Research Setting Research Instruments

B. Research Participants

The term population refers to the entire group of persons, things or events that share at least one common trait Sprinthal, 1991: 27. The target population of this research was all the sixth semester students who belonged to Writing VI classes of English Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University of the academic year 2003 2004. Since it would not be possible to survey the entire classes, a small sample designed to be the representative of the population was selected. A sample is “a subgroup taken from the population to represent it” Brown, 1991: 114. There are five Writing VI classes and class E was taken as the sample of the population in this research. Class E consisted of thirty students. Since two students were not sixth semester students, the researcher thus took 28 students as the sample.

C. Research Setting

The research was conducted at the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta. It was done from August until December 2006 towards the sixth semester students of the academic year 20032004. The researcher collected the final assignment from the lecturer to be analyzed as the data for the research.

D. Research Instruments

The research employed four checklists as the instruments. Those checklists consisted of formality, accuracy, clarity, and concision categories derived from the features of appropriate diction for academic writing advised by O’Hare 1984: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 317 and Gerson 2003: 27. The first instrument consisting of formality category aimed to examine how the students use more formal words in academic writing. Further, it aimed to find out whether the students choose either less formal words or more formal words. Abbreviation was divided into four features, namely, shortening, contractions, and initialism. Pronoun included possessive, sexist, and addressing. While expression included slang, colloquialism, cliché, jargon, idiom, and neologism. The last feature is personal judgment or subjective words. The checklist was thus outlined as follows: Table 3.1 Formality Checklist No. Formality Criteria YesNo 1. Abbreviation Shortening full forms Contraction no apostrophe marking the omission of letters, full forms of one-word numbers Initialism using plain words 2. Correct pronoun possessive, sexist, and addressing Possessive using of rather than a possessive clitic Sexist no masculine bias, presented in third person Addressing avoiding the use of I 3. Expression Slang avoiding any slangs Colloquialism avoiding conversational casual language Cliché avoiding worn-out words phrases Jargon avoiding specialized vocabulary terminology Idiom avoiding non-literal informal expression that cannot be translated into another language Neologism avoiding new language forms that are unfamiliar 4. Personal judgment or subjective words avoiding words that imply personal judgment of the writer The second instrument consisting of accuracy category focused on whether the students employ accurate diction in delivering the message in academic writing. Accuracy category included ungrammatical form, errors in meaning, and exaggerated expression. Errors in meaning might be indicated from confused pairs and words confused by analogy. The checklist of accuracy category would be: Table 3.2 Accuracy Checklist No. Accuracy Criteria YesNo 1. Errors in meaning Confused pairs aware of words which have similar spelling but different meaning Words confused by analogy aware of transference of meaning 2. Exaggerated expression avoiding the overuse of very, really, definitely, and extremely The third instrument consisted of clarity category. This category consisted of synonym and general term. These features aimed to find out the students’ competence in choosing the right diction that was clear and not ambiguous. The checklist was framed as follows: Table 3.3 Clarity Checklist No. Clarity Criteria YesNo 1. Synonyms using precise words 2. General term using specific terms rather than general ones The concision category checklist was the fourth instrument used for ascertaining the students’ diction. Further it analyzed whether the students employed redundancy or brief sentences. Concision category included deletion of meaningless words, doubling of words, redundancy, phrase replacement, negative form. Meaningless words covered unnecessary to be and being. Meanwhile, phrase replacement covered padded verbs and formulaic phrase. The checklist was formulated as follows: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Table 3.4 Concision Checklist No. Concision Criteria YesNo 1. Meaningless words avoiding unnecessary to be or being 2. Doubled Words avoiding two similar words to express one meaning 3. Redundancy cutting words that express the same thing 4. Phrase replacement Padded verbs avoiding combined words to produce the intended meaning Formulaic phrase avoiding too long and big phrases in conveying message 5. Negative form using affirmative rather than negative forms

E. Research Procedure