8
people must write in a correct way to avoid confusion and misinterpretation among readers.
According to McCharty 2000: 25, when people write something, there are two aspects that we have to consider; they are
cohesion and coherence. Cohesion is the surface links between clauses and sentences of texts, while coherence is the feeling that
the element of the text are tied together in order to make sense. Those two will determine the quality of the structure and the flow
of the ideas of what we want to put in the paper. In addition, Oshima and Hogue 1999: 40 stated that to be able to have
coherence in writing, a writer needs to focus on the sentence movements. The sentences should flow smoothly.
b. Characteristics of Written Language
According to Brown 2001: 341-142, there are seven characteristics of written language as stated below:
1 Permanence
When something is written down in its final form and delivered to the audience, the writer can not revise his
or her written work and revisions must be made before submitting the final product.
9
2 Production time
Using time effectively is needed when people make their writing because the time provided to make a
written work is usually limited. 3
Distance Writers have their own perspective when they write a
text that perhaps different from the readers’ point of view, therefore they need to be able to predict the
audiences’ general knowledge in interpreting what they have written.
4 Orthography
If the students are non-literate in the native language, the teacher should help the students to know about the
alphabets used in the written text of the English language.
5 Complexity
Writers should learn how to remove redundancy, how to combine sentences, how to make references to other
elements in a text, and so on. 6
Vocabulary Good writers have to master much vocabulary because
written language has strong demand on the vocabulary use.
10
7 Formality
Writers have to pay attention to the rules in creating written language especially when they write an
academic writing.
c. Microskills and Macroskills for Writing
According to Brown 2004: 221, there are many subskills for writing. Those subskills are classified into two categories
namely microskills and macroskills. The Microskills of writing:
1 Producing letters and words in the English writing
system. 2
Writing at an efficient rate to suit the purpose of writing
3 Using acceptable words and appropriate word order
patterns 4
Using correct grammatical feature 5
Paraphrasing 6
Using cohesive devices The Macroskills of writing:
1 Using generic structures of written texts
2 Producing coherence writings
3 Developing ideas
4 Differentiating the literal meaning from implied
meaning 5
Using references based on context 6
Applying writing strategies.
