AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS WRITING SKILL IN PARAGRAPH WRITING

Abdul Rohim
English education study program
Teacher training and education Faculty
Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang
abdulrohim2013@yahoo.com

Paragraph writing can be very simple and complicated in the same time, because writing takes time and needs skills. Dealing with that statement a descriptive research is conducted in Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang. The objective of this research is to analyze students’ skill in their paragraph writing. After analyzing the data quantitatively and qualitatively, it is found that the students’ skill in their paragraph writing is 15,13

Key words: Writing, Paragraph writing, 

I.	INTRODUCTION
University and colleges are the institutions where the students are taught many skills, they are listening, reading, speaking and writing. Out of many skills that the students need in the university, writing is most important. Writing is not only the words which you write on the piece of paper, but also the effective communication of complex ideas in the simplest form of words that every layman can understand. That is why it is the most important skill the students need in university life.
Writing in college requires several requirements  in terms of its content, organization and so on. Writing also has always played a large and central role for students all over the world. Teachers spend many weeks of the year trying to pass on their knowledge and teach their students to write academically, as they know the benefits of acquiring this skill early on.
There are many kinds of writing  that have been taught in University, one of the is Paragraph writing. Paragraph writing is a compulsory subject for english study program student in Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang. It is learned in every fourth semester, this subject helps students to be able to identify parts of paragraph and write them in good paragraph writing.
In good paragraph writing the students need many requirements and complex skills such as how they are able to determine paragraph content, it’s organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. Therefore, those components or indicators must be mastered by students.
According to description above, the reseacher is interested to analyze the paragraph writing of fourth semester students for english study program in Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang.
II.	THEORITICAL REVIEW
a.	Writing
Writing takes a time.  That’s why writing is often referred to as a process. Richards and Miller (2008) “Writing process is recursive, that is, it is a cyclical, overlapping process where the writer may return to earlier stages, or proceed to later stages at any time, or the writer may try several strategies at once” (p.65).
As stated by Harmer (2007)  “Writing is very helpful for students to make the difference between writing to study and writing to write. Writing is very important as a tool or practice to help students practice and work with the language they have learned” (p.112). It means that, when the first students to write it very helpful in practice the language and writing them in order to develop the idea of the students' knowledge in thinking. It can also make students distinguish between writing to study and writing for other things as needed.
b.	Paragraph Writing
A paragraph is a group of sentences that develops a single topic or idea. It has three main parts. The first part is the topic sentence. It is called the topic sentence because it states the topic or the subject of the paragraph. The second main part is the supporting sentences. The supporting sentences develop the topic. This means that they explain the topic sentence in detail. The last part is the concluding sentence. The concluding sentence summarizes the main points of the paragraph, or makes a final comment on the topic. (Zemach & Rumisek, 2003). A clear academic paragraph requires all of these parts.

c.	Students’ writing assesment
Writing is a complex skill to learn, because it requires students to learn several aspects. They are content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. According to Jacobs et al (1981) there are five aspects of writing: 
1.	Organization: Refers to the logical organization of the content (coherence). It is related to the ideas that stick together so that ideas run smoothly within paragraph.
2.	Content: Refers to the substance of writing, the experience of the main idea (unity). It is identified by seeing the topic sentence. The topic sentence should express main idea and reflect the entire of paragraph.
3.	Grammar: Refers to the use of the correct grammatical forms and syntactical pattern. It is identified form the construction of well-formed sentence.
4.	Vocabulary: Refers to the selection or words those are suitable with the content. It can be identified by seeing the words choice or diction in order to convey ideas to the reader.
5.	Mechanics: Refers to use of graphic conventional of the language. It is identified by seeing the usage of spelling, punctuation and capitalization witihin the paragraph. (p.90)
d.	Rubric of Writing
Table 2.1
Analytic scale for rating composition task
	20-18
Excellen to Good	17-15
Good to Adequate	14-12
Adequate to Fair	11-6
Unacceptable-not	5-1
College-level work	
1.	Organization:  introduction, Body, & conclusion	Appropriate title, effective introductory paragraph, topic is stated, leads to body; transitional expressions used; arrangement of material shows plan (could be outlined by reader); supporting evidence given for generalizations; conclusion logical and complete.	Adequate title, introduction, and conclusion; body of essay is acceptable, but some evidence may be lacking, some ideas aren’t fully developed; sequence is logical but transitional expressions may be absent or misused.	Mediocre or scant introduction or conclusion; problems with the order of ideas in body; the generalizations may not be fully supported by the evidence given; problems of organizations interfere. 	Shaky or minimally recognizable introduction can barely be seen; severe problems with ordering of ideas; lack of supporting evidence; conclusion weak or illogical; inadequate effort at organization.	Absence of introduction or conclusion; no apparent organization of body; severe lack of supporting evidence; writer has not made any effort to organize the composition (could not be outlined by reader).	
2.	Logical development of ideas: Content	Essay addresses the assigned topic; the ideas are concrete and thoroughly developed; no extraneous material; essay reflects thought.	Essay addresses the issues but misses some points; ideas could be more fully developed; some extraneous material is present.	Development of ideas not complete or essay is somewhat off the topic; paragraphs aren’t divided exactly right.	Ideas incomplete; essay does not reflect careful thinking or was hurriedly written; inadequate effort in area of content.	Essay is completely inadequate and does not reflect college-level work; no apparent effort to consider the topic carefully.	
3.	Grammar	Native-like fluency in English grammar; correct use of relative clauses, prepositions, modals, articles, verb forms, and tense sequencing; no fragments or run-on sentences	Advanced proficiency in English grammar; some grammar problems don’t influence communication, although the reader is aware of them; no fragments or run-on sentences.	Ideas are getting through to the reader, but grammar problems are apparent and have a negative effect on communication; run-on sentences or fragments present.	Numerous serious grammar problems interfere with communication of the writer’s ideas; grammar review of some areas clearly needed; difficult to read sentences.	Severe grammar problems interfere greatly with the message; reader can’t understand what the writer was trying to say; unintelligible sentence structure.	
4.	Punctuation, spelling, & mechanics 	Correct use of English writing conventions: left and right margins, all needed capitals, paragraphs indented, punctuation and spelling; very neat.	Some problems with writing conventions or punctuation; occasional spelling errors; left margin correct; paper is neat and legible.	Uses general writing conventions but has errors; spelling problems distract reader; punctuation errors interfere with ideas.	Serious problems with format of paper; parts of essay not legible; errors in sentence punctuation and final punctuation; unacceptable to educated readers.	Complete disregard for English writing conventions; paper illegible; obvious capitals missing, no margins, severe spelling problems.	
5.	Vovabulary	Precise vocabulary usage; use of parallel structures; concise; register good.	Attempts variety; good vocabulary; not wordy; register OK; style fairly concise.	Some vocabulary misused; lacks awareness of register; may be too wordy.	Poor expression of ideas; problems in vocabulary; lacks variety of structure	Inappropriate use of vocabulary; no concept of register or sentence variety.	

Brown (2010, p. 286-287)

III.	RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research uses the descriptive qualitative research. It means that this research describes variables objectively and all the factors that affect those variables. The population of this research is all students of fourth semester for english study program in Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang.semester  academic 2017/2018 consisting of five parallel classes namely class 4a1, 4a2, 4a3, 4b1, and 4b2. Samples are taken in one class randomly using techniques cluster random sampling. The instrument used by researcher is the final assignment of student’s paragraph writing. Then the collected data are analyzed and interpreted based on research needs.

IV.	FINDING AND DISCUSSION
After determining the sample through cluster random sampling of research populations, then 4a3 is determined to be research sample consisting of 29 student. Then the reseacher used their final assignment of paragraph writing and analyzed them based on the indicators of writing assesment as presented in the following table:

Table 1: Students writing skill in paragraph writing based on the Indicators of of writing assesment

Students	Indicators of writing assesment	Total	Score	
	Organization	Content	Grammar	Mechanic	Vocabulary			
1	14	16	15	15	15	75	15	
2	18	15	11	16	12	72	14,4	
3	17	17	16	15	14	79	15,8	
4	15	16	16	17	15	79	15,8	
5	15	14	15	14	15	73	14,6	
6	17	17	16	16	15	81	16,2	
7	17	16	14	16	15	78	15,6	
8	16	15	15	15	16	77	15,4	
9	14	15	14	14	14	71	14,2	
10	16	17	16	15	15	79	15,8	
11	16	15	14	15	15	75	15	
12	16	16	12	14	12	70	14	
13	15	15	12	14	14	70	14	
14	15	14	15	14	16	74	14,8	
15	16	15	14	15	16	76	15,2	
16	14	14	15	15	15	73	14,6	
17	15	14	15	14	14	72	14,4	
18	16	15	14	16	15	76	15,2	
19	15	15	16	15	14	75	15	
20	16	16	17	16	16	81	16,2	
21	16	15	16	15	14	76	15,2	
22	18	16	16	16	17	83	16,6	
23	15	16	15	16	15	77	15,4	
24	14	15	14	16	14	73	14,6	
25	12	13	14	14	14	67	13,4	
26	16	16	17	15	14	78	15,6	
27	17	16	14	15	16	78	15,6	
28	17	16	17	16	15	81	16,2	
29	16	15	14	16	14	75	15	
Total	454	445	429	440	426	2194	438,8	
Avarage	15,65517241	15,34482759	14,79310345	15,17241379	14,68965517	75,65517241	15,13103448	

Based on the table above, the obtained description of  paragraph writing for the fourth semester students in english study program at Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang, the result of their paragraph writing was catagorized as good, This is seen from average gain is 15,13. Despite their  paragraph writing was also assessed from indicators of writing assesment that  also shows categories of good to adequate but the difference in value is obtained average among component indicators.
From the five indicators of writing assesment, it was found that the highest average score is in the organization used student in writing indicated by the number 15,65, followed by content with an average value 15,34. The average value of the mechanic is 15,17 and for the grammar is 14,79, and the last indicator is vocabulary that shows 14,68 for it’s avarage.

V.	CONCLUSION
An analysis of student’s writing becomes very important, not only for understanding their skills in writing but also for assesing their assignment in writing. This research showed that the fourth semester students in english study program at Muhammadiyah University of Tangerang are able to write good paragraph writing based on the indicator of writing assesment. They are able to organize the parts of paragraph, it can be proved from the highest score among five indicators of writing is coming from the organization.

References

Brown,D. (2004). Language assesment: Principles and classroom practices, San Fransisco: Pearson Education.
Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow: Longman. 
Jacobs., Holly. L., Stephen, A., Zingkgraf., Deanne. R., Wormuth, V., Faye, H., Jane, B., Hughey. (1981). Testing ESL  Composition: A Practical Approach. Rowley: Newbury House Publishers, Inc.
Richards, J., Miller, S. (2008). Doing Academic Writing in Education: Connecting the Personal and the Professional. Taylor & Francus e-Library
Rohim, A. (2017). Essay writing how to write an essay, Yogyakarta: Deepublish
Zemach, D., Islam,C.(2005). College Writing From Paragraph to Essay, Oxford, England.: Macmillan Publisher.
Zemach, D., Rumisek,L.A.(2003). Paragraph Writing, Oxford, England.: Macmillan Publisher.