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To really understand whether a work of literature portrays the real world, we need to see what is behind the work itself.
In this example, the underlined word was employed to show the function of a work literature. Portray has exact and specific meaning that is to depict
something such a character or a scene. If the writer employed show, he or she might fail to convey the exact meaning, as show has various different shades of
meaning. Specific terms express meaning more vividly and more precisely than
general ones. Most of the compositions 75 avoided general terms. It means that most of the students were implied that they were definite of themselves. If the
writer employed a general word such as things, the audience would probably consider the writer as indefinite writer. For example: Some of these perennial
undesirable behaviors are: talking out of turn, getting out of a seat without asking permission, using dirty language, and fighting with other children. Perennial
undesirable behaviors in this sentence conveyed a more precise and clear meaning than if the writer employed things.
4. Concision of the Students’ Writing
Concision of diction in academic writing involves several features namely, meaningless words, doubling of words, redundancy, phrases, and negative form.
The percentages of those features were presented in Table 4.4. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Table 4.4 The Students’ Diction on Concision Category No.
Concision Features
1. Avoid meaningless words unnecessary “to be” and “being”
82.14 2.
Avoid doubling of words 71.43
3. Avoid redundancy
78.57 4.
Replace phrase with single meaningful word padded verbs and formulaic phrase
42.86 5.
Avoid negative form 71.43
In this category, most of the compositions 82.14 avoided meaningless words either avoiding to be and being form. This means that the students were
aware that such a feature would weaken the quality of the composition as they added meaningless words to convey the meaning. For example, it seems to be
unfair because each student is acknowledged to have the same ability and speed in expressing their ideas. The form to be in this sentence was meaningless as it
did not change the meaning even if the writer eliminated it. Further, most of the students’ compositions 71.43 avoided doubling of
words. Using single word to express the precise meaning will remain concise and clear as well. For example, Cooperative learning can be implemented not only in
teaching speaking, reading, or vocabulary but also in writing. Employing a single word such as implement in this sentence had already conveyed the intended
meaning, so that employing implement and apply was inappropriate. The majority of the students’ compositions 78.57 avoided redundancy
as well. Most of them employed an effective single word. For example, Implementing cooperative learning in teaching writing brings some benefits.
Employing benefits in this sentence was better than saying good benefits as benefits already represented something good.
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However, some of the compositions 42.86 replaced phrases with single meaningful words. Most of them employed long phrases to convey the message.
This feature would be described later in details in the discussion as the researcher found many errors in this category.
The last feature in concision category is negative form. More than half of the compositions 71.43 avoided negative forms. This means that most of the
students were aware that negative form such as without including could be replaced with excluding.
B. Diction Errors Produced in the Students’ Writing
