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 20122013. 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, 27
th
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, 2
nd
October 2013 also see Appendix PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
72 B
. As soon as I knew that the lecturer gave me the permission, I, on the same day, Friday 27
th
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, 1
st
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, 2
nd
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 2
nd
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, 9
th
October 2013. It was the time when the students had already submitted their argumentative essays to the lecturer.
Fifth, on Wednesday, 9
th
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, 16
th
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. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
75 Sixth, in order to access the
lecturer’s instruction, on Wednesday, 13
th
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, 1
st
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
