purpose to express one‟s thoughts and ideas to the readers in the form of
written products. Moreover, writing is a complex activity that involves stages of steps such as thinking, drafting, and revising before producing a
product of writing.
b. The Sub-skills of Writing
According to Brown 2004:221, there are several micro and macro skills to be considered in writing. Those skills can be used to measure the
students‟ writing ability. The followings are the micro and macro-skills of writing:
Micro skills of writing: 1
Produce graphemes and orthographic patterns of English. 2
Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose. 3
Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order patterns.
4 Use acceptable grammatical systems e.g. tense, agreement, and
pluralisation, patterns and rules. 5
Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms. 6
Use cohesive devices in written discourse. Macro skills of writing:
1 Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse.
2 Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written texts
according to form and purpose. 3
Convey links and connections between events, and communicate such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given
information, generalisation, and exemplification. 4
Distinguish between literal and implied meanings when writing. 5
Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the written text.
6 Develop and use a battery of writing strategies, such as accurately
assessing the a udience‟s interpretation, using pre-writing devices,
writing with fluency in the first draft, using paraphrases and synonyms, soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising
and editing.
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that the micro skills of writing tend to focus more on the writing mechanics and the word
level, such as cohesive devices and tenses. Meanwhile, the macro skills of writing covers a wider area of writing such as the communicative purpose
of a written text, the main idea and the supporting idea of a text, etc. Those micro and macro skills of writing need to be considered in order to make a
good writing.
c. The Process of Writing
