Background of the Study Problem Identification

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Writing is no longer a secondary skill but one with great significance. Students are called upon to use English writing skill in their careers or to participate in conferences and workshops, both before and after graduation. As a fundamental element of all educational mainstreams and the central skill among the four language skills, English writing skill is important to be successful in almost any profession. The work of Odell 1985 states that no matter what profession a person is in or plans to enter, developing English writing skill will facilitate career advances. In other words, good English writing skill is an asset to professionals Zimmerman Rodriguez, 1992: 5. This is reflected in the fact that nearly all published articles require superior written communication in English. Accordingly, professions that are either directly or indirectly associated with writing require people to have good English writing skill. Further, today’s technology makes it even more imperative to be able to write well. It has been clearly shown that there are a lot of companies which place great reliance on communicating through the internet. The easiest illustration is communicating via e-mail, instant messaging, or reporting and publishing articles, essays, term papers, contracts, business letters, professional journals, memos, and reports. The students are thus required to build up English academic writing skill if they are to succeed in the occupational mainstream. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 2

B. Problem Identification

The syllabus of the Writing VI course of English Study Program, Sanata Dharma University states that sixth semester students must have good command of English and be capable of composing well-organized academic writing. Academic writing tends to be associated with hard work and difficulty, rarely with pleasure. Academic writing is complex and not merely based on guesswork, untested speculation, and received opinion Swales, 1994: 2. Further, a good academic paper must demonstrate wide knowledge of a subject, be well- organized, and show effective use of sentence structure, word choice, and mastery of mechanics Sanata Dharma English Education Writing VI Composition Profile, 2006. Formal, clear, and concise language is the preferred language for academic writing as well O’Hare, 1984: 317. Gerson 2003: 27 further affirms that to be effective academic writing, diction must be accurate. In summary, formal, clear, concise, and accurate language is appropriate for academic writing. However, the students of the English Education Department, particularly the students of Writing VI course still produce informal, unclear, and inaccurate sentences. For example, “Students’ motivation and achievement got more and more dependent on each other as the teacher puts a lot of support into making academic papers” may be better changed into “ The relationship between students’ motivation and achievement grew rapidly as the teacher strongly encouraged in composing academic papers”. The example above states the same meaning but differ widely in the degree of formality and concision, as the first sentence does not meet the 3 standard of the word choice in academic writing suggested by O’Hare and Gerson. One of the most likely reasons is that the students have a limited range of effective diction. In other words, they are unable to choose appropriate words for academic writing. Therefore, the students are not only compelled to have knowledge of the ideas in their writing but also mastery of linguistic items such as the structure and the diction. Diction, as Michael Agnes 1999: 400 points out, is a manner of expression in words or choice of word. Anne Ruggles 1988: 301 further states that finding exactly the “right” word for what the writer wants to say can be difficult. As O’Hare 1984: 317 and Gerson 2003: 27 stated that appropriate diction in academic writing must comprise formality, accuracy, clarity, and concision. Since the academic writing is significantly related with working world, the researcher will investigate the students’ academic writing especially the students’ diction employed in academic writing covering four features suggested by O’Hare and Gerson.

C. Problem Limitation