B. HAN JUDUL ANIKO

Cover Page Error Analysis in Subject-Verb Agreement Found in Students’
Writing at Language Training Center of Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta

A Skripsi
Submitted to Language Education Faculty as a Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

Herlin Aniko
20130810005

English Education Department
Language Education Faculty
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2017

ii

Approval Sheet
Error Analysis in Subject-Verb Agreement Found in Students’ Writing at
Language Training Center of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Language Education Faculty
English Education Department
Herlin Aniko
20130810005
Candidate for degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

This undergraduate thesis has been accepted and approved as confirming to the
required standard
Yogyakarta, August 2017
Supervisor

Noor Qomaria Agustina, S. Pd, M. Hum

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Statement of Autenticity
I am a student with the following identity:
Name


: Herlin Aniko

NIM

: 20130810005

Department

: English Education Department

Faculty

: Language Education Faculty

University

: Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

I honestly declare that this undergraduate thesis, entitled Error Analysis in
Subject-Verb Agreement Found in Students’ Writing at Language Training Center

of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta which I have written does not contain

the work of other people, except those cited in all the quotations and references
are quoted in accordance with ethical standards of scientific paper.
Yogyakarta, August 2017

Herlin Aniko
20130810005

iv

Acknowledgement
Alhamdulillahirobbila’lamin. Praise be to Allah SWT the lord of the word
and the sequel of for those who keep their duty unto him. Salawa t and Salam
always be given to Prophet Muhammad SAW who brings Islam and guide
Muslim from darkness to the lightness. My highest gratitude and honor goes to
Allah SWT who has been giving me mercy, health, love and strength in finishing
this skripsi.
Greatest thankful feeling goes to my family who always love and support
me emotionally and financially in every joy and sorrow. Thank you Bapak

Sarbani, Mama Risa Umami, Bule’ Masitah and my beloved sister Helda Urbhani
Rosa for everything you have done. This skripsi was definitely part of forbearance
in facing the world. I could never repay you, but I could try my best for make you
happy and proud with me. Family is where life start and love never ends.
Special gratitude belongs to my beloved supervisor, Miss Noor Qomaria
Agustina, S.Pd, M.Hum. for guiding and helping me to finish this skripsi. Also, I
thank to my first examiner Miss Evi Puspitasari, S.Pd, M.Hum. and my second
examiner Miss Ika Wahyuni Lestari, S. Pd, M.Hum. for giving many suggestion
and valuable comment to improve this skripsi. I hope all of you will always shine
bright like a diamond and become inspiration for everyone arounds.
Big thanks to SEA UMY and BEM FPB UMY for the organization
experience, especially for MLT ministry (Kurnia Andini Mertosono and Habliy
Mawaddah) and BPH (Fanny Ayu Lestari and Riska Yuliani) that accept me. I do

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not really work with people unless I really like them and have a connection.
Endless love goes to my sister in Unires Usroh Baroroh Barid (Venna, Santi,
Fanny, Yul, Tiwi, Mia, Uli, Rizka, Rita, Susan, Shofie, Penny, Ledy, Kak Al, and
Mbak Ana), our sisterhood is everlasting, distance would not separate us. A bunch

of freak Family Kingdom (Habliy Mawaddah, S.Ikom., Nurfitriani, S.E., Raka
Wijayanto, S.E.) who like playing truth or truth, talking heart to heart, and sharing
many secret things, I thank for putting up with my idiosyncrasies. Geng
Bimbingan (Ozi, Teh Aqih, Upe, Agus, Aul) thank you for our togetherness

during this final assestment. Class A EED UMY 2013 and my beloved (Adhit ,
Agis, Ai, Aina, Ami, Andhika, Bagus, Eri, Fitri, Kak Sulaiman, Mila, Nanda,
Nayah, Novan, Warih, Wira, and Wijanarko), thank you for all support, love,
motivation and friendship. The days would have passed far more slowly without
you guys. Also many more whom I cannot mention one by one.
Special thanks goes to Acer aspire 4736 for almost 10 years with me and
Yogyakarta for the greatest memories. I will not forget all the sweet things that
have been happening for almost these four years. Last, I thank to all my skripsi
readers. I hope you could get something from this skripsi. May Allah SWT bless
all the creatures, amen.

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Abstract
Subject- verb agreement is very basic knowledge in making an English sentence.

To produce a complete sentence, the students at least have to put one subject and
one verb, and here is the importance of subject-verb agreement. This research
aims at knowing the error types and calculating the production of subject-verb
agreement error in students’ writing. However, the researcher limits the subjectverb agreement sentences on seven subjects, namely I, we, you, they, she, he, and
it and later called as keywords. The data were collected from 99 essays from

International Relations essay writing class batch 2016 at Language Training
Center of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. In this research, the researcher
used error analysis as design of this research, based on Corder (1967) in Agustina
(2016) that was determining the data, identifying the errors, classifying the errors,
explaining the error and quantifying the error. The researcher used document
analysis as data collections method and Concordance program as help for shorting
the data. The results of this research showed that there were 363 subject-verb error
sentences from 2,851 sentences which contained seven keywords. There were four
types of errors on International Relation essay writing class batch 2016 when used
subject-verb agreement in their writing. They were addition, misformation,
misordering and omission (Ellis, 2003). However, not all of seven keywords had all

of four error types. Keywords “I”, “We”, “You”,“They”, “She”, and “It” had all of
errors type, but for keywords “He” only had three error types, which were

misformation, misordering, and omission. From those errors, the types of error that
occurred mostly was misformation (43.80 %), the second was omissions (38.90%),
the third was additions (10.00 %), and the last misorderings (7.50%). Finally, the

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total subject-verb agreement error percentage was14.19 % meaning that the error
level was low.
Keyword : error analysis, subject-verb agreement, essay, writing

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Table of Contents
Cover Page .............................................................................................................. i
Approval Sheet ...................................................................................................... ii
Statement of Autenticity ...................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgement ................................................................................................ iv
Abstract ................................................................................................................. vi
List of Tables ......................................................................................................... x
List of Figure ........................................................................................................ xi

List of Appendices ............................................................................................... xii
List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................... xiii
Chapter One .......................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1
Background ........................................................................................................ 1
Statement of the Problem ................................................................................... 3
Limitation of the Problem .................................................................................. 4
Research Questions ............................................................................................ 4
Objectives of the Research ................................................................................. 5
Significance of the Research .............................................................................. 5
Chapter Two .......................................................................................................... 7
Literature Review.................................................................................................. 7
Writing................................................................................................................ 7
Error.................................................................................................................. 12
Error Analysis................................................................................................... 15

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The Agreement between Subject and Verb ...................................................... 16
Reviews of Related Study ................................................................................ 19

Conceptual Framework .................................................................................... 21
Chapter Three ..................................................................................................... 24
Methodology ........................................................................................................ 24
Research Design ............................................................................................... 24
Setting and Participant of the Research ............................................................ 25
Research Instrument ......................................................................................... 27
Data Collection Method ................................................................................... 28
Data Analysis Technique.................................................................................. 29
Chapter Four ....................................................................................................... 33
Finding and Discussion ....................................................................................... 33
The Errors of Subject-Verb Agreement found in Essay Writing at LTC of
UMY ................................................................................................................. 33
Error classifications. ......................................................................................... 33
Errors of subject-verb percentage..................................................................... 54
Chapter Five ........................................................................................................ 58
Conclusion and Recommendation ..................................................................... 58
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 58
Recommendations ............................................................................................ 60
References ............................................................................................................. 62
Appendix


x

List of Tables
Table 1. Types of Writing

9

Table 2. Types of Error

14

Table 3. The Explanation Between Subject and Verb

16

Table 4. The Rules of Subject Verb Agreement

18


Table 5. Error Type Misformation

34

Table 6. Error Type Omission

42

Table 7. Error Type Addition

50

Table 8. Error Type Misordering

52

Table 9. The General Number of Subject Verb Agreement

55

Table 10. Subject Verb Agreement Error Types Number and the
Percentage

56

xi

List of Figure
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

22

xii

List of Appendices
Appendix A. The copy of surat ijin penelitian

67

Appendix B. The title of students’ essays

68

Appendix C. Essay documents (Students writing)

73

Appendix D. The use of Ant Concordance (Determining the data)

77

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List of Abbreviations
A

Article

Adj

Adjective

Adv

Adverb

Aux

Auxiliary verb

Conj

Conjunction

EW

Essay Writing

IR

International Relation

LTC

Language Training Center

N

Noun

Np

Noun phrase

Poss Adj

Possesive Adjective

Poss Pro

Possesive Pronoun

S

Subject

S-V

Subject- Verb

UMY

Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta

V

Verb