MINI RESEARCH and PROJECT

PRODUCTIVE WRITTEN LANGUAGE SKILLS

“ USING OUTLINING STRATEGY IN WRITING SKILLS”

ARRANGED BY :

CHATRINE YOSEVA SIMATUPANG 2233321004

DAR YANTO TAMBUNAN 2233321035

DIAN PATRICIA NATALIA LUBIS 2233121054

TIFANI SALSABILA 2233121047

Lecturer : Rika, S.Pd., M.Hum

ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM

LANGUAGE AND ART FACULTY
MEDAN STATE UNIVERSITY

NOVEMBER 2023
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH

The key role of English language ability in writing has an important and
encouraging impact on the academic achievement of students. This is because the ability
to write various genres of writing effectively through English is becoming increasingly
importat in our global community (Weigle, 2002). In addition, “ writing is an essential
component if thinking and learning in school context, and writing tasks are crucial tool for
social development.” (Bruning and Horn, 2000:30).

Writing is an effective way to communicating and expressing our thoughts,

feelings, and opinions to others. Writing has purpose to entertaining and making fun.
There are a variety of ways to use writing in our everyday live. Referring to above
condition, the writer concludes that writing is a skill that needs extra works to be
mastered.

Writing a paragraph requires an overall sense of organization; each sentence has

to fit within this organizational framework. In a well-written paragraph, sentences and
ideas are organized in a clear and logical way as they are unified by the main idea of that
paragraph. Students must be able to use a connected serious of words and sentences
that are grammatically correct, they may not pass the intended message meaningfully. A
good paragraph is achieved when the knowledge of choosing a good topic sentence; a
topic sentence is intelligently chosen for each paragraph helps students arrange the
sequence of their information in a logical order.
The key role of English language ability in writing has an important and
encouraging impact on the academic achievement of students. This is because the ability
to write various genres of writing effectively through English is becoming increasingly
important in our global community (Weigle, 2002). In addition, “ writing is an essential
component if thinking and learning in school context, and writing tasks are crucial tool for
social development.” (Bruning and Horn, 2000:30). Writing is an effective way to
communicating and expressing our thoughts, feelings, and opinions to others. Writing has
purpose to entertaining and making fun. There are a variety of ways to use writing in our
everyday live. Referring to above condition, the writer concludes that writing is a skill that
needs extra works to be mastered.

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 Writing a paragraph requires an overall sense of organization; each sentence has
to fit within this organizational framework. In a well-written paragraph, sentences and
ideas are organized in a clear and logical way as they are unified by the main idea of that
paragraph. Students must be able to use a connected serious of words and sentences
that are grammatically correct, they may not pass the intended message meaningfully. A
good paragraph is achieved when the knowledge of choosing a good topic sentence; a
topic sentence is intelligently chosen for each paragraph helps students arrange the
sequence of their information in a logical order.

1.2. RESEARCH PROBLEM

1. What are the difficulties for first semester students in writing?

2. What are the strategies for improving writing skills?

1.3. OBJECTIVES RESEARCH

To find out and explain the weaknesses of first semester students in writing
and provide strategies to overcome these weaknesses.

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 CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

Theorical Framework

2.1. WRITING DIFFICULTIES

As it is known, besides reading, speaking, and listening, writing is one of the

most important skills, and need to be developed especially in learning English.
(Douglas, 1994). A study showed that the ability to write is not an option but a
necessity, or obligation for everyone (Alliance 2006); writing helps learners to
develop ideas or thoughts (Watson, 2001). Writing is an art in teaching and
learning, which can teach you how to study in a right way. In other words it is a
duty of an educator to guide students, so that they can learn and study better by
training them in writing (Scott, 2008).

Writing is not as simple as it seems. To get ideas in writing, students should

read a lot before they write. However, there are many students who have low
motivation level in reading and if there is no passion for reading it will be difficult
for students to develop mechanism of writing: to plan paragraph, to edit errors, to
organize ideas, and so forth (Bacha, 2010). Gupta (2010) added that students
should not feel unmotivated when they are not able to produce good writing.
Writing in the classroom is an important academic requirement, but writing outside
of the classroom can be a useful tool to improve writing skills. To become a good
writer, students should practice continuously, namely, by buying a small notebook
and try to write their daily activities. It will make student interested in page by page
(Chanderasegaran, 2002). A study stated that one way to practice writing at home
is through writing a journal in a form of a notebook, where the author or the writer
will write the ideas, opinions, and descriptions of everyday life.

Some common writing obstacles include motivational obstacles such as difficulty

getting started, insomnia, and back pain. Human obstacles like coauthors hip
issues and advisor challenges can also hinder writing progress. Confidence
obstacles, like feeling that one's ideas are not good enough, can be another barrier.

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Additionally, outlining the story, doing research, and coming up with a good topic
are common challenges faced by writers. Writer's block, lack of ideas, and lack of
confidence are also significant obstacles. Students often face obstacles such as
lack of confidence, insufficient knowledge about the subject matter, and
difficulties with language and grammar. In research paper writing, problems can
arise from failing to research the general topic before deciding on a thesis
statement, not providing an appropriate thesis statement, and failing to support
the paper with relevant information. Connecting the main points of the paper to the
thesis statement and properly citing sources are also common challenges in
research paper writing.

2.2. FINDINGS

2.2.1. STUDENTS DIFFICULTIES

After interviewing several students in the first semester of the class of 2023 in
class D, it was possible to find the difficulties that each of them had. The following
is a description of the difficulties from the informants.

According to the first informant, his obstacle in writing English was his lack
of vocabulary, he had to compose paragraphs in Indonesian and then change them
to English. She doesn't know how to organize paragraphs and grammar that is
poorly understood. Informants have difficulty in arranging supporting
sentences in paragraphs. According to the second informant, the obstacles are
grammar and sentence structure. The informant has difficulty in composing
sentences with good and correct grammar. This makes it difficult for him to
compose sentences in paragraphs.

According to the third informant, also experienced difficulties that were not
much different from the other informants. The third informant experienced
problem in vocabulary, grammar, as well as ideas for making paragraphs. His main
difficulty was deciding on an idea for a paragraph. The fourth informant had
difficulties with grammar which he had not yet mastered and grammatical aspects.

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 Informants find it difficult to create relationships between one element with other
elements in the discourse so that good understanding is created (coherent). The
informant said that it was difficult for him to express himself because it was very
complex.

From the obstacles and difficulties of the information obtained from the
informants, it can be concluded which aspects are obstacles in writing. Some of
these difficulties are:

1. Vocabulary.

2. Grammar.

3. paragraph structure.

4. how to organize sentences in paragraphs

5. Grammatical (cohesion).

2.2.2. SOLUTION WRITING SKILS

2.2.2.1. OUTLINING STRATEGY

Outlining is one of the prewriting strategy activities in which the materials

collected are gathered or organized. It functions as a blue print from which the
writing is to be based on. Writers who are accustomed to making outlines before
writing find it as an effective and clear way of organizing ideas (Goose, 2001;
Crème & Lea, 2003; Davis, 2004; Donahue, 2007). It can also help writers finish
writing quickly and improve grammar. Writing an outline is presumed to have
written seventy-five percent of the writing and with it writing will be very smooth
(Creme and Lea, 2003).

Outlining as a learning strategy promotes meaningful learning by helping

learners to generate a structured and organized summary of the main ideas and
key points of a text or lecture (Barton, 1930; Iovino,1993). Specifically, outlining
requires learners to actively engage with the material, rather than passively reading
or listening. By summarizing and organizing the information, learners are primed to

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process the learning material at a deeper level, which contributes to better
retention.

In addition to the usefulness of outlining as mentioned above, another main

reason to make an outline for writing is due to the limit capability of working
memory. In order to understand environment or to have perception on something,
people use senses. However, not all things perceived via the senses can stay
longer in the memory. Therefore, it is through formal outline can a writer express
things perceived logically and systematically.

Writing strategy with outlining is more efficient and successful. It can help a
writer organize his ideas and give focus on relevant materials as well as organize
logical supporting details. Besides, it can make the writing run smoothly since the
outline of ideas is already at hand. According to Crème and Lea (2003), it is not
easy for a writer to start writing without making a framework which is called an
outline.

How experienced one is, he still needs an outline to follow in order to

produce a qualified piece of writing a writing containing clear and well-organized
ideas and expressed in high-quality language.

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 CHAPTER III

SUMMARY & SUGGESTION

3.1. SUMMARY

Based on the research results, it can be concluded that writing is important

but not easy. The writing process involves three main stages, namely planning,
writing, and revising the text. Writing is not as simple as it seems. To get ideas in
writing, students should read a lot before they write. All informants can write a
paragraph, but each informant has their own obstacles. Obstacles and difficulties
include insufficient vocabulary, grammar that is not understood, difficult paragraph
structure, and how the paragraph is structured properly and correctly. They also
make efforts to improve their writing skills. Researchers offer solutions to these
writing obstacles. The solution offered is Outlining Strategy. Writing strategy with
outlining is more efficient and successful. It can help a writer organize his ideas
and give focus on relevant materials as well as organize logical supporting details.

3.2. SUGGESTION

The suggestion from researchers is that students should improve their

writing skills consistently and with effective strategies. Vocabulary should also be
increased by reading books or articles so that vocabulary can increase and ideas
for writing can also be obtained. Teachers can also give writing assignments to
students as often as possible so that students get used to writing.

3.3. CONCLUSION

After analyzing the difficulties in writing skills in English, researchers

formulated several conclusions, that writing in English is an important skill in
student life. New students experience many difficulties in writing, especially
writing English paragraphs. Students often encounter writing problems such as
small vocabulary, incorrect grammar, or difficulty arranging sentences within a
paragraph structure. Researchers feel that there is a lot that needs to be improved
in writing paragraphs.
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