113 problems were similarly because of the difficulties that the students had in writing
a topic sentence. Unlike the current research, he did not mention about the opposing and
unrelated topic sentences to the thesis statement as well as the descriptive topic sentences as the further clarification on the topic sentence regarded as the
coherence problems in his study. Therefore, the findings of the current research on the topic sentence could significantly provide the improvement in the case of topic
sentences as the coherence problem found by Ahmed ’s previous study in 2010.
Importantly, the discussions on the irrelevant topic sentences would be able to show a clear relation between a topic sentence and its supporting evidence.
In that case, when the students wrote an irrelevant topic sentence to the thesis statement of their essays, their supporting evidence could be automatically
regarded as irrelevant supporting evidence. It was because they would mainly discuss about the irrelevant idea stated in the topic sentence, which clarifies the
point that needs to be elaborated in the paragraph.
3. Irrelevant Supporting Evidence
The last coherence problem was irrelevant supporting evidence written in a paragraph to support a topic sentence. The discussions would be started by
firstly explaining the ideas of supporting evidence in an argumentative essay, particularly in an analytical exposition essay. In the context of analytical
exposition essays, students wrote supporting evidence to meet an essential purpose that is to support a point or a topic sentence in each paragraph Board of
114 Studies New South Wales, 1998. Then, each paragraph is regarded as an
argument to support a thesis statement Hardy Klarwein, 1990; Board of Studies New South Wales, 1998 and as a body in an essay to develop and to
support the thesis Meyers, 2005. The point was that the supporting evidence written by the student would
be organized and elaborated with a topic sentence in order to form a paragraph. Then, this paragraph would be regarded as an argument to support a thesis
statement. Therefore, the organization and elaboration of supporting evidence and a topic sentence as well as among the supporting evidence themselves in a
paragraph would be essential point to consider. Then, in analyzing the supporting evidence in the essays, which is within a
paragraph level, this research would apply the operational definition of a coherent paragraph and unity stated in Chapter II. A coherent paragraph consists of
integrated sentences whose relation among one sentence to other sentences should give a continuous line of thought, have a logical arrangement and not be seen as a
series of separate sentences. Then dealing with the idea of unity, writers can unify their paragraphs by writing mutually supported sentences in their paragraph
Bram, 1995. Besides, it can be done by discussing only one main idea from the beginning to the end of their paragraph Oshima Hogue, 2006. For instance, if
the writers write about the advantages of owning a car in their paragraph, they should also discuss its advantages.
Therefore, the supporting evidence written by the students should be able to support a topic sentence in a paragraph. It was done by writing the supporting
115 evidence that was relevant to the topic sentence. Simply, when a topic sentence in
a paragraph discussed about, for instance, a reading skill, the supporting evidence should also talk about the reading skill. Besides, all written supporting evidence in
each paragraph should also be related to each other, so readers do not see them as a series of separate sentences. Similarly, when there was a topic sentence
discussed about the reading skill in a paragraph, all supporting evidence should also be related to the reading skill. If in the paragraph, there was supporting
evidence that discussed about speaking skill, the irrelevant supporting evidence within the paragraph could possibly occur.
In order to support the explanation written in the previous paragraphs, this research would show some supporting evidence taken from
the students’ essays. The first example was taken from
the seventh essay entitled “Pop-Up Book as a Media to Teach Daily Conversation for Children” TTL
7
. This essay, in its thesis statement, stated that a pop-up book would be the most effective media that
teachers can use to teach daily conversation for children TWP
7
. Then, in one of the paragraphs in the essay to support the thesis statement, the student wrote:
As we remember, that pop – up book provides three – dimensional pictures
that can make the learning process more interesting and fun ESY
7
-PNT
7
. By using pop
– up book, teacher can teach language easier ESY
7
- ERT
7.1
. Moreover, pop – up book is usually used to retell and illustrate a
favorite story or fairy tale, share information from a science lesson or series of lessons, copy and illustrate the lines of a poem and chant or song
they learnt recently, and showcase their own imaginative stories Constantinides, 2010
ESY
7
-ERT
7.2
. The topic sentence in the paragraph clearly supported the thesis statement
TWP
7
. In that case, the topic sentence stated that pop-up book could provide three-dimensional pictures that are significant for the learning process ESY
7
- PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
116 PNT
7
. However, the problem occurred when the student, in the subsequent supporting evidence, did not elaborate further about those three-dimensional
pictures that can make the learning process become more interesting and fun. In fact, in the subsequent supporting evidence ESY
7
-ERT
7.1
, the student, without discussing the use of three-dimensional pictures, stated that the teacher
can teach the language more easily by the use of pop-up book. Even, the student wrote the usage a pop-up book itself that was obviously different from, and did
not support the idea of the three-dimensional pictures ESY
7
-ERT
7.2
. Overall, in that paragraph, the three-dimensional pictures were not elaborated and supported
by its subsequent evidence. This would certainly cause a coherence problem and at the same time confirm what Brostoff 1981 believes that the ideas in a written
work are sometimes next to, but not connected to each other, which possibly causes the incoherence in the
students’ writing. The tenth essay entitled
“The Use of Digital Story Telling in Speaking Class
TTL
10
could become another example. In the essay, the student aimed to convince readers that the use of digital story telling will increase the excitement of
the students in a speaking class TWP
10
.” In order to support the position TWP
10
, the student wrote some topic sentences that one of them was: Students who make their own traditional story telling with digital story
telling will be more enthusiastic and motivated to learn about how to have good speaking skills ESY
10
- PNT
7
. The student also wrote some supporting evidence to support the topic sentence:
Hence, students have to produce clear voices in speaking while making the audio recording. ESY
10
-ERT
7.1
The motivation itself comes from students’ mind and willingness in order to get success in their speaking
class ESY
10
–ERT
7.2
... PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
117
Clearly, the jumping idea occurred in the first supporting evidence. In that case, it was quite difficult to bridge the connection between the enthusiasm,
motivation to learn how to have good speaking skills ESY
10
-PNT
10
and making the audio recording ESY
10
-ERT
7.1
. Having such supporting evidence, the student could not establish a unity in the paragraph, because mutually supporting evidence
ESY
10
-ERT
7.1
was not written within the paragraph. This finding could also support the claim made by the previous related study that states that organization
and development of arguments become major challenges that the students encounter in writing their argumentative written work Zhu, 2001.
The third example was from the first essay entitled “Using Drama
Activities in Introducing Indonesian Culture for Foreigners TTL
1
. ” As stated
previously, the student, in this first essay, aimed to convince readers that drama works effectively in introducing Indonesian culture and language learning for
foreigners TWP
1
. Then, in the third paragraph in the essay, the student wrote a topic sentence that tells us a variety of drama technique that can provide benefits
for foreigners, Indonesian culture, and language skills: There are a variety of drama techniques that lend foreigners to creative
thinking and can be used to introduce Indonesian culture and develop language skills: Puppet, Role-play, Storytelling
ESY
1
-PNT
3
. In order to form a coherent paragraph as well as to establish the unity of
the paragraph, the student should have provided further elaboration about the techniques stated in the topic sentence, for instance, by giving evidence or
examples dealing with the usage of the techniques to develop language skills. As an analogy,
“if a topic sentence states that Melisa has five choices, the paragraph PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
118 has to inform the readers about the five choices
” Bram, 1995: 20. In that case, this research would show some supporting evidence written by the student to
support the third topic sentence: These techniques can be used to help reinforce specific areas of a lesson,
to explore an aspect of learning or to enhance and enrich the quality of learning about historical, social, or moral issues especially for learning
culture and historical story in Indonesia
ESY
1
-ERT
3.1
. A picture, photograph, or object can be used as a stimulus or starting point for
developing roles or situations ESY
1
-ERT
3.2
. A piece of music or a story can inspire improvisation and development of characters, settings, and
situations ESY
1
-ERT
3.3
. Obviously, the irrelevant ideas occured when the first supporting evidence
was followed by the benefits of using a picture, photograph, or an object ESY
1
- ERT
3.2
and the benefits of a piece of music or a story ESY
1
-ERT
3.3
. The second and the third supporting evidence were not related to the three techniques stated in
the topic sentence. In fact, in the second and the third supporting evidence, the student wrote very new ideas, which could be regarded as separated sentences that
did not support their previous supporting evidence ESY
1
-ERT
3.1
and the topic sentence, focusing on a variety of drama technique that can provide benefits for
foreigners, Indonesian culture, and language skills ESY
1
-PNT
3
. The jumping ideas among supporting evidence in the third paragraph in
the first essay would certainly confirm the finding of the previous related studies Jones, 2011; Brostoff, 1981. Jones 2011 found the disconnection among
sentences in a paragraph written by the student. In a sense, the irrelevant supporting evidence as shown previously could also prove that incoherence in
writing can occur because “separate or unrelated ideas appear to be juxtaposed, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
119 which means they are next to, but not connected to each other
” Brostoff, 1981: 279.
The irrelevant supporting evidence could also in the form of paraphrase written by the students. According to Murray and Hughes 2008, a paraphrase
shows that writers try to express a particular meaning from a passage, but they do not use exactly the same words as those written in the original text. In addition,
doing a paraphrase would help writers attain greater clarity in their written work Murray Hughes, 2008.
Previously, it was written that a coherent paragraph consists of integrated sentences whose relation among one sentence to other sentences should give a
continuous line of thought, have a logical arrangement and not be seen as a series of separate sentences. When this research related the proposed idea about a
paraphrase to the idea on a coherent paragraph, the paraphrase made by the student certainly should have a connection to its surrounding sentences. In that
case, the paraphrase should support either the topic sentence or the supporting evidence written in a paragraph. Otherwise, the paraphrase done by the students
would be a separate sentence within a paragraph and possibly become the coherence
problem in the students’ essays. This research found some problems concerning with this paraphrase issue
in the students’ essays. The sixteenth essay entitled “The Role of Peer in Writing Class
TTL
16
” was chosen as an example in order to help us attain a better understanding toward this paraphrase problem. In the sixteenth essay, the student
aimed to convince readers that peer discussion and feedback will be very helpful PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
120 for students in writing class TWP
16
. Further, the student wrote a paragraph to convince them that peer discussion and feedback will be very helpful for students
in writing class: The last advantage is that peer discussion and feedback increase the
motivation and confidence in students’ writing ESY
16
-PNT
7
. Peer discussion and feedback encouraging students to focus on their intended
meaning by discussing alternative points of view that can lead to the development of those ideas DiPardo Freedman, 1988, Mangelsdorf,
1992 Mendonca Johnson, 1994
ESY
16
- ERT
7.1
. With their own friends, students find it easier to accept the comment or feedback that
given by their friends ESY
16
- ERT
7.2
. Obviously, there was no problem with the topic sentence written in the paragraph.
It was because stating that peer discussion and feedback could help to increase the motivation and confidence in students’ writing would clearly support the thesis
statement of the essay, stating that peer discussion and feedback will be very helpful for students in writing class TWP
16
. However, readers should read carefully the subsequent sentence regarded
as the supporting evidence in that paragraph. In the next sentence ESY
16
-ERT
7.1
, the student clearly made a paraphrase from ideas stated by some people. The
paraphrase discussed some essential ideas given by the peer discussion and feedback. They are students’ encouragement to focus on their intended meaning
and the discussion on alternative points of view ESY
16
-ERT
7.1
. Dealing with that paraphrase, the student should have been more careful in
selecting other people’s ideas to paraphrase. The point was that the student should
see carefully whether the ideas to paraphrase were related to and supported her topic sentence. In that case, it was difficult to see the connection of the ideas in
the paraphrase; talking about the intended meaning ESY
16
-ERT
7.1
and the ideas PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
121 written in the topic sentence; stating that peer discussion and feedback increase
the motivation and confidence in students’ writing ESY
16
-PNT
7
. The student actually could elaborate further about the paraphrase in the
subsequent supporting evidence. It aimed to tell the readers if the paraphrase was concerned
with the motivation and confidence in students’ writing, which became the point stated in the topic sentence ESY
16
-PNT
7
. However, in the second supporting evidence, we could see that the student wrote another different idea
from the first paraphrase made in the paragraph. It was the students’
encouragement to focus on their intended meaning and the discussion on alternative points of view ESY
16
-ERT
7.1
. Clearly, the subsequent supporting evidence stated that with their friends, the students would find it easier to accept
the comment or feedback given by their friends ESY
16
- ERT
7.2
was more relevant to the topic sentence ESY
16
- PNT
7
. After discussing the irrelevant supporting evidence written in the essays,
this research could also find that the length of a paragraph possibly became another factor that could possibly cause the students to write those irrelevant
supporting evidence in their essay. The point was that the irrelevant supporting evidence or the jumping ideas among the supporting evidence were easily found
in a paragraph consisting more than five sentences. In other words when the students wrote more than five sentences in their paragraph, they would have more
possibilities to write the unrelated supporting evidence, disconnected sentences Jones, 2011, as well as to have scattered ideas Fahin Rad, 2012 within their
paragraph. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
122 A paragraph taken from the thirteenth essay would become an example to
support the explanation stated in the previous paragraph. In the thirteenth essay entitled “English Should Not Be Omitted from Elementary School” TTL
13
, the student aimed to convince readers that English should not be omitted from an
elementary school because of benefits and good points that students can get from English learning TWP
13
. Then, in order to support the stated thesis statement, the student wrote this following paragraph, consisting of a topic sentence and a
number of supporting evidence: The third good point of learning English in elementary school is that
English will always be the part of subject that students will learn in secondary school and senior high school
ESY
13
-PNT
3
. It will always become the part of subjects they are going to learn
ESY
13
-ERT
3.1
. In secondary school, students will be shocked to learn new language they do
not have conceptual background if English is omitted from elementary school
ESY
13
-ERT
3.2
. Besides, omitting English also means to change the standard competence of English language in educational system
ESY
13
-ERT
3.3
. The standard competence will be arranged and reduced from the very beginning
ESY
13
-ERT
3.4
. In the other word, what student should learn in elementary school about English should be learnt in their
secondary school and what student should learn in secondary school about English should be learnt in their high school
ESY
13
-ERT
3.5
. Moreover, English may not only stop in school
ESY
13
-ERT
3.6
.The increasing use of English for cross cultural communication makes the need for the teaching
of pragmatics in language classrooms all the more important Sharifian, 2009
ESY
13
-ERT
3.7
. In this era of globalization, cross cultural communication may happen every time
ESY
13
-ERT
3.8
. The environment of student future job may require them to be passive or active English
speaker who have cross cultural communication competence ESY
13
- ERT
3.9
. Learning English as early as possible may help students to shape their conceptual knowledge about English which then they will use and
develop it in their next levels of their education ESY
13
-ERT
3.10
. The topic sentence ESY
13
-PNT
3
written by the student supported the thesis statement stating that English should not be omitted from an elementary
school because of benefits and good points that students can get from English PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
123 learning TWP
13
. In the topic sentence, the student argued that English would always be a subject to learn by students in secondary schools and senior high
schools ESY
13
-PNT
3
. In other words, the student tried to argue that English would be a continuous subject to learn in every educational stage in Indonesia;
starting from an elementary up to high school level. Dealing with the supporting evidence, readers could observe the
connection of ideas among the first up to the fifth supporting evidence ESY
13
- ERT
3.1-3.5
written in the paragraph. In those supporting evidence, the student argued that English would become a subject to learn and function as a foundation
of learning a new language. In the subsequent supporting evidence, the student argued that omitting English in secondary school would possibly affect the
changes of the standard competence of English. The changes would affect English learning processes that students have in every educational stage.
Nevertheless, from the sixth supporting evidence, it was not easy to see the connection of ideas with the previous supporting evidence. Clearly, when the
student argued that English may not stop in a school ESY
13
-ERT
3.6
and further talked about cross cultural communication ESY
13
-ERT
3.7,8
as well as students’ future job environment ESY
13
-ERT
9
, the student, did not support the topic sentence and the previous supporting evidence, which focused on the importance
of English subject in the learning process within a school context. The student actually could use the sixth supporting evidence as a new topic sentence written in
another paragraph to support the thesis statement. Eventually, this finding would PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
124 support the idea of unclear link of a theme Jones, 2007 as well as the
disconnection of sentences within a paragraph Jones, 2011. In that case, this research would suggest that the students could try to write
a shorter paragraph. Specifically, they could try not to write more than five supporting evidence in every paragraph. By doing so, they would help their
readers follow the ideas in each paragraph easily and minimize the emergence of unconnected ideas among supporting evidence within a paragraph.
As some examples, this research would show a number of paragraphs, consisting of a fewer sentences, regarded as the supporting evidence, written by
the students i n their essay. In the eleventh essay entitled “Maximizing the Use of
Media in Teaching English to Dyslexia Children ” TTL
11
, the student tried to write a number of paragraphs to convince readers that in learning English for
dyslexia children, maximizing the use of media is regarded as an effective way to help them learn the language TWP
11
. Below was one of the paragraphs: Another media that can help dyslexic learns English easier is using tape
recorder ESY
11
-PNT
9
. Direction, stories, and specific lessons can be recorded on tape
ESY
11
-ERT
9.1
. The student can replay the tape to clarify understanding of directions or concepts Rondot, 2006
ESY
11
- ERT
9.2
. The paragraph was coherent because the supporting evidence showed how tape
recorder, regarded as a media, facilitated the learning process of the language, for instance, by helping the student to record a story, and to replay a particular
direction. Another coherent paragraph from the same essay was shown below:
Playing drama can be the good media for practicing dyslexic’s skill in
speaking English ESY
11
-PNT
10
. The student will learn to make some PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
125 dialog with other students without any fear
ESY
11
-ERT
10.1
. They are going to enjoy playing drama
ESY
11
-ERT
10.2
. They will memorize the conversation step by step
ESY
11
-ERT
10.3
. It will add their vocabulary and practice their speaking skill
ESY
11
-ERT
10.4
. In supporting the topic sentence ESY
11
-PNT
10
, stating that playing a drama was another good media to practice English-speaking skill, the student wrote some
benefits that dyslexia students could have from playing the drama. Clearly, by playing a drama, the students could practice making a dialogue, memorize it,
develop their vocabulary skills, and practice speaking in English. From the samples of paragraphs shown previously, this research could
certainly believe that considering the number of sentences, regarded as the supporting evidence, in a paragraph would possibly help us follow the ideas in
each paragraph easily and to minimize the emergence of unconnected ideas among supporting evidence within a paragraph. Significantly, the findings of the
research in relation to the number of supporting evidence and sentences within a paragraph would develop the findings of the coherence problems revealed by the
previous related studies In order to end the discussions in this chapter, this research stated that the
major problems discussed in this chapter; unclear idea relationships, irrelevant topic sentences, and supporting evidence were indeed related to coherence.
Clearly, those three problems showed the unconnected of ideas among elements in the students’ essays. More specifically, the unconnected of ideas occurred
between the topic sentence and the thesis statement, the topic sentence and its supporting evidence, and among the supporting evidence within a paragraph. In
this case, the unconnected of ideas in those elements of the essays could also PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
126 break the unity of the text. It was because the occurrence of the unconnected of
ideas would not enable the student to write united paragraphs in their essays. As a result, they would not be able to write a coherent written work since “coherence
was the overall unity of a text ” Spencer Fitzgerald, 1993: 212. At the same
time, the discussions on this chapter would clearly confirm the idea that coherence is
“the overall unity of a text Spencer Fitzgerald, 1993: 212 and the sense of unity and flow that exists between the ideas expressed in a piece of writing”
Murray Hughes, 2008: 197. In addition, it would be wiser if this research could also explain the
limitation of the findings revealed by this research in order to end the discussions in this chapter. The limitation would be related to the findings of the current
research. The findings were limited to the type of essays to analyze, which was the analytical exposition essay, written in the context of Academic Essay Writing
class at ELESP. Therefore, to conduct a further research to investigate whether the similar coherence problems occurred in some different types of essays and in a
different context would support the findings of the current research. In spite of the limitations stated in this paragraph, this research has significantly provided
descriptive information dealing with the major coherence problems in the students’ analytical exposition essays.
127
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION
