ESY7-ERT

7.2). Overall, in

that paragraph, the three-dimensional pictures were not elaborated and supported

by its subsequent evidence. This would certainly cause a coherence problem and

at the same time confirm what Brostoff (1981) believes that the ideas in a written

work are sometimes next to, but not connected to each other, which possibly

causes the incoherence in the students’ writing.

The tenth essay entitled “The Use of Digital Story Telling in Speaking

Class (TTL10

) could become another example. In the essay, the student aimed to

convince readers that the use of digital story telling will increase the excitement of

the students in a speaking class (TWP10

).” In order to support the position

(TWP10

), the student wrote some topic sentences that one of them was:

Students who make their own traditional story telling with digital story

telling will be more enthusiastic and motivated to learn about how to have

good speaking skills (ESY10

- PNT7).

The student also wrote some supporting evidence to support the topic sentence:

Hence, students have to produce clear voices in speaking while making the

audio recording. (ESY10

-ERT7.1

) The motivation itself comes from

students’ mind and willingness in order to get success in their speaking

class (ESY10

–ERT7.2

)...


117

Clearly, the jumping idea occurred in the first supporting evidence. In that

case, it was quite difficult to bridge the connection between the enthusiasm,

motivation to learn how to have good speaking skills (ESY10

-PNT10

) and making

the audio recording (ESY10

-ERT7.1

). Having such supporting evidence, the student

could not establish a unity in the paragraph, because mutually supporting evidence

(ESY10

-ERT7.1

) was not written within the paragraph. This finding could also

support the claim made by the previous related study that states that organization

and development of arguments become major challenges that the students

encounter in writing their argumentative written work (Zhu, 2001).

The third example was from the first essay entitled “Using Drama

Activities in Introducing Indonesian Culture for Foreigners (TTL1).” As stated

previously, the student, in this first essay, aimed to convince readers that drama

works effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and language learning for

foreigners (TWP1). Then, in the third paragraph in the essay, the student wrote a

topic sentence that tells us a variety of drama technique that can provide benefits

for foreigners, Indonesian culture, and language skills:

There are a variety of drama techniques that lend foreigners to creative

thinking and can be used to introduce Indonesian culture and develop

language skills: Puppet, Role-play, Storytelling (ESY1-PNT

3).

In order to form a coherent paragraph as well as to establish the unity of

the paragraph, the student should have provided further elaboration about the

techniques stated in the topic sentence, for instance, by giving evidence or

examples dealing with the usage of the techniques to develop language skills. As

an analogy, “if a topic sentence states that Melisa has five choices, the paragraph


118

has to inform the readers about the five choices” (Bram, 1995: 20). In that case,

this research would show some supporting evidence written by the student to

support the third topic sentence:

These techniques can be used to help reinforce specific areas of a lesson,

to explore an aspect of learning or to enhance and enrich the quality of

learning about historical, social, or moral issues especially for learning

culture and historical story in Indonesia (ESY1-ERT

3.1). A picture,

photograph, or object can be used as a stimulus or starting point for

developing roles or situations (ESY1-ERT

3.2). A piece of music or a story

can inspire improvisation and development of characters, settings, and

situations (ESY1-ERT

3.3).

Obviously, the irrelevant ideas occured when the first supporting evidence

was followed by the benefits of using a picture, photograph, or an object (ESY1-

ERT3.2

) and the benefits of a piece of music or a story (ESY1-ERT

3.3). The second

and the third supporting evidence were not related to the three techniques stated in

the topic sentence. In fact, in the second and the third supporting evidence, the

student wrote very new ideas, which could be regarded as separated sentences that

did not support their previous supporting evidence (ESY1-ERT

3.1) and the topic

sentence, focusing on a variety of drama technique that can provide benefits for

foreigners, Indonesian culture, and language skills (ESY1-PNT

3).

The jumping ideas among supporting evidence in the third paragraph in

the first essay would certainly confirm the finding of the previous related studies

(Jones, 2011; Brostoff, 1981). Jones (2011) found the disconnection among

sentences in a paragraph written by the student. In a sense, the irrelevant

supporting evidence as shown previously could also prove that incoherence in



119

which means they are next to, but not connected to each other” (Brostoff, 1981:

279).

The irrelevant supporting evidence could also in the form of paraphrase

written by the students. According to Murray and Hughes (2008), a paraphrase

shows that writers try to express a particular meaning from a passage, but they do

not use exactly the same words as those written in the original text. In addition,

doing a paraphrase would help writers attain greater clarity in their written work

(Murray & Hughes, 2008).

Previously, it was written that a coherent paragraph consists of integrated

sentences whose relation among one sentence to other sentences should give a

continuous line of thought, have a logical arrangement and not be seen as a series

of separate sentences. When this research related the proposed idea about a

paraphrase to the idea on a coherent paragraph, the paraphrase made by the

student certainly should have a connection to its surrounding sentences. In that

case, the paraphrase should support either the topic sentence or the supporting

evidence written in a paragraph. Otherwise, the paraphrase done by the students

would be a separate sentence within a paragraph and possibly become the

coherence problem in the students’ essays.

This research found some problems concerning with this paraphrase issue

in the students’ essays. The sixteenth essay entitled “The Role of Peer in Writing

Class (TTL16

)” was chosen as an example in order to help us attain a better

understanding toward this paraphrase problem. In the sixteenth essay, the student

aimed to convince readers that peer discussion and feedback will be very helpful


120

for students in writing class (TWP16

). Further, the student wrote a paragraph to

convince them that peer discussion and feedback will be very helpful for students

in writing class:

The last advantage is that peer discussion and feedback increase the

motivation and confidence in students’ writing (ESY16

-PNT7). Peer

discussion and feedback encouraging students to focus on their intended

meaning by discussing alternative points of view that can lead to the

development of those ideas (DiPardo & Freedman, 1988, Mangelsdorf,

1992 & Mendonca & Johnson, 1994) (ESY16

- ERT7.1

). With their own

friends, students find it easier to accept the comment or feedback that

given by their friends (ESY16

- ERT7.2

).

Obviously, there was no problem with the topic sentence written in the paragraph.

It was because stating that peer discussion and feedback could help to increase the

motivation and confidence in students’ writing would clearly support the thesis

statement of the essay, stating that peer discussion and feedback will be very

helpful for students in writing class (TWP16

).

However, readers should read carefully the subsequent sentence regarded

as the supporting evidence in that paragraph. In the next sentence (ESY16

-ERT7.1

),

the student clearly made a paraphrase from ideas stated by some people. The

paraphrase discussed some essential ideas given by the peer discussion and

feedback. They are students’ encouragement to focus on their intended meaning

and the discussion on alternative points of view (ESY16

-ERT7.1

).

Dealing with that paraphrase, the student should have been more careful in

selecting other people’s ideas to paraphrase. The point was that the student should

see carefully whether the ideas to paraphrase were related to and supported her

topic sentence. In that case, it was difficult to see the connection of the ideas in

the paraphrase; talking about the intended meaning (ESY16

-ERT7.1

) and the ideas


121

written in the topic sentence; stating that peer discussion and feedback increase

the motivation and confidence in students’ writing (ESY16

-PNT7).

The student actually could elaborate further about the paraphrase in the

subsequent supporting evidence. It aimed to tell the readers if the paraphrase was

concerned with the motivation and confidence in students’ writing, which became

the point stated in the topic sentence (ESY16

-PNT7). However, in the second

supporting evidence, we could see that the student wrote another different idea

from the first paraphrase made in the paragraph. It was the students’

encouragement to focus on their intended meaning and the discussion on

alternative points of view (ESY16

-ERT7.1

). Clearly, the subsequent supporting

evidence stated that with their friends, the students would find it easier to accept

the comment or feedback given by their friends (ESY16

- ERT7.2

) was more

relevant to the topic sentence (ESY16

- PNT7).

After discussing the irrelevant supporting evidence written in the essays,

this research could also find that the length of a paragraph possibly became

another factor that could possibly cause the students to write those irrelevant

supporting evidence in their essay. The point was that the irrelevant supporting

evidence or the jumping ideas among the supporting evidence were easily found

in a paragraph consisting more than five sentences. In other words when the

students wrote more than five sentences in their paragraph, they would have more

possibilities to write the unrelated supporting evidence, disconnected sentences

(Jones, 2011), as well as to have scattered ideas (Fahin & Rad, 2012) within their

paragraph.


122

A paragraph taken from the thirteenth essay would become an example to

support the explanation stated in the previous paragraph. In the thirteenth essay

entitled “English Should Not Be Omitted from Elementary School” (TTL13

), the

student aimed to convince readers that English should not be omitted from an

elementary school because of benefits and good points that students can get from

English learning (TWP13

). Then, in order to support the stated thesis statement,

the student wrote this following paragraph, consisting of a topic sentence and a

number of supporting evidence:

The third good point of learning English in elementary school is that

English will always be the part of subject that students will learn in

secondary school and senior high school (ESY13

-PNT3). It will always

become the part of subjects they are going to learn (ESY13

-ERT3.1

). In

secondary school, students will be shocked to learn new language they do

not have conceptual background if English is omitted from elementary

school (ESY13

-ERT3.2

). Besides, omitting English also means to change

the standard competence of English language in educational system

(ESY13

-ERT3.3

). The standard competence will be arranged and reduced

from the very beginning (ESY13

-ERT3.4

). In the other word, what student

should learn in elementary school about English should be learnt in their

secondary school and what student should learn in secondary school about

English should be learnt in their high school (ESY13

-ERT3.5

). Moreover,

English may not only stop in school (ESY13

-ERT3.6

).The increasing use of

English for cross cultural communication makes the need for the teaching

of pragmatics in language classrooms all the more important (Sharifian,

2009) (ESY13

-ERT3.7

). In this era of globalization, cross cultural

communication may happen every time (ESY13

-ERT3.8

). The environment

of student future job may require them to be passive or active English

speaker who have cross cultural communication competence (ESY13

-

ERT3.9

). Learning English as early as possible may help students to shape

their conceptual knowledge about English which then they will use and

develop it in their next levels of their education (ESY13

-ERT3.10

).

The topic sentence (ESY13

-PNT3) written by the student supported the

thesis statement stating that English should not be omitted from an elementary

school because of benefits and good points that students can get from English


123

learning (TWP13

). In the topic sentence, the student argued that English would

always be a subject to learn by students in secondary schools and senior high

schools (ESY13

-PNT3). In other words, the student tried to argue that English

would be a continuous subject to learn in every educational stage in Indonesia;

starting from an elementary up to high school level.

Dealing with the supporting evidence, readers could observe the

connection of ideas among the first up to the fifth supporting evidence (ESY13

-

ERT3.1-3.5

) written in the paragraph. In those supporting evidence, the student

argued that English would become a subject to learn and function as a foundation

of learning a new language. In the subsequent supporting evidence, the student

argued that omitting English in secondary school would possibly affect the

changes of the standard competence of English. The changes would affect English

learning processes that students have in every educational stage.

Nevertheless, from the sixth supporting evidence, it was not easy to see the

connection of ideas with the previous supporting evidence. Clearly, when the

student argued that English may not stop in a school (ESY13

-ERT3.6

) and further

talked about cross cultural communication (ESY13

-ERT3.7,8

) as well as students’

future job environment (ESY13

-ERT9), the student, did not support the topic

sentence and the previous supporting evidence, which focused on the importance

of English subject in the learning process within a school context. The student

actually could use the sixth supporting evidence as a new topic sentence written in

another paragraph to support the thesis statement. Eventually, this finding would


124

support the idea of unclear link of a theme (Jones, 2007) as well as the

disconnection of sentences within a paragraph (Jones, 2011).

In that case, this research would suggest that the students could try to write

a shorter paragraph. Specifically, they could try not to write more than five

supporting evidence in every paragraph. By doing so, they would help their

readers follow the ideas in each paragraph easily and minimize the emergence of

unconnected ideas among supporting evidence within a paragraph.

As some examples, this research would show a number of paragraphs,

consisting of a fewer sentences, regarded as the supporting evidence, written by

the students in their essay. In the eleventh essay entitled “Maximizing the Use of

Media in Teaching English to Dyslexia Children” (TTL11

), the student tried to

write a number of paragraphs to convince readers that in learning English for

dyslexia children, maximizing the use of media is regarded as an effective way to

help them learn the language (TWP11

). Below was one of the paragraphs:

Another media that can help dyslexic learns English easier is using tape

recorder (ESY11

-PNT9). Direction, stories, and specific lessons can be

recorded on tape (ESY11

-ERT9.1

). The student can replay the tape to

clarify understanding of directions or concepts (Rondot, 2006) (ESY11

-

ERT9.2

).

The paragraph was coherent because the supporting evidence showed how tape

recorder, regarded as a media, facilitated the learning process of the language, for

instance, by helping the student to record a story, and to replay a particular

direction.

Another coherent paragraph from the same essay was shown below:

Playing drama can be the good media for practicing dyslexic’s skill in

speaking English (ESY11

-PNT10

). The student will learn to make some


125

dialog with other students without any fear (ESY11

-ERT10.1

). They are

going to enjoy playing drama (ESY11

-ERT10.2

). They will memorize the

conversation step by step (ESY11

-ERT10.3

). It will add their vocabulary

and practice their speaking skill (ESY11

-ERT10.4

).

In supporting the topic sentence (ESY11

-PNT10

), stating that playing a drama was

another good media to practice English-speaking skill, the student wrote some

benefits that dyslexia students could have from playing the drama. Clearly, by

playing a drama, the students could practice making a dialogue, memorize it,

develop their vocabulary skills, and practice speaking in English.

From the samples of paragraphs shown previously, this research could

certainly believe that considering the number of sentences, regarded as the

supporting evidence, in a paragraph would possibly help us follow the ideas in

each paragraph easily and to minimize the emergence of unconnected ideas

among supporting evidence within a paragraph. Significantly, the findings of the

research in relation to the number of supporting evidence and sentences within a

paragraph would develop the findings of the coherence problems revealed by the

previous related studies

In order to end the discussions in this chapter, this research stated that the

major problems discussed in this chapter; unclear idea relationships, irrelevant

topic sentences, and supporting evidence were indeed related to coherence.

Clearly, those three problems showed the unconnected of ideas among elements in

the students’ essays. More specifically, the unconnected of ideas occurred

between the topic sentence and the thesis statement, the topic sentence and its

supporting evidence, and among the supporting evidence within a paragraph. In

this case, the unconnected of ideas in those elements of the essays could also


126

break the unity of the text. It was because the occurrence of the unconnected of

ideas would not enable the student to write united paragraphs in their essays. As a

result, they would not be able to write a coherent written work since “coherence

was the overall unity of a text” (Spencer & Fitzgerald, 1993: 212). At the same

time, the discussions on this chapter would clearly confirm the idea that coherence

is “the overall unity of a text (Spencer & Fitzgerald, 1993: 212) and the sense of

unity and flow that exists between the ideas expressed in a piece of writing”

(Murray & Hughes, 2008: 197).

In addition, it would be wiser if this research could also explain the

limitation of the findings revealed by this research in order to end the discussions

in this chapter. The limitation would be related to the findings of the current

research. The findings were limited to the type of essays to analyze, which was

the analytical exposition essay, written in the context of Academic Essay Writing

class at ELESP. Therefore, to conduct a further research to investigate whether the

similar coherence problems occurred in some different types of essays and in a

different context would support the findings of the current research. In spite of the

limitations stated in this paragraph, this research has significantly provided

descriptive information dealing with the major coherence problems in the

students’ analytical exposition essays.


127

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

This final chapter addresses two main points. They are conclusions and

suggestions. The first point, conclusions, presents the summary of my data

analysis result, which becomes the answer to the research question and which is

followed by some essential points on coherence problems obtained from the data

analysis. The second point, suggestions, draws some suggestions for students in

the Academic Essay Writing class, for lecturers teaching academic essay writing,

and eventually for future researchers who are interested in following up this

research.

A. Conclusion

This research aims to investigate the coherence problems in the students’

essays. As the result of its investigation, this research would be able to reveal the

coherence problems in the students’ argumentative essay, which was in the form

of analytical exposition. In addition, the result would provide descriptive analysis

toward the coherence problems. Overall, in terms of the students’ analytical

exposition essays, the research could possibly reveal three major coherence

problems that become the answer to the research question.

The first problem was unclear idea relationships. The problem revealed the

difficulties to recognize the idea relationships in eighteen essays. The problem

was mostly because of unclear pattern of ideas in the essays and irrelevant ideas


128

written in a topic sentence to its thesis statement as well as supporting evidence to

its topic sentence. This also strongly indicates that readers can recognize a clear

idea relationship within an essay only if a thesis statement, every topic sentence

and its supporting evidence are connected to and support each other. Therefore,

dealing with this first problem, this research could also conclude that every

element in an essay has a significant role to develop coherence in a written work

as well as to determine whether a written work is coherent.

The second problem was irrelevant topic sentences. Generally, it revealed

some problems in topic sentences that the students wrote to support a thesis

statement stated in their essays. The problem also found that topic sentences were

not related to a thesis statement and consequently they did not support it.

More specifically, the irrelevant topic sentences covered three essential

problems. First, a topic sentence written by the student was opposed to a thesis

statement in the essay. Second, topic sentences were not related at all with a thesis

restatement written in the essay. In other words, the topic sentences discussed a

very different point with that stated in the thesis statement. Third, some topic

sentences written by the students were regarded as a descriptive topic sentence.

Then, this research concluded that these irrelevant topic sentences became the

most problematic coherence problems found in the research. At the same time,

this research could also conclude that writing a relevant topic sentence to a thesis

statement becomes a challenging task for the students.

The last problem was irrelevant supporting evidence. Dealing with this

problem, the research found irrelevant ideas among the supporting evidence


129

written to support a topic sentence in a paragraph. Consequently, the supporting

evidence in a paragraph could be seen as a series of separate sentences, which

were not related to one another.

The last problem, irrelevant supporting evidence, also covered a

paraphrase that the students wrote in their essays. Dealing with the paraphrase,

this research found out that the paraphrase made by the students did not support a

topic sentence as well as had irrelevant ideas to the surrounding supporting

evidence written in a paragraph. In other words, the paraphrase was regarded as a

separate sentence that did not have any relations with its surrounding sentences in

a paragraph.

Finally, this research could conclude that the students’ analytical

exposition essays contain three major coherence problems. They were unclear

idea relationships, irrelevant topic sentences, and irrelevant supporting evidence.

Significantly, the findings of the research confirmed and at the same time

developed the findings of the coherence problems revealed by the previous related

studies.

B. Suggestions

This research would provide suggestions specifically for two parties. They

are students in the Academic Essay Writing class and lecturers teaching academic

essay writing. Finally, for the research development in the future, this research

also provides significant suggestions for future researchers who are interested in

following up this research.


130

1. For Students in the Academic Essay Writing class

This research could propose some suggestions for students in the

Academic Essay Writing class. Firstly, they should put more their attention to

their outlining process. In that case, they need to think carefully and to list what to

write in a thesis statement, in a topic sentence covering its supporting evidence to

support the topic sentence, and in a thesis restatement. Secondly, they should also

check carefully the topic sentence in their outline, ensure whether the topic

sentence is relevant to, and supports the thesis statement. Thirdly, the students are

suggested to read many examples of argumentative essays from various sources.

This also implies that the students should not always look at the examples given

by the lecturer in their classroom or from the given module in the class. Then, the

examples do not need to be a very long essay consisting of many paragraphs,

which possibly confuse the students.

There are more points that are also essential to suggest. Firstly, in relation

to the idea relationships in an essay, the students could use enumeration idea

relationship when they write their analytical exposition essay. Secondly, dealing

with the number of sentences written in a paragraph, the students can try not to

write more than five sentences in each paragraph. This research believes that

writing four up to five sentences in a paragraph would help to minimize the

unconnected ideas within the supporting evidence written in the paragraph.

Eventually, the students could see some possible coherence problems as revealed

by the current research, to recognize the pattern of the problems, to realize the


131

occurrence of the problems, to learn from them, and eventually to minimize them

when they write their future academic written work.

2. For Lecturers Teaching Academic Essay Writing

This research would like to propose some essential suggestions for

lecturers teaching Academic Essay Writing class. First, the lecturers need to spend

their time to check and to provide some constructive feedback for the outline

made by the students for their planned argumentative essay and for the first draft

of the essays. In this case, the lecturer is suggested not only to give feedback to

the grammatical devices written in the outline but also to check whether there are

already logical arrangement of ideas among the thesis statement, topic sentences

covering their supporting evidence, and the thesis restatement in the essay.

Second, the lecturers need to ask their students to make a detailed outline

for their planned argumentative writing. The outline should cover the title, the

thesis statement, the topic sentences covering supporting evidence to support the

topic sentence in each paragraph, and the restatement of the thesis, for their

planned argumentative essay. It would possibly make the lecturer easily see the

overall ideas in the students’ planned argumentative essay.

Third, the lecturers need to provide more inputs involving examples of

various argumentative essays. In that case, the lecturers could ask their students to

review and to learn how the topic sentences, supporting evidence are written in

the examples as well as what cohesive devices used in the essays. Dealing with

this suggestion, the lecturers are also suggested to discuss frequently the ideas of


132

topic sentences in a paragraph since they become the most problematic coherence

problems revealed by this research. Last, the lecturers can try to put coherence as

one of the assessment criteria used in their classroom. This would possibly

encourage the students to keep being aware of the coherence issue in their writing.

3. For Future Researchers

I do realize my position as a novice researcher who is impossible to

conduct a research without any further improvement. Accordingly, for the

improvement of this research, I could suggest future researchers to take another

qualitative study in order to find out whether the similar coherence problems

occurred in other forms of written text, such as in a chapter of books, international

journal articles and other English language articles written by well-known writers

from Indonesia or from outside Indonesia. Another possibility is to find out

whether the coherence problems revealed by this research could become a

framework to design a writing assessment for a particular group of learners in a

formal educational setting.

Finally, this research would like to admit that it is not easy to write a

perfect coherent argumentative essay. However, this research believes that a

student needs to be given a particular guideline to help them write a coherent

argumentative essay. Accordingly, I would place this research as one of many

suggested models whose theories, findings, and discussion can be adopted and

regarded as a guide by the students specifically when they write their

argumentative essay. Finally, admitting the weaknesses and limitation that this


133

research has, I could still certainly assert that this research has already contributed

to the development of English language teaching and learning practice as well as

the science of English language education.


134

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139

APPENDICES


140

APPENDIX A - The Letter of References from ELS -


141

APPENDIX B - An Initial Permission Letter Sent to the Lecturer-

(as well as Its Reply Message)


142

APPENDIX C -The Lecturer’s Instructions-

(Formulated in the Power Point Slides)

argumentation

1

st slide


143

Argumentative essay is built around a specific statement (or main premise) that is debatable within the field.

Debatable statements are statements or premises with which other people may or may not agree.

When you are writing an argumentative essay, your aim is to make your readers agree with your debatable statements.

Whether you are arguing a position, proposing a solution, justifying an evaluation, speculating about causes, or interpreting a story, you need to give reasons and support for your thesis.

What is argumentative essay?

1. State your opinion on your topic in your thesis statement.

you must take a stand for or against an action or an idea

2. Find out as much as you can about your audience before you write.

Knowing your readers’ background will help you choose the best supporting evidence and examples.

convincing people in two different age groups to apply a certain method: old teachers vs. fresh graduate teachers

How to write one?

2nd

slide

3rd

slide


144

3. Choose evidence that supports your thesis statement.

Evidence is the most important factor in writing an argumentative essay. Why???

WITHOUT SOLID EVIDENCE, YOUR ESSAY IS NOTHING MORE THAN OPINION

Solid evidence (facts, statistics, statements from authorities, and examples gathered from personal observations, experiences, and reading) will make readers understand your position and perhaps agree with it.

How to write one?

4. Maintain a reasonable tone

Keep the “voice” of your essay calm and sensible because your readers will be much more open to what you have to say if they think you are a reasonable person.

Do not “shout” or make sarcastic comments

How to write one?

5. Organize your essay so that it presents your position as effectively as possible

Good essay organization will take your readers step by step through your reasoning in an attempt to get them to agree with you.

How to write one?

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145

Writers develop their arguments by providing supporting statements (Daly, 1997). Study the example from Daly:

Premise:

Marijuana should be legalized

Supporting statement 1:

Firstly, it is less harmful to people’s health than alcohol


In addition, a very large percentage of the population uses it

How to develop the argument?

Read the following essay model. Find the main premise and the supporting arguments or statements.

Computer-assisted instruction has been shown in a range of studies to facilitate learning in a variety ways. Computer can be used to aide in teaching English Language Learners in core academic subjects, such as reading and writing. Computers can aide in vocabulary development as well as verbal language development. Ultimately, however, it is important to recognize that computers are not a substitute for effective teaching. Computers are a tool --- they are simply one type of supplement to the regular curriculum in teaching English Language Learners as they develop their English language skills.

Essay model

Premise:



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146

Look at your module page 11. Read Model 2 “Why Good Writers Keep Journals” and do exercise 1.

Assignment 1

Make the outline of your own Argumentative essay based on the topic you have chosen.

The outline includes: background, thesis statement, premise, supporting statements, conclusion, references (to be submitted today)

Assignment 2

Thank you…

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APPENDIX D -The Inter-Rater Form-

Dear Lecturer

My name is Yustinus Calvin Gai Mali. Now, I am studying for my Magister

Humaniora (M.Hum) in the Graduate Program in English Language Studies at

Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta. As a part of my study, I am conducting a

research on “The Study of Coherence-Related Problems in Academic Essay

Writing.”

As an attempt to establish trustworthiness in the research, I do need multiple

observers. They are required to check and subsequently to give comments for the

analysis that I have done toward an argumentative essay written by a student.

Accordingly, I would like to ask your assistance and willingness to become one of

the observers for my research.

In this form, you initially are required to fill in the provided participation consent

form, whose function is to record your statement of agreement to participate in

this research. In addition, the form is used to show the originality of the given

comments. I have also provided some space that you may use to write your

comments on the analysis that I have done.

I will publish the comments given to my analysis. Importantly, any of your given

comments will be credited to you. Then, I would willingly send you a copy of the

research if you would like to have it.

If you have any further questions concerning this form or my research, you may

contact me at anytime that is convenient to you; in this following phone number

or email address:

0856 290 2547

[email protected]

Eventually, I thank you very much for your help and participation in this research.

Your kind help and participation definitely contribute a lot to the accomplishment

of this research.

Regard


The Researcher


148

Analysis Guide

1. In this opportunity, I would like to state the definition of coherence used in my research.

Stating the definition would equalize our perceptions concerning the concept of coherence:

I would like to state that when we talk about coherence in a written work, we will talk

about some essential points. The first point deals with arranging ideas in a logical way in

which every stated idea in our written work, both among sentences and parts of the

written work, is connected one another. This aims to help our readers to understand the

ideas stated in our written work easily. The second point is that when I analyze coherence

in a written work, I should be able to explain, for instance, the connection among stated

ideas in a written work, and eventually to explain why the ideas in this written work are

said to be arranged logically.

2. In analyzing the coherence, it is essential for us to see an idea relation of that logical

arrangement. In this research, I used eight ideas relations as proposed by Arnadeut and Barret

(1984). They are exemplification, contrast, comparison, enumeration, chronology, causality,

process, and spatial order. I would give you the soft copy dealing with explanation summary of

the ideas.

3. This is the outline of the argumentative essay written by the students.

4. I use an abbreviation system provided in a Table below when I analyze and deconstruct the

essay.

The Abbreviation System in Data Analysis

Code Description

ESY1 An argumentative essay written by the first student

TTL1 The title of the first essay

TWP1 The thesis statement/ position in the first essay

AGM1 The first argument stated by the student

PNT1 The point/ topic sentence of the first argument

PNT2 The point/ topic sentence of the second argument

ERT1.1

The first supporting evidence written for the first point/ topic sentence

ERT2.1

The first supporting evidence written for the second point/ topic sentence

RST1 The restatement of the thesis in the first essay

CNT Connective


149

THE RESEARCHER’S

ANALYSIS


150

Name :Olivya Agustia

Student Number : 111214090

Topic: Drama in Learning Indonesian Culture for Foreigners Title: Using drama activities in introducing Indonesian Culture for foreigners

(TTL1)

Learning language and culture can be done in many ways. One of the ways

is through drama activity. Drama is not only teaches the learner how to act and it

is not only about the product (the performance) but part of process of language

learning. It allows the learners in this case are the foreigners to own the simple

and mechanical language and learn about other cultures (Philips, 1999). Drama is

possible for the foreigners who want to learn about Indonesian culture and the

language as well and language teachers who are interested in introducing

Indonesian culture and the language through drama activities for foreigners using

drama activities. (TWP1) This essay will explain how drama works effectively in

introducing Indonesian culture and language learning for foreigners.

Why use drama activities?

(PNT1) Drama is a familiar activity in teaching language method,

especially in learning speaking, listening, reading and writing skills. (ERT1.1

)In

addition, using drama activities has clear advantages for language learning. It

encourages the foreigners to speak and gives them the chance to communicate

(Philips, 1999). (ERT1.2

)Therefore, Drama is an extremely useful activity in

introducing Indonesian culture and developing language skills, encouraging social

interaction, and group participation and teaching how listen and respond

appropriately for foreigners. (ERT1.3

)It is a multi-sensory tool, which combines

listening, speaking, thinking, exploration and use of the immediate environment

and the development of physical control (Thompson & Evans, 2005).

(PNT2) Furthermore, the start of Drama lessons should not always be

predictable. (ERT2.1

)Starting Drama lessons in a range of ways will stimulate

curiosity and support engagement. (ERT2.2

)A teacher might start the lesson using

music, or an object, a piece of text, or by going straight into „teacher in role‟, or

by using a photo, picture or painting. (ERT2.3

)Whatever the teacher decides to do

as an opening move, it is important that the foreigners have the full attention of

the whole class before starting (Baldwin, 2009).

(PNT3)There are a variety of drama techniques that lend foreigners to

creative thinking and can be used to introduce Indonesian culture and develop

language skills:

■ Puppet

■ Role play

■ Storytelling

(ERT3.1

)These techniques can be used to help reinforce specific areas of a lesson,

to explore an aspect of learning or to enhance and enrich the quality of learning

A Sample of Student‟s Essay


151

about historical, social or moral issues especially for learning culture and

historical story in Indonesia. (ERT3.2

)A picture, photograph or object can be used

as a stimulus or starting point for developing roles or situations. (ERT3.3

)A piece

of music or a story can inspire improvisation and development of characters,

settings, and situations. (ERT3.4

)A piece of improvised drama can become a focus

for discussion and a means for foreigners to communicate ideas. (ERT

3.5)Foreigners should also be able to explore the expressive possibilities of

their voices and bodies through structured activities and improvisation (Thompson

& Evans, 2005). (ERT3.6

)Through drama, the teacher can encourage foreigners to

contribute their own ideas, thoughts and feelings based on experience or a

willingness to explore further about Indonesia culture. Thus, it really helps

foreigners as the learner in learning Indonesian culture easily.

PUPPET

(PNT4)One of the techniques, Puppet is very often a foreigners‟

entertainment. (ERT4.1

)There is probably much that foreigners could appreciate

Shadow Puppet from the Indonesian island of Java for example Wayang Orang,

Ludruk and Ketoprak, Sundanese Sandiwara, and Betawi Lenong. Puppet or

Wayang, the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese shadow puppet theatre shows

display several mythological legends such as Ramayana and Mahabrata, and

many more. (ERT4.2

)Wayang Orang is Javanese traditional dance drama based on

wayang stories. Various Balinese dance drama also can be included within

traditional form of Indonesian drama. Another form of local drama is Javanese

Ludruk and Ketoprak, Sundanese Sandiwara, and Betawi Lenong. All of these

drama incorporated humor and jest, often involving audiences in their

performance. (ERT4.3

) Another puppet is Randai and Koma Theatre. Randai is a

folk theatre tradition of Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, usually performed

for traditional ceremonies and festivals. It incorporates music, singing, dance,

drama, with performances often based on semi-historical Minangkabau legends

and love story. While Koma are gain popularity in Indonesia as their drama often

portray social and culture of Indonesian society (Koes, 2005).

ROLE PLAY

(PNT5)All of the dramas in Indonesia help foreigners know about the

culture and learn about the language spontaneously, since there are many aspects

in drama that can develop the skills of language learning such as through role play

technique. (ERT5.1

)The foreigners rehearse the language and the „script‟ of the

situation and experience the emoticons involved, knowing that they can switch

back to reality which in this case is Indonesian social and culture. (ERT5.2

)Such

pretend play prepares foreigners for the real-life situations. (ERT5.3

)Make believe

encourages their creativity and develops their imaginations, and at the same time

gives them the opportunity to use language that is outside their own mother

language and daily needs. (ERT5.4

)Language teachers can use this natural desire

to act out situations (Philips, 1999). (ERT5.5

)You can ask them to be Pandava and

Khrisna in an act of the Wayang Wong or Wayang Orang performance and then

use a language that grows out of that personality or role.


152

STORYTELLING

(PNT6)The last technique is storytelling. (ERT

6.1)It is one of the simplest

techniques and imaginative activity in dramatizing the text or script of drama.

(ERT6.2

)It gives those foreigners who are shy when speaking a foreign language

another character to „hide-behind‟ and helps them become actively involves in a

text. (ERT6.3

)This personalization makes language more meaningful a memorable

than drilling or mechanical repetition can (Honey, 2008).

(RST1) To sum up, Drama is an invaluable activity in introducing culture

and language learning for foreigners because it has several techniques in

developing foreigners‟ knowledge about social activity, language and culture in

Indonesia.

REFERENCES

Baldwin,Patrice. (2009). School Improvement Through Drama: A Creative Whole

Class, Whole Class Approach. London: Continuum International Publishing

Group.

Honey, William S. (2008). Integral Drama Culture, Consciousness and Identity.

New York: Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam.

Philips, Sarah. (1999). Drama with Children. New York: Oxford University press.

Thompson, Gill & Evans, Huw. (2005). Thinking it Through: Linking Language

Skills, Thinking Skills, and Drama. Great Britain: David Fulton Publishers

Yuliadi, Koes. (2005). Drama Gong di Bali. Yogjakarta: BP ISI Yogyakarta.


153

Text-Deconstruction Sample


154

In the first essay, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas among

the title, the writers‟ position, the arguments, and a restatement of their position

were analyzed. In that case, the research found some coherence problems in the

first essay.

More specifically, the student wrote irrelevant topic sentences in order to

support the thesis statement written in their essays. Before coming to further

discussions on this issue, this research would review briefly the ideas of topic

sentences. That would help readers follow the discussions in this part easily.

A topic sentence in a paragraph has an essential role both in a general

essay and in an analytical exposition essay as stated in Figure 2.13 in Chapter II.

Generally, every supporting paragraph in the body of the essay should start with a

topic sentence (Langan, 2011). This topic sentence introduces a supporting idea in

each body paragraph (Meyers, 2005) and clarifies the point that needs to be

elaborated in the paragraph as well as provides a focus toward a supporting

paragraph (Langan, 2011). In the context of an analytical exposition essay, the

topic sentence would significantly provide the focus as well as become the point

of every given argument written in a paragraph. Accordingly, I would consider the

topic sentence of the argument and see whether it supports the student‟s position

or the thesis statement, which expresses the controlling idea for the entire essay

(Smalley & Ruetten, 1986), written in the analytical exposition essay.

In other words, this research should ensure the emergence of connected

ideas among the thesis statement and the presented topic sentence in each

The Researcher‟s Analysis


155

paragraph. Otherwise, the coherence problems would possibly occur within the

essay. It was because coherence in this research was concerned with arranging

ideas in a logical way in which every stated idea in our written work is connected

one another. This aims to help our readers understand the ideas stated in our

written work easily, so we could convince them that the stated position in the

essay is correct. Overall, the irrelevant topic sentences in this case were that an

idea written in topic sentences was not relevant to that written in a thesis

statement. Therefore, the written topic sentences did not support the thesis

statement in the students‟ essays.

In writing the first essay entitled “Using Drama Activities in Introducing

Indonesian Culture for Foreigners” (TTL1), the student aimed to convince the


language learning for foreigners (TWP1). Unrelated to drama, the student, in some

of her topic sentences, clarified further ideas about puppet and story-telling:

One of the techniques, Puppet is very often a foreigners’ entertainment

(ESY1-PNT

4).

The last technique is storytelling (ESY1-PNT

6).

In the first essay, the student should have written, for instance, why and

how the drama works effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and language

learning. It was because puppet and storytelling were different from drama, which

became the focus of the essay. When reading such topic sentences stated in the

first essay, readers might possibly expect to read further elaborations on puppet

and storytelling which did not support the thesis statement written by the student.

In addition, writing unrelated topic sentences, which were about puppet and


156

storytelling as different points from a drama, would not help to convince the


language learning for foreigners (TWP1).

The second problem was irrelevant supporting evidence. As stated

previously, the student, in this first essay, aimed to convince readers that drama

works effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and language learning for

foreigners (TWP1). Then, in the third paragraph in the essay, the student wrote a

topic sentence that tells us a variety of drama technique that can provide benefits

for foreigners, Indonesian culture, and language skills:

There are a variety of drama techniques that lend foreigners to creative

thinking and can be used to introduce Indonesian culture and develop

language skills: Puppet, Role-play, Storytelling (ESY1-PNT

3).

In order to form a coherent paragraph as well as to establish the unity of

the paragraph, the student should have provided further elaboration about the

techniques stated in the topic sentence, for instance, by giving evidence or

examples dealing with the usage of the techniques to develop language skills. As

an analogy, “if a topic sentence states that Melisa has five choices, the paragraph

has to inform the readers about the five choices” (Bram, 1995:20). In that case,

this research would show some supporting evidence written by the student to

support the third topic sentence:

These techniques can be used to help reinforce specific areas of a lesson,

to explore an aspect of learning or to enhance and enrich the quality of

learning about historical, social, or moral issues especially for learning

culture and historical story in Indonesia (ESY1-ERT

3.1). A picture,

photograph, or object can be used as a stimulus or starting point for

developing roles or situations (ESY1-ERT

3.2). A piece of music or a story

can inspire improvisation and development of characters, settings, and

situations (ESY1-ERT

3.3).


157

Obviously, the irrelevant ideas occured when the first supporting evidence

was followed by the benefits of using a picture, photograph, or an object (ESY1-

ERT3.2

) and the benefits of a piece of music or a story (ESY1-ERT

3.3). The second

and the third supporting evidence were not related to the three techniques stated in

the topic sentence. In fact, in the second and the third supporting evidence, the

student wrote very new ideas, which could be regarded as separated sentences that

did not support their previous supporting evidence (ESY1-ERT

3.1) and the topic

sentence, focusing on a variety of drama technique that can provide benefits for

foreigners, Indonesian culture, and language skills (ESY1-PNT

3).

The jumping ideas among supporting evidence in the third paragraph in

the first essay would certainly confirm the finding of the previous related studies

(Jones, 2011; Brostoff, 1981). Jones (2011) found the disconnection among

sentences in a paragraph written by the student. In a sense, the irrelevant

supporting evidence as shown previously could also prove that incoherence in


which means they are next to, but not connected to each other” (Brostoff, 1981:

279).

The third problem was unclear idea relationship in the first essay. Before

we came to a further discussion on this problem, this research would review what

idea relationships are in order to help readers follow the discussion in this part

easily. In Chapter II, Arnaudet and Barret (1984: 28) believe that we need to

“recognize the way in which pieces of information, which is the text‟s supporting

ideas, are related.” Deriving from their belief, this research could certainly assert


158

that the idea relationships were closely related to the operational definition of

coherence adopted in this research. It is a logical arrangement of ideas within a

written work in which every stated idea is connected one another. The logical

arrangement and connection of ideas would help readers understand as well as

follow the ideas stated in a written work easily.

Clearly, both the idea relationships (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984: 28) and the

operational definition of coherence in this research emphasized the logical

arrangement and connection of ideas in one‟s written work. In that case, Oshima

and Hogue (2006) believe that arranging sentences in some kinds of logical orders

or those relationships significantly becomes one way to achieve coherence in a

written work. Therefore, it would be essential if this research could also recognize

the idea relationships in the whole students‟ essays.

Dealing with the third problem, the research might suggsest that the first

essay did not meet the criteria that derived from the theories, the examples of

eight ideas relationships (Arnaudet & Barret, 1984), and were used in order to

analyze the idea relationships in the essays. More specifically, the research

observed that the first essay did include transitions and conjunctions that could

signal a particular idea relationship. Besides, it was also observed that the student

wrote some irrelevant ideas to the thesis statement, so that it was difficult to

recognize the pattern of ideas in the essays.

Considering the irrelevant ideas, the research could possibly suggest that

the difficulties in recognizing the idea relationships were also affected by other

two coherence problems in the first essay, namely irrelevant topic sentences and


159

irrelevant supporting evidence. In other words, when a student wrote irrelevant

topic sentences and supporting evidence in his/her essay, s/he would have a

possibility to have an unclear idea relationship in the essay.


160

THE OBSERVER’S

ANALYSIS


161

A. Research Participation Consent Form

Full name

:___________________________________________________________

Academic Institution (please write down in which university you are currently working)

:___________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Subjects to teach in the Institution (please write down what subjects you are teaching in the

university, e.g, Writing I, Paragprah Writing, and so on)

:___________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Educational Background (please write down in which univeristy you studied for your

Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate degree; also please write your graduation year)

Bachelor Degree

:___________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________(_________)

Master Degree

:___________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________(_________)

Doctorate Degree

:___________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________(_________)

I have read this form and received a copy of it. I have had all my questions

answered to my satisfaction. I agree to take part in this research.

__________________________ ___________________________

Observer‟s signature Date: Researcher‟s signature Date:


162

B. The Observer’s Comments on the Researcher’s Analysis


163

APPENDIX E -An Initial Permission Letter Sent to the Observers-

(as well as Their Reply Message)


164


165

APPENDIX F - The Letter of References from ELS to the Observers -


166


167

APPENDIX G -The Observers’ Personal Data and Feedback-


168


169


170


171


172

APPENDIX H -Samples of the Students’ Essay-

Teaching English for Autistic Children in Indonesia with Role Play

(name)

English is an important language in Indonesia. The importance of English is shown by

using English not only to communicate with people from English speaking countries such as the

United States, United Kingdom, Australia, or Canada but also people from neighboring countries

such as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other Asian countries (Ena, 2013). Considering

this, children in Indonesia need to develop their English language skills. They need to prepare for

their future, especially in order to master the four language skills: reading, writing, listening, and

speaking. However, there are many factors that can make teaching English for children become

hard. One of those factors is teaching children with behavior disorder, especially autistic children.

According to Natahadibrata (2013), currently around 112.000 children under 19 years old are

diagnosed as autistic children in Indonesia. Bearing this in mind, this essay is going to show that

role play is a suitable method to help autistic children in Indonesia to learn English more

effectively.

It is worth to remember that teaching English for autistic children is not easy. Considering

that autistic children tend to spend much more time to be busy with themselves, an English teacher

should be creative to help those children to have more interaction with other people, especially in

learning English. Take for instance, an autistic child likes to play video games a lot. Therefore the

English teacher should find a method to make learning English becomes more interesting than

playing video games. Besides, the method itself should be successful in triggering autistic children

to be brave in doing interaction with other people and learning English effectively.

According to Byrness (2011), autism is a developmental disability that typically involves

delays and impairment in social skills, language, and behavior. Autism is a spectrum disorder,

meaning that it affects children differently. Some children may have the problem with their verbal

and non verbal communication, some others may have difficulties in developing their social

relationship, play, or adaptive behavior.

Rosenberg (2004) states that there are several universal and specific characteristics of

autism. (1) An impairments establishing social relationships. In this case, the children are not able

to develop the social relationship even with the parents and other families. They tend to avoid

direct eye contact and often treat others in the environment as if they do not exist. Take for

instance, a normal 2 months-baby usually responses to families‟ faces with a social smile or warm

response. In contrast, autistic babies will only response the faces because of the stimuli. (2)

Impairments in communicative language. In this case, children will develop and use the language

differently from the normal children and consequently, are deficient in exhibiting communication

skills (Rincover, et al, 1982 in Rosenberg, 2004). (3) Restricted, repetitive and stereotypical

behavior. In this case, children with autistic behavior have the focus on the intensity in non

functional routines or rituals of stereotypical repetitive movements such as rocking, spinning,

flapping on the arms, flicking of the fingers, or walking on tips of toes (Hinerman, 1983 in

Rosenberg, 2004).

Bearing this in mind, autistic children, especially those who are in Indonesia should get

more attention. Although some people start to think that give the education for them is hard, but

they also have the right to be educated as good as normal children. Furthermore, English

education is also important for autistic children. They should be prepared to face their future,

especially in this globalization era that needs social relationship, communication, language and

interaction with other people using English language. Due to these reasons, role play is needed as a

suitable method in teaching English for autistic children.


173

I do believe that role play is an effective way to teach English for autistic children. The

first reason is that role play is interesting and helpful for children. Play helps children to develop

gross and fine motor skills, language and communication, thinking and problem solving, and

social skills (Anderson, 2011). The process of developing communication and social skills occurs

when children are able to speak aloud and mimic others‟ characters. Second, role play helps

children to develop the ability to pronounce English well. According to Vernon (2009), role

playing and impersonating native English speakers are perfect ways to improve the students‟

pronunciation as well as their pronunciation skills. Third, role play helps children to have more

interaction to other people. It is possible because when children play a role, they say something

that will be responded by others.

According to “Oxford English Dictionary” role-playing is the changing of one's behavior

to fulfill a social role. While Hawley (1975) offers a definition of role play as an arrow in teaching

to provide flexibility and variety in appropriate situation. Those two definitions refer to a concept

that role play has a power to change person‟s behavior that is flexible to be applied in such

situation. To be more specific, role play is flexible to be applied in teaching English for autistic

children. In teaching English for autistic children, an English teacher should focus on design so as

to make the learning process interesting, comfortable, and effective. According to Anderson

(2011), an English teacher may start to think about kind of role play that children engage in such

as toy play, constructive play, physical play, pretend play, and social play.

The first role play is toy play. It is a learning process that uses toys in the way they are

designed, such as pushing a toy car or throwing the ball. It is challenging because in the

application, autistic children will have the interaction to other children. Besides, they will learn to

understand the instruction in English. For example, student A throws the ball to student B, then

student B rolls the ball to student C, and many others. Second, it is constructive play. This is when

children are able to make things or build something, and involves working toward a goal or

product. Take for instance, autistic children complete a jigsaw puzzle, making a tower, or drawing

picture. The puzzle can be English puzzle, so that the children learn new English vocabularies

from the puzzle. The third role play is physical play. This role play gives the children experience

of interacting with other children and objects around them. An English teacher can make an

outdoor activity that uses total physical response (TPR) such as walk to an object, run to an object,

or touch and snap an object. The fourth is pretend play. In this play, children should pretend to be

something using their imagination, such as pretending to feed a teddy bear, dressing up like

superhero, or driving a car.

Afterwards, one of those role plays that can be challenging to teach English for autistic

children is social play. This role play becomes more interesting because it is like combination of

the four other role plays. That is why, social role play is important in such a way as to encourage

their ability to communicate in English. By doing this role play, they will not spend time playing

by themselves. In the application, an English teacher can teach autistic children by playing

cooperatively with others includes playing games with rules, making up rules, mimicking

characters, and working together on something. Take for instance, an English teacher teaches

vocabularies using “Simon Says” game which is helpful to increase the autistic children‟s ability

in memorizing words or names for the part of their body. By doing this game, autistic children

learn to listen to instruction and socialize to other students as well.

It is worth to remember that applying role play to teach English for autistic children

brings several advantages. The process of applying role play helps them to be more motivated. It

means that the autistic children will be motivated to feel comfortable in doing an action in English

class activity. They will be brave and confident to face their society by doing an action in front of

other people. This action is very useful to help them reducing their anxiety in learning English. In

addition to that, role play will help them to open communication to others. By applying role play,

the students will also be able to explore their value and gather much information about English.

To sum up, I believe that English is important language in Indonesia. Furthermore, I do

believe that to help autistic children in Indonesia to learn English more effective, role play should

be used. It is interesting and helpful for children, especially in helping them to change their

behavior to be brave, confident and comfortable. By applying role play in teaching English for


174

autistic children in Indonesia, the autistic children will be able to get more information such as in

doing activities of pronouncing words, mimicking characters, and facing other people.

References:

Anderson, Angelika. (2011). Retrieved from http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/autism spectrum

disorder play.html on September 10th

, 2013.

Byrnes, Mary Ann. (2011). Taking Sides, Clashing Views in Special Education. Boston:

University of Massachusetts.

Ena, Ouda Teda. (2013). Content Analysis: Visual Analysis English mc E-textbook. Charleston:

Createspace.

Hawley, Robert. (1975). Value Exploration Through Role Playing. New York City: Hart

Publishing Company, Inc.

Innes, Emma. (2013). Role Play. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-

2382380/Children-autism-ADHD-spend-TWICE-time-playing-video-games-likely-addicted-

them.html. on September 10th

, 2013.

Natahadibrata, Nadya. (2013). The Jakarta Post: Autistic children in RI deserve better care.

Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/04/08/autistic-children-ri-deserve-

better-care.html on September 15th

, 2013.

Rosenberg, Michael. (2004). Educating Students with Behavior Disorders. United States of

America: Pearson Education, Inc.

Vernon, Shelley. (2009). Teaching English Pronunciation to ESL Students. Retrieved from

http://edition.tefl.net/ideas/pronunciation/teaching-english-pronunciation/ on September 17th

,

2013.


175

Outing Class’ Activities in Improving Children’s Vocabularies

(name)

What do know about children‟s feeling when they are in the classroom? Many of them are bored

and frustrated when they are studying in the classroom, especially in learning English. The reason is there are

some mistakes that teachers do during the learning activity, for example teachers do not use something

interesting in the way they teach English. Therefore, teachers must do something different which they never

try before. One of the examples is doing the outing class. Outing class is not only about hangout, but also

learning something from the real world. Outing class is not about moving the classroom outside with the

same boring activities like lecturing, taking notes, and doing the test. A teacher's purpose is not to create

students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image (Ghatourey, __). In this

case, outing class gives students the ability through the environment around them. Consequently, the

activities of outing class actually can improve students‟ vocabularies and thus they can remember new words

easily because they are in the real situation and know the real examples of what they study. This essay is

going to discuss about the activities of outing class which are more effective in improving children‟s

vocabularies than in the classroom.

First is applying some games in outing class‟ activity. Nowadays, a number of teachers have

realized that games can be an important thing in both formal and informal education. However, most teachers

who teach in the classroom often ignore it. Teachers just focus on the materials and do not pay attention

whether students are getting bored during the learning activity or not. In outing class, the learning activities

can be added as many as possible through games. Students will be more interested in learning through games,

especially in learning English vocabularies. The example of the games is mentioning as many words as

possible in some groups then uses those words in some sentences they make. It can increase students‟

creativity in remembering some English words to make it in the conversation. Teachers just let students to

open their mind, and then they can take example by seeing the environment around them. Many students are

not impressed by the statements such as: “You need to learn this so that you can use it in your course next

year” or “You need to learn this because it will be on the test next week.” (Moursund, 2007) Consequently,

teachers do not force students if they cannot do what they have to do. It also makes students not too afraid of

some tests. Teachers can make assessment when they are applying games in outing class‟ activity.

Second is reading picture books in outing class‟ activity. Teachers who teach in classroom

absolutely ever use picture books in the learning activity. The thing that makes difference is the situation

while students reading the picture book. When teachers do the activity of reading picture books in outing

class, teachers can make students to get closer to them. Students start to put their trust in teachers, for

example students are brave to share everything what they feel. As a result, students will comfortable to do

everything and get the point of the activity. In reading picture books, students will get new vocabularies from

the picture and the story easily.

“Picture books, with their verbal and visual nature, offer this to a child‟s

growing mind. For example, in Bill Martin Jr.‟s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What

Do You See? A child hears the verbal clue of a rhyming word and sees the

visual clue of the upcoming animal to be named on the next page. This type of

pattern and sequencing helps to build the neurological pathways in a child's

brain. This kind of patterning within a verbal/visual format is unique to picture

books.” (Pierce, 2010)

The uniqueness of the picture books gives impression to the children to learn more about some new

vocabularies that they find on the picture books. It's clear that the teachers are focusing on the visual and

encouraging their students to talk about their understanding of the picture books‟ message. In addition,

teachers provide opportunities for discussion, which later they can also use in other activity, for example in

writing activity.

Third is singing English songs in outing class‟ activity. In classroom, it is hard to find some

teachers who use singing activity to improve students‟ vocabularies. The fact is teachers just ask students to

remember all the new vocabularies through some books. Then, students will get some tests to check how

many vocabularies that comes in their mind. Actually, it is not effective for students because students will

forget all things they have remembered before. On the other side, in outing class, teachers can use singing

activity which provides the opportunity for vocabulary practice. The songs can be decided based on the topic

that can provide some lists of vocabulary learning.

“The song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, for example, could be used to

review body parts, or the song I Can Sing a Rainbow might be useful for

reviewing color names. Most children‟s songs are characterized by monosyllabic


176

words, many of which are frequently repeated. This repetition offers greater

exposure to these words and can help to improve vocabulary acquisition.”

(Milington, 2011)

Teachers have to be aware of choosing the song and the lyric. They need to select which song is appropriate

to the goal of learning vocabulary. If teachers can choose the right songs, it will give big influence to children

in receiving new vocabularies. Students will remember easily because they can sing that song everyday they

want. Moreover, “songs serve as the very source of such target language use that helps to promote students‟

language awareness in learning English as a foreign language” (Shen, 2009). Students will give more

attention to their pronunciation when they sing and remember the new words from some songs. It will be

effective for students to improve their vocabularies.

In conclusion, outing class is an effective way to improve children‟s vocabularies. First, teachers

can apply games in outing class‟ activity to make children more creative. In this case, teachers can create

games by themselves which is appropriate for students‟ need. Second, teachers can use the activity of reading

picture books. This activity can check students‟ ability in understanding the message from the story. It also

provides many vocabularies that children have read in the picture books. Third is applying singing activity in

outing class. This activity must be prepared well because teachers must decide the right song to the topic that

they will teach. Finally, I believe that the activities in outing class are more effective in improving children‟s

vocabularies than in classroom.

REFERENCES:

Ghatourey, Ritu. (__). Education Quotes. Retrieved from

http://www.searchquotes.com/quotes/about/Education/2/ on September 17, 2013

Millington, Neil T. 2011. Using Songs Effectively to Teach English to Young Learners. Retrieved from

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC

gQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.camtesol.org%2FDownload%2FLEiA_Vol2_Iss1_201

1%2FLEiA_V2_I1_11_Neil_Millington_Using_Songs_Effectively_to_Teach_English_to_Yo

ung_Learners.pdf&ei=P2s4Uq35AYjZrQe73oGADg&usg=AFQjCNG2POFe09y0HscOH_V

4CwAGjmsupQ&sig2=_K_kHq7OXAeqVn-YfkZhvg&bvm=bv.52164340,d.bmk on

September 17, 2013

Moursund, Dave. 2007. Introduction to Using Games in Education: A

Guide for Teachers and Parents. Retrieved from

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&ved=0CFsQF

jAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpages.uoregon.edu%2Fmoursund%2FBooks%2FGames%2FGames.

pdf&ei=zxQvUv-jBs6mrQf9oIGoDA&usg=AFQjCNENfW-

E8JwTrmUATzxtZSr9wuqRMg&sig2=SeI587ldjGBvr3gUeZA8aQ&bvm=bv.51773540,d.bmk

on September 10, 2013

Pierce, Terry. 2010. Five Reasons Why Children NEED Picture Books. Retrieved from

http://terrypierce.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-reasons-why-children-need-picture.html on

September 17, 2013

Shen, Chunxuan. 2009. Using English Songs: an Enjoyable and Effective Approach to ELT. Retrieved from

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&ved=0CH0

QFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fccsenet.org%2Fjournal%2Findex.php%2Felt%2Farticle%2Fdownl

oad%2F341%2F305&ei=9304UuX-

E4WErAfgwIHICQ&usg=AFQjCNGMkAFBQR5Y8r8eFECXg0w2WEoUyQ&sig2=wlaHypS2j

n8VgkYnXoJtrQ&bvm=bv.52164340,d.bmk on September 17, 2013


177

School Readiness to Face National Exam (name)

Sanata Dharma University

When students graduate from their school, students‟ parents become proud of their sons and

daughters because they did all they can do to support their child to face national exam. On the other hand,

they will blame the schools if their child did not pass the national exam. Students‟ parents often think that the

schools did not ready to face national exam. They were wrong; in fact, schools are ready to face national

exam.

School readiness is important to support their students to be success in facing national exam. The

form of their readiness is their support for their students, both in cognitive and mentally. There is no single

schools which want their students fail in national exam, which is schools main reason to support their

students.

In the cognitive aspect, schools help their student through extra classes. The purposes of these extra

classes are to improve their knowledge and allocate their free time to be more useful. These extra classes take

times after their regular study hours at their schools.

Besides extra classes, schools also conduct “try out ujian nasional” to quantify their knowledge

about the subjects which are going to be tested in the national exam. “Try out ujian nasional” had been

conducted several times to improve their knowledge and also as a practice to the real national exam.

In SDN Sisir Kota Batu, they already prepared for the national exam since six month before the

national exam. Meanwhile, in SDN Tegalgondo, Kabupaten Malang, they conduct extra lessons for their

students. “In preparation for the national exam this year, God willing, there is no problem, the school seeks to

provide comfort to the students in order to face national exam is not strained” said Lilik Tri, one of the sixth

grade teacher in that school.

In SD Negeri Dinoyo 4 Malang, they conduct religious events started in one month after the new

semester begins. For example, they hold istighosah on every Saturday at 3p.m since the first week before the

national exam. They did not only do that, they did social service such as give religious meals to foster house.

Another religious event is dhuha pray which they held every morning at 8 a.m.

In SMA Muhammadiyah Solo, they prepare to face the national exam since November. Clinical

therapy was specially arranged for students which their score was lowered. Students and parents will be

inivited to sit down together to discuss the problems faced and the solutions that must be taken.

Different from SMA Muhammadiyah Solo, SMA Negeri 2 Solo arranges seminars to motivate their

students. The motivators were invited from several universities. Just like Ajuandi said, “Students‟ meal is also

important to make them stay aware.”

SMA Negeri 3 Yogyakarta held religious event in their school. Hundreds of students sitting on the

floor were witnessed by dozens of teachers. They did a prayer lead by a teacher. The prayer was very solemn

to many students, most of them weep during the prayer. After praying, each of them shook hands with

teachers.

In order to support their students, SMK Negeri 2 Solo arranged cooperation with the English

educational institutions to provide special training for their students. School hopes that the students will get

benefit from TOEIC certificate when applying for a job.

With some facts that I already given, it is clear that schools has their own preparation to face

national exam. They arranged several events both in cognitive and mental aspect to support their students.

Like in cognitive aspect, they conduct try out and extra classes. Meanwhile in mental aspect, schools held

some motivation seminars and some religious events such as giving religious meal and school prayer. We as

parents cannot blame schools anymore if our child did not pass the national exam, because schools are

supporting our children to face national exam.

References:

Retrieved from: http://www.didaktikpers.com/2013/04/ragam-persiapan-sekolah-hadapi-un-sdmi.html on

Monday, September 9th, 2013.

Retrieved from: http://www.kemendiknas.go.id/kemendikbud/berita/1225 on Monday, September 9th, 2013.

Retrieved from: http://www.republika.co.id/berita/pendidikan/education/13/04/12/ml4pm3-ratusan-siswa-

sma-yogya-gelar-doa-bersama-jelang-un on Tuesday, September 17th, 2013

Retrieved from: http://www.solopos.com/2012/12/17/semester-ganjil-berakhir-sekolah-mulai-persiapkan-un-

359103 on Monday, September 9th, 2013.

Retrieved from: http://swaraguru.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/persiapan-menghadapi-ujian-nasional-2013/ on

Monday, September 9th, 2013.


178

APPENDIX I -The Distribution of the Coherence Problems-

Irrelevant Topic Sentences in the Essays

Essays Title Thesis Statement Topic Sentences


An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence

discusses a different

point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

1

Using drama

activities in

introducing

Indonesian

Culture for

foreigners

(TTL1)

This essay will explain

how drama works

effectively in

introducing Indonesian

culture and language

learning for foreigners

(TWP1).

Furthermore, the start of drama lessons should not always be predictable (ESY1-

PNT2).

1

One of the techniques, Puppet is very often a foreigners’ entertainment (ESY1-

PNT4).

1

The last technique is storytelling (ESY1-PNT6).

1

2

The role of

student’s

communication

to develop

writing skill

(TTL2)

One of the ways which

is effectively to develop

student’s writing skill

which is by student’s

communication

(TWP2).

According to Patil (2011), communication is about how we communicate with

each other human being is using means of verbal and non-verbal for centuries

(ESY2-PNT1) .

1

In a book which titled "I Hate to Write! I Can't Do It!": First-Year Composition

and the Resistant Student Writer (2008), examining that many students do not

interested anymore in writing

(ESY2-PNT2).

1

Most of us have already known that English Language is one of the well-known

languages that most over many people in the entire world use this language (ESY2-

PNT5).

1


179



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

3

English

Monologue for

Reading

Comprehension

(TTL3)

Relating to reading, I do

believe that English

monologue text is very

effective for every

learner to improve their

reading comprehension

although it has negative

effects (TWP3).

Reading is closely related with a text (ESY3-PNT2).

1

Deciding an English monologue text to be a reading passage in a class requires

some consequences (ESY3-PNT3).

1

One of the negative effects of using an English monologue text for reading is the

reader might confront with textual difficulties, such as unknown words (ESY3-

PNT4).

1

The length of an English monologue text cannot go hand in hand with the students’

concentration (ESY3-PNT5).

1

Reading an English monologue is dealing with complex interpretations (ESY3-

PNT6).

1

4

Teaching

English for

Autistic

Children in

Indonesia with

Role Play

(TTL4)

Bearing this in mind,

this essay is going to

show that role play is a

suitable method to help

autistic children in

Indonesia to learn

English more

effectively (TWP4).

It is worth to remember that teaching English for autistic children is not easy

(ESY4-PNT1).

1

According to Byrness (2011), autism is a developmental disability that typically

involves delays and impairment in social skills, language, and behavior (ESY4-

PNT2).

1

Rosenberg (2004) states that there are several universal and specific characteristics

of autism (ESY4-PNT3).

1

Bearing this in mind, autistic children, especially those who are in Indonesia

should get more attention (ESY4-PNT4).

1

According to “Oxford English Dictionary” role-playing is the changing of one's

behavior to fulfill a social role (ESY4-PNT6).

1

The first role play is to play (ESY4-PNT7).

1


180



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

4

(cont)

Afterwards, one of those role plays that can be challenging to teach English for

autistic children is social play (ESY4-PNT8).

1

5

Applying Neuro-

Linguistic

Programming to

Public Speaking

Class in

University Level

(TTL5)

In this paper, I would

like to talk about

applying NLP to public

speaking class which

helps the students

become much better

public speakers (TWP5).

NLP has so many definitions (ESY5-PNT1). 1

Public speaking is a course which teaches the students to become good public

speakers (ESY5-PNT2).

1

In public speaking class, students are taught some important things when speaking

in front of people (ESY5-PNT3).

1

Being a positive thinker is crucial (ESY5-PNT5).

1

Giving and receiving feedback is also essential when improving public speaking

skill (ESY5-PNT6).

1

Communicating with audience is crucial to create a performance become more

alive (ESY5-PNT7). 1

6

Improving

Reading Skill by

Paraphrasing

(TTL6)

This essay is going to

discuss about the

effectiveness of

improving reading skill

to students by

paraphrasing with their

own ideas (TWP6).

Reading is a good habit that should be taught to children from an early age due to

the reading, a lot of benefits can be gained

(ESY6-PNT1).

1

There are various ways to improve students' reading skills; in this case, especially

English reading skill. (ESY6-PNT2). 1

According to Doren and Adler, 2007, there are four levels in reading; basic

reading, inspectional reading, analytical reading, and sin topical reading (ESY6-

PNT3).

1

The ability to understand and remember reading material is important for students

for success in school and everyday life (ESY6-PNT4). 1


181



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

6

(cont)

According to Juel (1988) in Syaifuddin, interpret that reading is a process to

recognize and integrate the meaning of the word in the sentence structure and

reading (ESY6-PNT5).

1

The first way is usually done by teachers to increase students' interest in reading is

reading to give the material relating to the real thing (ESY6-PNT6). 1

The next way is to give students the reading of a paragraph later evolved into the

encyclopedia (Djamal, Ichsan, Toy, 2006) (ESY6-PNT7). 1

Another ways is to paraphrase.

(ESY6-PNT8).

1

7

Pop – Up Book

as a Media to

Teach Daily

Conversation for

Children (TTL7)

This paper will explain

more about pop – up

book which will be the

most effective media

that teachers can use to

teach daily conversation

for children (TWP7).

We know that as a teacher, our major task is engaging students to learn about

language better (ESY7-PNT1).

1

For Infants ( Birth – 16 months ), usually the media which the teachers use are

brightly colored and lightweight that the babies can touch and explore

(ESY7-PNT4).

1

8

Using

Alternative Rock

Music to

Improve

Students’

Listening

Comprehension

(TTL8)

In this essay, I will

discuss Alternative

Rock as one of the

music genres which can

help students to

improve their listening

comprehension (TWP8).

Improving students’ listening skill is one of the teachers’ task in school

(ESY8-PNT1).

1

One example to use music as the teaching media is the fill in the blank activity

(ESY8-PNT2).

1

In deciding the right songs for students, teachers can use the three suggestions by

Lems (1996) (ESY8-PNT3). 1


182



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

10

The Use of

Digital Story

Telling in

Speaking Class

(TTL10)

In this essay, we will be

discussing more about

the use of digital story

telling which will

increase the excitement

of the students in

speaking class (TWP10).

First, the use of digital story telling is an effective way for teaching in speaking

class (ESY10-PNT2).

1

The use of digital story telling is good to improve the students’ multiple literacy

skills (ESY10-PNT8). 1

11

Maximizing the

Use of Media in

Teaching

English to

Dyslexia

Children

(TTL11)

In this paper, I am

going to talk about

maximizing the using of

media to dyslexia

children in learning

English is the effective

way to learn English

(TWP11).

In simple word, dyslexia is abnormal difficulty in reading and writing (ESY11-

PNT1).

1

Some researchers try to find the cause of dyslexia (ESY11-PNT2).

1

A lot of people misunderstand about dyslexic children

(ESY11-PNT3).

1

Teaching English to dyslexic children will be challenging

(ESY11-PNT4).

1

A lot of English teacher candidates are prepared to teach English to children

without any special need like dyslexia student

(ESY11-PNT5).

1

Using some colors in writing on the blackboard sounds complicated (ESY11-

PNT6).

1

Dyslexic children are good in visual spatial skills (ESY11-PNT7).

1


183



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

12

Autism Children

Are Able to

Read (TTL12)

This essay will discuss

some techniques

especially for teacher

also for parents which

useful when we are

going to teach the

autistic student

(TWP12).

Grandin (2002) says that autistic children are visual thinkers (ESY12-PNT1).

1

Learning process must be fun, because autistic student, usually, cannot stay or pay

attention so much to our explanation (ESY12-PNT2). 1

14

Developing

English Students

Understanding

based on

Cultural,

Society, and

Academic

Background

(TTL14)

Identifying English

students’ expectation

about how a language

should be taught based

on their cultural,

academic, and also

social background is

important to assess how

language should be

taught based on their

personal need of

language learning and

also their perspectives

(TWP13).

Identifying the learners’ backgrounds and also the learners’ expectations on how

English is taught is defined as needs analysis (ESY14-PNT1).

1

Needs analysis can be classified in two aspects: the needs of language use and also

learners’ wants on what language use should be (ESY14-PNT2).

1

The purpose of learning a language is to establish what the language is used for

(Lowe, 2009) (ESY14-PNT3).

1

Learning process cannot be separated into pieces (ESY14-PNT4).

1

Language learners can also get information on the use of language as appropriate

as the conditions they are involved (ESY14-PNT5).

1

Identifying learners’ backgrounds is also important for language teachers (ESY14-

PNT6).

1


184



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

16

The Role of Peer

in Writing Class

(TTL16)

Here, I want to explain

why peer discussions

and feedback is helpful

and should be used

(TWP16).

Peer discussion and feedback also can be called as peer assessment (ESY16-PNT1).

1

There are a few types of peer feedbacks (ESY16-PNT2). 1

18

Oral Test for

Elementary

School for Non-

Native Students

(TTL18)

This paper is going to

explain about the

negative effect of oral

test for elementary

school’s students

(TWP18).

Before talk more these issues, it good for us to know what oral and written tests are

(ESY18-PNT1).

1

Knowing the English level for Elementary School, it is enough for teacher to give

students English Basic in vocabulary and writing session (ESY18-PNT6).

1

19

The Use of

Games in

Teaching

English as a

Second

Language to

Blind Students

(TTL19)

Therefore, this essay is

going to discuss the use

of games in teaching

English as a second

language to blind

students by the teachers

in order to develop the

students’ belief of

others, self-confidence,

and the feeling that they

are accepted as an

individual in their own

right (TWP19).

A student who is blind from birth has more difficulties in building effective mental

images and in processing the outer world than a person who has seen for some time

and can remember what he/she has seen (Aiazzi, 2008) (ESY19-PNT1).

1

On the other hand, most of English teachers might think that teaching English as a

second language for blind students are quiet difficult (ESY19-PNT2). 1

When teaching blind students, the teachers need to learn the background of the

student; how and when the students became blind (ESY19-PNT3).

1

In the classroom, the blind student will active if they have known the situation of

the classroom during the learning process

(ESY19-PNT4).

1

Since that blind student cannot see the board in the classroom, so the teachers need

vocal and say out to explain the materials (BBC, 2004) (ESY19-PNT5). 1


185



An opposing

topic sentence

A topic sentence


point with a thesis

statement

A descriptive

topic sentence

19

(cont)

The blind students need more attention than normal students (ESY19-PNT6).

1

Therefore, the teachers should decide which media could be used in teaching

English as a second language to blind students (ESY19-PNT7).

1

The most important thing that we should know before teaching English for blind

students as a second language is the condition of the students (ESY19-PNT12).

1

20

Using Color in

Learning

English for

Hyperactive

Students (TTL20)

Using colored in

learning English is

really helpful for

hyperactive students

which cannot

concentrate in one thing

(TWP20).

Talking about hyperactive children is related with the history of them (ESY20-

PNT1).

1

The existences of the ADHD or hyperactive children are influenced by some

factors, but until now, the factors why the children can be hyperactive children are

still unclear and indefinite (ESY20-PNT2).

1

As the scientific said, the prefrontal and frontal lobes are the parts which influence

hyperactive children to do so many things or do something that they are like the

most at that time (ESY20-PNT3).

1

According to the small research and interview with a teacher in Special school for

disability students, hyperactive children have special characteristic (ESY20-PNT4).

1

Hyperactive students have some bad characteristics, but they still have same good

characteristics (ESY20-PNT5).

1

Even though it looks too difficult to deal with, it will get better if the teachers

know how to deal with or how to handle them

(ESY20-PNT6).

1

THE TOTAL OF IRRELEVANT TOPIC SENTENCES IN ALL ESSAYS 3 48 21

72 irrelevant topic sentences


186

Irrelevant Supporting Evidence Within a Paragraph

Essays Thesis Statement Topic Sentences Irrelevant Supporting Evidence within a Paragraph/ Argument

3

Relating to reading, I do

believe that English

monologue text is very

effective for every learner

to improve their reading

comprehension although

it has negative effects

(TWP3).

Understanding an English monologue script is dealing with

reading ability (ESY3-PNT1)

“Reading is included into the language skills (ESY1-ERT1.1). According to Wallace (2003),

reading means interpreting and reacting to a written text as a piece of communication (ESY1-

ERT1.2). Any mode of language, whether it is listening, speaking, reading, or writing, may be

used to serve intermediate needs, to learn from, or to give us pleasure in language for its own

sake (Wallace, 2003) (ESY3-ERT1.3-paraphrase). In other words, reading as one of the

language skills must always have a purpose (ESY3-ERT1.4). Furthermore, the purpose of

reading can be a specific purpose or a general purpose (ESY3-ERT1.5).

English monologue text is a vehicle for teaching language

structure and vocabulary (ESY3-PNT7).

“An expert says that these English monologue texts are sometimes justified for classroom use

on the grounds that they are not primarily for reading at all but are exponents of the structure

of the language (Widdowson in Wallace, 2005) (ESY3-ERT7.1). In this case, the readers need

to acquire some understanding of the formal elements which relate to the structure of words,

clauses, and whole texts (Wallace, 2009). (ESY3-ERT7.2). It is surprisingly enjoyable to know

that reading an English monologue text can improve the readers’ ability in language structure

(ESY3-ERT7.3)...

The next point is English monologue text is a text which teach

language through reading (ESY3-PNT8).

“In this case, English monologue text plays a big role as a source of language learning (ESY3-

ERT8.1). The more fluently and widely the second language reader reads, the more exposure to

the key structures and vocabulary of the second language he or she gains (Wallace, 2005)

(ESY3-ERT8.2). Structure and vocabulary are the elements of a language (ESY3-ERT8.3). In

learning language through reading English monologue text, the text plays a main role (ESY3-

ERT8.4). A meaningful written language may be an effective way of learning new structures

and not just of reinforcing or practicing known ones, even for foreign language readers

(Wallace, 2005) (ESY3-ERT8.5-paraphrase)....


187


3

(cont)

English monologue text offers high-interest content

(ESY3-PNT9).

It is just as simple as the consideration that the text must be interesting enough for the learners

to want to read it (Wallace, 2005) (ESY3-ERT9.1). In this case, every person has their own

standard of interest (ESY3-ERT9.2). The criteria whether the English monologue is interesting

depends on every person’s perception (ESY3-ERT9.3). In reading an English monologue text,

there must be individual difference (based on their own interest) as well as the preference

shared by group of learners (Wallace, 2005) (ESY3-ERT9.4). Every person has their own

hobby, interest, and wants, so it is just impossible to make standardization (ESY3-ERT9.5). In

reading an English monologue text, people tend to choose the story with the beginning of a

recognizable of narrative, thus allowing us to engage with the text by activating a relevant

schema (Wallace, 2005) (ESY3-ERT9.6-paraphrase)...

5

In this paper, I would like

to talk about applying

NLP to public speaking

class which helps the

students become much

better public speakers

(TWP5).

Introducing some important things from NLP to gain public

speaking skill to the students is easy (ESY5-PNT4).

Many models in NLP which are used by some experts are usually found and even already

taught in humans’ life (knight, 2002) (ESY5-ERT4.1). What they have to do are just

acknowledging the essential things or keys from NLP used in public speaking practice and

practicing it (ESY5-ERT4.2). Therefore, students don’t have to waste their energy or time to

understand all of the keys in NLP to increase their public speaking skill (ESY5-ERT4.3). The

essential things from NLP which are very important to be known by the speakers are positive

thinking, giving and receiving feedback, and influencing audience (ESY5-ERT4.4).

6


discuss about the

effectiveness of

improving reading skill to

students by paraphrasing

with their own ideas

(TWP6).

Students are easier to remember the simple word and simple

sentences (ESY6-PNT11).

The words or the sentences are made by themselves (ESY6-ERT11.1). Simple sentences are easy

to understand, but compound and complex sentences need strategy to understand the content of

the passage (Djamal, Ichsan, Toy, 2006) (ESY6-ERT11.2-paraphrase).

Furthermore, paraphrasing gives students’ brain a chance to store what they have learned from

their reading in long-term memory (laflemm.com) (ESY6-ERT11.3).

7

This paper will explain

more about pop – up book

which will be the most

effective media that

teachers can use to teach

daily conversation for

children (TWP7).

Pop – up book will help the students understanding the course in

effective way (ESY7-PNT5).

...In this paper, I would like to explain about a pop – up book as the media to teach daily

conversation (ESY7-ERT5.1). The examples of daily conversations which the teachers will be

taught are introducing themselves, giving their address, talking about hobbies, talking about

family, and talking about dreams (ESY7-ERT5.2)...

As we remember, that pop – up book provides three –

dimensional pictures that can make the learning process more

interesting and fun (ESY7-PNT7).

...By using pop – up book, teacher can teach language easier (ESY7-ERT7.1). Moreover, pop –

up book is usually used to retell and illustrate a favorite story or fairy tale, share information

from a science lesson or series of lessons, copy and illustrate the lines of a poem and chant or

song they learnt recently, and showcase their own imaginative stories (Constantinides, 2010)

(ESY7-ERT7.2-paraphrase).


188


10

In this essay, we will be

discussing more about the

use of digital story telling

which will increase the

excitement of the students

in speaking class

(TWP10).

Digital story telling is a good media to always be used in

speaking class (ESY10-PNT1).

“Digital story telling nowadays is different with the usual story telling that is used in school; it

is more interesting because it provides the use of technology (ESY10 -ERT1.1).

Moreover, the era of learners that is living in the whole world nowadays can be categorized as

the digital learners (Prensky, 2008) (ESY10 -ERT1.2). Consequently, the use of digital media

like digital story telling can develop students’ motivation in speaking class (ESY10 -ERT1.3).

Moreover, students’ imagination and creativity will be increasing by using digital story telling

(ESY10 -ERT1.4). What is the meaning of digital story telling?

Digital story telling is the combination of the telling stories art with a variety of digital

multimedia, such as images, audio, and video; all digital stories are mixed together by using

digital graphics, text, recorded audio narration, video, and music to present information on

specific topic (Robin, 2005) (ESY10 -ERT1.5-paraphrase)...

Students who make their own traditional story telling with digital

story telling will be more enthusiastic and motivated to learn

about how to have good speaking skills (ESY10-PNT7).

...Hence, students have to produce clear voices in speaking while making the audio recording.

(ESY10 –ERT7.1).The motivation itself comes from students’ mind and willingness in order to

get success in their speaking class (ESY10 –ERT7.2)...

12

This essay will discuss

some techniques

especially for teacher also

for parents which useful

when we are going to

teach the autistic student

(TWP12).

The use of phonological awareness and its relation to reading

acquisition has also been recognized as a valuable teaching

technique (Smith 2007) (ESY12-PNT3).

Glaser (2007) believes that reading through phonics is vital in helping the autistic child acquire

language (ESY12 –ERT3.1). Sight reading is also useage for a half of autistic children (ESY12 –

ERT3.2). Sight reading is to associate word label with specific visual images (ESY12 –

ERT3.3)...

Grandin (1995) says that some autistic children will learn reading

more easily with phonics, and others will learn best by

memorizing whole words (ESY12-PNT4).

So when help the autism children in reanding, teacher can sounding the word as clearly as they

can (ESY12 –ERT4.1). According to Grandin, some children with autism will learn best if flash

cards and picture books are used so that the whole words are associated with pictures (ESY12–

ERT4.2-paraphrase). It is important to have the picture and the printed word on the same side

of the card (ESY12 –ERT4.3)...

Reading is one way for autistic children to collect many

information from out side of their environment (ESY12-PNT6).

...Using menaingful and relevant vocabularies willl help them to develop their understanding

(ESY12 –ERT6.1). According to Vacca (2007), there are some ways that we teacher can use to

improve the reading achievement of autism children (ESY12 –ERT6.2 -paraphrase)...

...Teacher also must know the model of the learning activities; what the autism children need

to know and how they learn (ESY12 –ERT6.5)...


189


13


discuss that English

should not be omitted

from elementary school

because there are good

points and some benefits

students can get from

learning English (TWP13).

The third good point of learning English in elementary school is

that English will always be the part of subject that students will

learn in secondary school and senior high school (ESY13-PNT3).

“It will always become the part of subjects they are going to learn (ESY13-ERT3.1).”

“In secondary school, students will be shocked to learn new language they do not have

conceptual background if English is omitted from elementary school (ESY13-ERT3.2).”

“Besides, omitting English also means to change the standard competence of English language

in educational system (ESY13-ERT3.3).”

“The standard competence will be arranged and reduced from the very beginning (ESY13-

ERT3.4).” “In the other word, what student should learn in elementary school about English

should be learnt in their secondary school and what student should learn in secondary school

about English should be learnt in their high school (ESY13-ERT3.5).”

Moreover, English may not only stop in school (ESY13- ERT3.6). The increasing use of

English for cross cultural communication makes the need for the teaching of pragmatics in

language classrooms all the more important (Sharifian, 2009) (ESY13- ERT3.7-paraphrase)...

15

Clearly, there are lot of

advantages that we can

get from using recycled

materials as a media in

instructional process.

(TWP15).

The second advantages are recycled materials can help students

and teacher become more creative (ESY15-PNT2).

One of the contributions a media in learning process is making class become more interesting

is contained in recycled materials too (ESY15- ERT2.1). As long as, it is still a media of

instruction, creativity would be improved more on it (ESY15- ERT2.2). There is an attention-

getting factor associated with instructional media that keeps member of audience alert (Kemp,

1989) (ESY15- ERT2.3). Recycled materials as media make teacher have the creative thinking

to make a new media of instruction from scraps (ESY15- ERT2.4). So later, children can have

enthusiasm in the learning process (ESY15- ERT2.5). The teacher needs to have a good

imagination to make something that looks interesting for children (ESY15- ERT2.6). There are

some ways to recycle scraps into something that valuable (ESY15- ERT2.7)...

16

Here, I want to explain

why peer discussions and

feedback is helpful and

should be used

(TWP16).

The last advantage is that peer discussion and feedback increase

the motivation and confidence in students’ writing (ESY16-

PNT7).

...Peer discussion and feedback encouraging students to focus on their intended meaning by

discussing alternative points of view that can lead to the development of those ideas (DiPardo

& Freedman, 1988, Mangelsdorf, 1992 & Mendonca & Johnson, 1994) (ESY16- ERT7.1-

paraphrase).With their own friends, students find it easier to accept the comment or feedback

that given by their friends (ESY16- ERT7.2).”

20

Using colored in learning

English is really helpful

for hyperactive students

which cannot concentrate

in one thing (TWP20).

Using a music and also games are common thing for us, but in

the fact color can help the students to get high concencrate

(ESY20-PNT7).

Imagine while a child is coloring pictures, that child will not pay attention to you (ESY20-

ERT7.1)

Same with ADHD students, when they see colors in the papers, it will help them to focus and

they will pay attention on the materials (ESY20- ERT7.2). The color has long been associated

with creating a sense of calm but now it appears there are extra benefits to be had from color

(Moon, 2003) (ESY20- ERT7.3). Nowadays, color therapy is well known (ESY20- ERT7.4)...

THE TOTAL OF PARAGRAPHS CONSISTING OF IRRELEVANT SUPPORTING EVIDENCE 17 Paragraphs


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