Students’ Linguistic Competence in Essay Writing

Indah Rahmalia STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh, West Sumatra, Indonesia e-mail: rahmaliabayu@gmail.com Abstract: Writing in a foreign language (English) has been a highly instrumental for EFL Undergraduate learners because they are required to write assignments, papers, and dissertations. Yet, the course offered and passed to fulfill the writing requirements was meager especially in the language content. Hence, this project aimed at finding out the sentence problem made by the students in essay writing. Using 5 data sources from students’ writing, the study was focused on exploring students’ mistakes in the use of cause-effect. The finding of this study showed that the most sentences problem made by the students in cause-effect essays were 24 sentences problem in run-on sentences and comma splice and the least were 2 sentences problem in choopy sentences.

The offering of writing course in the undergraduate college English is not only to complete one or more compulsory and general courses of English, but also to further their knowledge for academic purposes or for particular reasons related to their research project.In many colleges and universities, this subject is given in the second semester of their study program based on the assumption that students should master the grammar until intermediate or advanced (Alter & Adkins, 2001).
Based on the observation as a lecturer in essay writing class, writing has been regarded as the most difficult skill to learn.Over the past three decades, growing numbers of students at all levels of education are perceived as not adequately proficient in writing (Cooper, 1999), (Altenberg & Granger, 2001).Therefore, it needs specialized skill that includes the ability to express the opinions or thoughts clearly and efficiently.In the case of EFL learners, the majority of students writing proficiency are determined by their linguistic competence, rather than the other aspects such as knowledge of topic and the writing rhetoric, (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorff, 2002).However, very few studies were employed to investigate the kinds of linguistic aspect such as those promoted in this study namely the cause effects.
Moreover, Oshima & Hogue (2006) states that essay is a short piece of writing that discusses or analyzes one topic and can be divided into some paragraph.
There are four kinds of essay learnt by student in essay writing subject.They are chronological order, cause-effect essay, comparison-contrast essay and argumentative essay.Cause-effect essay becomes the first kinds of essay learnt by student.Oshima & Hogue (2006) state that cause effect discusses the cause (reason) for something, the effect (result).Moreover, (Boardman, 2009) states that cause-effect essays is essays that follow one of two basic organizational patterns.The first discusses all the causes and/or effects separately in "blocks".A block can be one or more paragraphs.The block style has two common variations.In the second basic pattern, have a series of one cause/one effect paragraphs where each cause is "linked" to one effect.In order to make a good writing, writer or students who learn writing must know some sentences problem that must be ignore during writing.
According to (Bram, 1995), sentence problem is one of the common problems might be a lack of ability to construct grammatical sentences.Based on (Boardman, 2009), there are five kinds of sentences focus as the problem in writing, they are : Choppy sentence, Stringy sentence, Run-on sentences and comma splice, Dangling modifiers, Avoiding fragments.Choppy Sentence is a sentence a very simple or a short sentences.Ideas in sentences can be connected by combining two sentences to make a compound Choppy sentence, A stringy sentence has too many independent clauses, perhaps through an overuse of coordinating conjunctions or subordinate.Run-on sentence occurs when two or more sentences are punctuated as one sentence.Two sentence compounds by using comma is not good.Dangling modifiers is has different subject and can lead to misunderstandings.Fragment is a string of words does not have these two basic.Three common types of fragments are shown below.The verb with tense is missing, the subject is missing, a dependent clause is punctuated as if it were an independent clause.
The phenomenon above raised the question "What types of problems did the students have in writing essay?"

METHOD
This study was conducted to find out students' sentences problem in cause-effect essay.In similar study, (Alter & Adkins, 2001) assessed six criteria such as dictionword choices; sentences -variety of compound, complex, and simple, no fragments, and active voice; paragraphswell organized and clear focus; general organization; mechanics -spelling and punctuations, capitalization; and usageappropriate subject-verb agreement and pronoun reference.
According to (Gay, Mills, & Airasian, 2011), participant is a person who provides data for a research study.Participants in this research selected from students in STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh.They are the third year students of STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh from class A consisted of 34 students.But, only 5 students whose causeeffect essay taken by researcher since data saturation occurs.
According to (Gay et al., 2011) observation, interviewing, questionnaire, phone calls, personal and official documents, photographs, recordings, drawings, journals, email messages and responses, and informal conversations are all sources of qualitative data.So, the researcher used source of data from official document.
The data were collected from the lecturer who still kept the students' writing when they had examination.In analyzing the data, the researcher used some steps from (Gay et al., 2011) as follows: 1. Data managing To organize the data and to check for completeness, the researcher analyzed the students'cause-effect essay by describing the sentence problem found from the data.

Reading/memorizing
The researcher read the description from the sentence problem and get understanding of the data collected.

Classifying
The researcher classified the sentence problem found in students'causeeffect essay into five categories.They were: choppy sentence, stringy sentence, run-on sentences and comma splice, dangling modifiers, and avoiding fragments.

Interpreting
According to (Gay et al., 2011), data description is based heavly in the connection, common aspects and linkages among the data, especially the identify categories.At this point, the researcher had interpreted the data based on the categories.

Writing report
According to (Gay et al., 2011), the writing report to describe the reserach and finding is the final process in qualitative reserach.So, researcher wrote the report based on the data got from the student.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The findings of this research revealed the following things: first in data description, the researcher described the students' sentence problem in general, and the second was data analyses, the reseacher described the students' sentence problem in detail based on each categories.

Data description
Based on (Bram, 1995), there were five categories in students' problem in essay.They are choppy sentence, stringy sentence, run-on sentence and comma splice, dangling modifiers and avoiding fragments.After analyzing the data from the students'cause-effect essay, the researcher got the result of students' sentences problem of cause-effect essay in essay writing class at STKIP Abdi Pendidikan Payakumbuh.The result was described in general as follow.Based on the table above, the most sentence problems made by students was run-on sentence and comma splice and the least was choppy sentence The research also described each categories in detail by analyzing sentence problem founded in students' cause effect essay.It could be seen in data analysis as follow.

Data Analysis a. Choopy sentence made by students
As stated before, choopy sentence is a sentence a very simple or a short sentences.The result of the reserach could be seen in table 2:

Add a comma and conjunction
In other hand, internet has good effect for us.Such as to get information fastly about anything we need, to know the global situation, to use the social media for example facebook, twitter, google and another, the last to make interaction with another people in the world.
Based on the table above, it could be seen that only 2 sentences problem in choopy sentences found from 5 cause-effect essays.This resuIt showed that it was the least sentence problem made by students.It happened because most students can arrange their sentences in writing without creating many simple sentence in one paragraph.Actually, the students had already learnt about it at previous semester in writing I.

b. Stringy sentence
As stated before, stringy sentences is a sentence with too many clauses, usully connected with and, but, so, and sometimes because.The result of this sentences problem that made by students could be described in table 3:

Add conjunction
Internet has many advantages for people because it can add knowledge and friend 2 02 the effect of internet star from children, until parent, all people can be use internet.

Add conjuntion
The effect of internet started from children until parent since all people can use internet 3 03 then they can do something is their watch in internet not only bad effect from the internet, internet has good effect such as, give information about politics, economics, knowledge, and of all information we need.

Add conjuntion
Then, they can do anything by watching internet and it is not only has bad effect but also good effect.For example, it give information about politics, economics, knowledges and anything we need.
Based on the table, researcher found there were 3 sentences problem in stringy sentence made by the students in their essays.It may be because most students have understood the way how to put the correct conjunction in creating many clauses like the exercises that they did in writing I.

c. Run-on sentence and comma splice
As stated before, run-on sentence occurs when two or more sentences are punctuated as one sentence.Actually, two sentences compound by using comma is not good.The description could be seen in the following table 4: The first is the children, we must control them when used internet cause internet can give anything information for them.

Add a subordinate
The first is the children.We must control them when they use internet because it can give any information for them 15.
04 internet have a bad effect for our children, they can to search anything from internet.

Add a subordinate
Internet has a bad effect for our children because they can serach anything from it.16. 04 Just for example the children can to Add a comma Just for example, the children can

Students code
Students' sentence

Run-on sentence and comma splice
Correct sentence search the application that can to bring a bad effect for their life.
serach the application that can bring a bad effect for their life 17.
04 and then we are often saw the criminal case that make the children as a victim it's one of the bad effect of internet Add a period Then, we often see the criminal case that make the children as a victim.Based on the analysis, there were 24 sentences problem made by student in run-on and comma splice.It showed that run-on and comma splice is the most sentences problem made by the students.It happened because most of students do not put comma and period in their writing.It makes their sentences is not understanable d.Dangling modifiers Dangling modifiers is has different subject and can lead to misunderstanding.The description could be seen in the following table 5: In this analysis, the researcher found that there were only 3 sentences problem made by student in dangling modifiers.This result showed that students have already known to substitute key noun or they can keep maintain the consistency of pronoun in their writing.

e. Avoiding Fragments
Avoiding fragments is a string of words that does not have subject, verb, dependent clause and independent clause.

Does not have a verb
Internet is very important for people to give the information 6. 02 The effect of positive in internet is, can add knowledge, add to friend, give information, and to easy communication with the world.

Does not have a subject
The positive effect of internet is, it can add knowledge, make a friend, give information, and easily communicate with the people around the world 7. 03 The effect from the internet firstly, in one family.

Does not have a verb
the first effect of the internet is for family 8.
05 By using internet can add our knowledge, because we can search information that we want.

Does not have subject
By using internet, we can add our knowledge and search information that we want Based on the table, there were 8 sentences problem made by the students in avoiding fragments, this result showed that students still have problem in creating a sentence since it can be called as one sentence if there is one subject and one predicate.The fact got from the data, some of students' essay are missing subject or verb.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Based on the result described in finding and discussion above, it could be concluded that the most sentences problem made by the students in cause-effect essay were 24 sentences problem in run-on sentences and comma splice and the least were 2 sentences problem in choopy sentences.
The finding was beneficial for students in order to avoid the use of sentences problem in their cause-effect essay.For lecturers, they can teach kinds of sentences problem in order to improve the ability of their students in essay especially for causeeffect essay.

Table 1 .
Students' Sentence Problem Based on

Table 2 .
Students' Sentence Problem in Choopy Sentence

Table 3 .
Students' Sentence Problem in Stringy Sentence

Table 4 .
Students' Sentence Problem in Run-On Sentence and Comma Splice

Table 5 .
Students' Sentence Problem in Dangling Modifiers

Table 6 .
Students' Sentence Problem in Avoiding Fragments