53 are typically short, full of grammatical or spelling mistakes, do not have a well
organization, have scattered ideas and usually lack of an interesting start and a convincing end.
Other studies also revealed the challenges in argumentative writing. It is stated that only 15 of 12
th
grade students performing at the proficient level were able to write well-organized essays. The students particularly found it difficult to
take clear positions and consistently support those positions, using transitions to lead the reader from one part of the essay to another Perie et al, 2005 as cited in
Newel, et al, 2011. Other studies find out that, in writing an argumentative written work, it is also difficult for the students to recognize, to apply
argumentative text structures Chambliss Murphy, 2002; Freedman Pringle, 1984 as cited in Newel, et al, 2011, as well as to generate evidence Kuhn, 1991,
as cited in Newel, et al, 2011.
B. Theoretical Framework
This part shows the theoretical framework implemented in this research. Specifically, the framework synthesizes the relevant theories discussed in the
previous subchapters. The synthesized theories would become the grounds to support this research and to analyze the data of the research.
The term coherence in a written work is concerned with arranging ideas in a logical way in which every stated idea in a written work is connected one
another. This firmly implies that there should be connection of ideas among the elements in a particular written work as well as among sentences written in a
54 paragraph. Therefore, the term coherence in a written work is also closely related
to a paragraph level. A writer should write relevant sentences within a paragraph and ensure that those sentences are related to the topic sentence in the paragraph.
Essentially, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas would conclude that the relation between unity and coherence cannot be separated and should always
stand together to write a coherent written work. It is to help readers understand the ideas stated in a written work easily.
In this research, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas also take a fundamental part in understanding as well as in analyzing coherence in the
students’ essays. Both the logical arrangement and connection of ideas would certainly tell that coherence in this research was closely related to the content of
ideas in the stud ents’ essays and not concerned with some particular writing
techniques. Further, the logical arrangement and connection of ideas would also indicate that recognizing idea relationships in
the students’ essays is very essential since it is regarded as a way to achieve coherence in the essays.
In this research, there were three essential criteria to recognize the idea relationships in
the students’ essays. First, a particular idea relationship in the essays could be recognized by observing written cohesive devices that the
students have written in their essay. Second, it would be necessary to recognize the pattern of ideas based on the definition that each relationship has in order to
see a particular idea relationship in the s tudents’ essays. Third, it is also important
to ensure that all ideas written in all elements in the students’ essays should be
related to the topic of the written work. In this case, the elements covered the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
55 thesis statement, the argument covering its topic sentence and its supporting
evidence, and the thesis restatement of the essays. These three criteria were used to determine whether
the student’s essay had a clear idea relationship. This research also aimed to analyze one type of academic writing, namely
an essay. Therefore, it was essential to clarify a definition of essays and components that an essay has in order to see as well as to analyze the logical
arrangement of ideas in an essay, as the focus of this research. Clearly, an essay is said to be a group of paragraphs that aims to develop one central idea, through an
organized discussion, of a particular subject. The organized group of discussion is then divided into three main parts, namely introduction, covering the thesis
statement or the writer’s position, body, and conclusion. Therefore, when an essay is stated to be coherent, it means that there must be logical arrangements and
connection of ideas among the introduction, body, the conclusion to develop a particular central idea in the essay.
This research more specifically analyzed an analytical exposition essay, which is a type of argumentative essays. Similarly, in order to see as well as to
analyze the logical arrangement of ideas in the essay, the definition of argumentative essays in the context of analytical exposition and their components
need to be clarified. In this research, the argumentative essay is defined as a form of exposition text that is said to cover three essential things. First, it covered our
position stating that we agree or disagree with a particular issue. Second, it provided strong reasons as well as evidence to support our position or to convince
readers that our position is correct. Third, it ended with the restatement of our PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
56 position, which aims to reinforce our position and to convince readers to believe
the position. Therefore, in order to state that an analytical exposition essay is coherent,
readers should be able to see the logical arrangement and connection of ideas among writer
s’ position, arguments, and a restatement of their position to convince readers that the stated position is correct as well as to help readers
recognize the ideas relationships among them. Besides, every idea in writers’
position should be related to the arguments written by the students and the thesis restatement written in the essay. Figure 2.14 would illustrate the relationships
among coherence, an essay, and an argumentative essay, which is specifically in the form of analytical exposition.
57
Ideas Essay
Argumentative Essay
Arranged Logically
Idea 1 Title
Title Idea 2
Introduction Introduction:
covering the thesis statement; students’ position
Idea 3 Body;
Each paragraph:
one main idea and its relevant
supporting sentences
Argument 1:
topic sentence
supporting evidence elaboration Idea 4
Argument 2:
topic sentence
supporting evidence elaboration Idea 5
Argument 3:
topic sentence
supporting evidence elaboration Idea 6
Conclusion Concluding
paragraph Conclusion:
covering the thesis restatement
Figure 2.14 The Relationships among Coherence, Essay, and Argumentative Essay
The relationships shown in Figure 2.14 clearly point out that a coherent argumentative essay should have logical arrangement and connection of ideas
among the title, the introduction, the arguments, and eventually the conclusion in
to convince the readers that the student’s position is correct
to create an idea- relationship in an essay
A COHERENT ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
58 order to convince readers that the stated position is correct and to help readers
recognize the idea relationships among them. As clearly seen in Figure 2.14, the introduction part consists of a thesis
stateme nt or a student’s position toward a particular topic. In the context of
argumentative essay, the thesis statement states students’ position whether they
agree toward a particular issue. This thesis statement states a main point as well as expresses a controlling idea for the whole essay. Accordingly, if students state
their agreement toward a particular issue, other elements in the essay, such as the topic sentence, the supporting evidence, and the thesis restatement, should be
related and arranged logically to support their position. As an analogy, if a student writes a topic about Yogyakarta and believes
that Yogyakarta is a nice place to live, hisher topic sentence, supporting evidence, and the thesis restatement should also talk about Yogyakarta as a nice
place to live. If the student, for instance, writes about Jakarta, or the negative points of Yogyakarta as a place to live, she will certainly write unconnected and
illogical ideas to support his her position. Consequently, she will not be able to write a coherent argumentative essay as stated in Figure 2.14.
Figure 2.14 also shows that every argument in the body of the essay starts with a topic sentence and is subsequently followed by its supporting evidence.
The topic sentence clarifies a point that needs to be elaborated in the argument and provides a focus toward its supporting evidence. Therefore, the supporting
evidence in a paragraph should be relevant to the topic sentence written in the beginning of the argument. By doing so, the student can develop a unity in hisher
59 argument and write a coherent argument. For that reason, the students should
ensure that a topic sentence and its supporting evidence support and are relevant to a thesis statement written in their essay.
In addition, the relationships in Figure 2.14 certainly tell that coherence analysis in the
students’ essays should explain the logical arrangement and connection of ideas among the introduction, the arguments, and the conclusion
parts of the essays. Specifically, the analysis should explain why the ideas in the introduction, the arguments stated in each paragraph covering its topic sentence
and supporting evidence, and the conclusion parts are said to be arranged logically in convincing the readers that the
student’s position is correct. Besides, it is also important to recognize the relationship of ideas in the essay, whether, for instance,
they are in a chronological or in causality relationship, and so on. Finally, if there are disconnection of ideas or the ideas among parts and sentences in the essay are
not arranged logically to convince the readers as well as it is difficult to recognize the idea relationships, this research will possibly find out the coherence problems
in the essay. After discussing the arrangement of ideas, this research informs that the
analytical exposition essays discussed in this research are related to a type of academic writing. Therefore, in this research, an Academic Essay Writing class at
ELESP was selected as the research setting. It is because the students in the selected class have been equipped with the concept of coherence and are required
to write an essay, which covers key characteristics of academic writing, based on a theme of English literature, education, or linguistics. Eventually, English
60 language teachers are encouraged to put their considerable attention to the
students’ argumentative essays because, as it is revealed by a number of previous studies and a nature of writing, writing a coherent argumentative written work
becomes a difficult and complex thing to do. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
61
Figure 2.15 Research Construct Map PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
62
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter addresses the methodology employed in this research. It is to provide clear information on what I did in the process of conducting the research
as well as to answer the research question. Further, it would discuss seven main parts. They are research design, research setting, types of data and data sources,
research participants, data collection technique, data analysis technique, and trustworthiness.
A. Research Design
The discussion in this part covers two essential points. The first point discusses a qualitative research, regarded as the basic principle underlying this
research. Meanwhile, the second point elaborates document analysis as a type of qualitative research implemented in
this research in order to analyze the students’ essays.
The basic principle underlying this research is a qualitative method that has some fundamental characteristics as proposed by Creswell 2007; Merriam
2002; Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen 2010. First, a qualitative research is conducted in a natural setting. A qualitative researcher accordingly attempts to
collect data in a particular setting where the participants really experience the issue under the study. In that case, the researcher does not bring research
participants to a lab and typically does not ask them to complete particular PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
