Articles Tenses Language Use

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4.1.1.1 Articles

Articles “a”, “an” and “the” are used to indicate singular noun. In this study, it was figured that students paid little attention to the use of articles. The students did not put any articles to indicate a singular noun and teacher gave feedback on it. Consider these examples: Example 1 The sentence in the example above was incomplete. The word “noun”, “verb”, ”adjective” and “certain prefix” in that sentence were a singular noun, therefore, articles “a” or “an” should be put before those words. Teacher gave corrections by putting articles in front of those words to make the sentence complete. Example 2 The article “the” was used to refer to a particular thing. In the sentence above, the students did not put article “the” in front of the words “review of related 34 studies”, “review of related theories” and “theoretical framework”. Therefore, teacher gave corrections by putting article “the” before those words.

4.1.1.2 Tenses

Fountain Bram, 1999: 55 states that the students should not change the tense from present to past or vice versa unless they have a good reason. Teacher provided feedback on tense to ensure that students used the appropriate tense and they were consistent in using the tense. Consider these examples: Example 1 In writing, a writer needs to be consistent in using tenses to say what heshe wants to say. In the example above, the author was not consistent in using a tense. She used both simple present tense and simple past tense within a paragraph. For that reason, teacher gave comment about her consistency in using the tense whether she wanted to use simple present tense or simple past tense. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 35 Example 2 An undergraduate thesis is a research report. It means that writing an undergraduate thesis is writing a report of a research that had investigated. Since it is a report, the writer has to write it using simple past tense. In the example, the author used simple present tense in writing the composition. Consequently, teacher suggested the author to revise her composition into past tense.

4.1.1.3 Plural Marker