punctuation and vocabulary to use, etc.
7
. Based on her opinion, writing is a kind of problem-solving rather than writing from dictation or pure copying of someone
else’s text. We can conclude that writing is part of communication, which can learn by anyone, writing also an important form of communication in day to any
life. When we write something, we have to consider many aspects because
writing is a complex skill, for examples; grammar, vocabulary, mechanic, fluency and form. According to Heaton, there are several components or main areas in
writing: a.
Language use means the ability to write correct and appropriate sentences
b. Mechanical skill means the ability to use correctly those conventions
peculiar to the written language, for example, punctuation, spelling, etc.
c. Treatment of content means the ability to think creatively and develop
thoughts, excluding all irrelevant information. d.
Stylistic skill means the ability to manipulate sentences and paragraphs, and use language effectively
e. Judgment skill means the ability to write in appropriate manner for a
particular purpose with a particular audience in mind, together with an ability to select, organize, and order relevant information.
8
2. Process of Writing
Writing is a process of discovery, which involves a series of steps, and those steps are very often a zigzag journey
9
. Sometime, someone who want to write anything waste their long time with their blank paper although they have sit
down for a long time because writing needs hard thinking to gaining ideas, organizing them, generating paragraph, and so on. According to Miller, four
stages will make the writing better and effective. They are planning, drafting, revising and editing.
10
7
Paul Iley, Using Literacy to Develop Thinking Skills with Children Aged 7-11, London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd., 2005, p. 73.
8
J.B Heaton, Writing English Lnaguage Tests. London: Longman, 1988. p. 135.
9
Langan, John, English Skill Eight Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008, p. 15.
10
Robert Keith Miller, Motives for Writing Fifth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006, p. 7.
a. Planning
Planning is sometimes called as prewriting. It is about the first stage of writing that simply set forth ideas in whatever shapes or forms that is handy
for you – fragments, lists, sentences, or clusters. The purpose of planning is to
capture and preserve ideas.
b. Drafting
Drafting refers to procedure to generate the ideas and serve as departure point. In this stage, a writer delivers the idea into a raw draft. While drafting,
you transform ideas into sentences in a semi-organized manner. Here the purpose is to let your ideas develop, expand, and form connections. Drafting is
primarily a stage of discovery and exploration.
c. Revising
After making a new draft, it is important to remark the raw material of the draft to get it in shape. It means that in this stage, a writer has to improve the
first draft. Although revision is classified as the third stage of writing, it is ongoing recurring whenever needed. During revision, your goal is rethink
ideas, refine them, and develop them. You may drastically reorganize the draft. During this time, you reshape ideas
– expanding, deleting, and clarifying.
d. Editing
This stage is about finding and eliminating mistakes that distract or annoy the reader. In other words, this last stage that means the writing should already
to be read by the reader. In addition, Dietsch stated, ―this final stage requires examining ideas, details, words, grammar, and punctuation
– attending to matters within each sentence. Here the emphasis is on accuracy, correctness,
and clarity‖.
11
11
Betty Mattix Dietcsh, Reasoning and Writing Well, Fourth Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2006. p. 11.
3. Purpose of Writing
According to D’Angelo writing can help to think critically. Writing
enables us to perceive relationship, to deepen perception, to solve problem and to give further experiences
12
. It means the purposes of writing are to make relationship with other, to solve problem in written form such as send a letter for
someone. The last, through writing, someone can express his experiences on a paper or in written form
.
In addition, they are really four common purpose in writing, they are: to inform, to explain, to persuade and to amuse others.
a. Writing to Inform
In much of the writing that the writers will do, they will intend simply to inform their readers about a subject. To inform is to transmit necessary
information about the subject to the readers, and usually this means just telling the readers what the facts are or what happened.
b. Writing to Explain
Writing to explain means writing to take what is unclear and make it clear. In explanatory writing, a writer who understands a complex topic must take sure
that his readers understand it as well.
c. Writing to Persuade
The most important we ever do in our personal life, in our work life, and may be our school life will probably persuasion. Complaints to the rent board
about our landlord, letter application for jobs, essay on examinations are all likely to involve writing persuasively. Your task in persuasion is to convince your
reader to accept the main idea, even though it may be controversial.
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d. Writing to Amuse other
Writing to amuse requires that you focus on readers other than yourself. You may enjoy the experience and take pride in what you accomplish, but you
12
D ’Angelo, Frank J., Process and Thought in Composition. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Winhrop Publisher,Inc.Cambridge. 1980. p. 4.
13
Daniel Brown and Bill Burnet, Connection a RethoricShort Prose Reader, New Jersey: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984. p.129.
