1

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the study

In the process of teaching and learning English,students are
required to master four basic skills; they are speaking, reading, writing,
and listening. From those skills, writing is considered the most
complicated language one to be learned. As Brown (2004: 218) says that
among the language skills, writing is the most complicated and the most
difficult one. This is supported by Richards and Renandya (2002: 303)
who say that writing is considered as the most difficult skill for second
language learners to master.
Writing is one of language skill which is important in our life
(Saragih,2014: p.57). Through writing, we can inform ideas or feeling to
others in written form (Atmono et al,2015: p.1). In addition , White and
Arndt in (Safitri,2015:1) assumed that writing is important experience
where we are able to share ideas , arouse feelings , persuade and
convince other people.
According to Hairston as cited in (Atmono et al, 2014: p.1)
stated that the skill to write could make people are able to collect or find
information, to see connections between ideas, to organize ideas into an
explainable concept, to absorb and process information, to learn actively
particularly in written form. Thus, writing is one of media to
communicate with others where through writing the people can convey
some information, express their ideas, feelings and opinions in written
form.
However, writing is not only a matter of expressing good idea to
good language on piece of paper but also there are some requirements
that have to know to create a highquality text. According to Almaden
(2006: p.127) in (Seken et al ,2013: p.2) mention three good writing
requires namely, unity, coherence, and adequate development. Similarity
Andayani et al (2014) stated that “ to achieve a good writing, the text
should be cohesive and coherent “ (p.1).
 2

Furthermore, writing a text that can be understood by reader is

not easy. It needs long process and a lot of practices. According to
Broadmend and Frydenberg as quoted in Safitri (2015: p.1) the purpose
of writing is to communicate massage. It means that writer has to pay
much attention to convey ideas in their written to make a reader
understand about the meaning of massage that the writer meant.
According to Jim A.P (2010) as cited in (Amaliyyah,2015: p.2)
writing skill is complex and difficult to learn. To make connections
between what are currently said and what want to said in a text, the use
of cohesion is demanded. Moreover, cohesion is considered as one of
important components of writing skill which are crucial part and virtual
guarantee of writing quality. This component is one of seven standards
for text textuality (the property of being a text) (Renkema, 1993 as cited
in Anom et al, 2012: p.2)
In addition, Halliday and Hasan in (Amaliyyah, 2015: p.2) said
that cohesion refers to the relation of meaning which exist within a text.
It is an important tool in English language production. An appropriate
use of cohesive device will result in a good arrangement and coherent
text. Otherwise, an inappropriate use of cohesive device will result
misunderstanding to the readers.
One of genre which is commonly relates to high quality text is
argumentative essay. For having a brief sense of what argumentative
essay is, Rodriguez states that an argumentative essay aims at convincing
the readers of an opinion about something through arguing the writer’s
point, as well as providing reasons to support it in (Yanri Ramdhano,
Monalisa, and Jamaluddin, 2016: p.263)
Based on the phenomena illustrated above, the writer is interested
in analyze cohesive devices on argumentative essay by the sixth year
student of English Education Study Program of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin
Jambi. However, this study the researcher wants to know what the types
of cohesive devices which are commited by the sixth year student of
English Education Study Program of Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi in
their writing argumentative essay because cohesion can create a high
quality essay and good writing. The researcher would like to conduct a
 3

research entitled “Cohesive Devices found in written Argumentative

Essay by English Education Department UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin
Jambi ”.

B. Identification of the Problem

As what mention above, cohesive is an important element in
English writing, because every sentences need to be connected one
another. If the students fails to make connections between the sentence,
the text will difficult to readers comprehend. Hence, it needs to know
about cohesive devices especially in what are types of cohesive devices.

C. Limitation of the Problem

It is important to make the limitation of problem, to avoid
misunderstanding and to clarify the problem. The researcher focus the
study on analyzing the use of cohesive devices in students writing
argumentative essay. The researcher just concerned in analyzing types of
cohesive devices. This types included grammatical cohesion and lexical
cohesion.

D. The Formulation of the Problem

Based on the limitation above, the formulation of the research is :
What are types of cohesive devices manifested in students writing
argumentative essay ?

E. The Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is:
To find the type cohesive devices manifested in students writing
argumentative essay.
 4

F. Significance of the Study

Significance of this research is:
1. The teachers
This study shows some of cohesive problems found in writing,
therefore the teachers can help their learners to use cohesive devices
appropriately in order to produce good argumentative essay
2. The students
This study can help the students get more information about
cohesive devices and can improve their perfection on cohesive
devices and be able to apply in their writing.
3. The researcher
This study will help the researcher to expend and improve the
knowledge about cohesive devices.
 5

CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW

A. The Nature of Writing

1. Definition of writing
Writing is a medium of communication that represents
language through the inscription of signs and symbols. In most
language, writing is complement to speech or spoken language.
Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same
structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics,
with the added dependency of a system of signs or symbols,
usually in the form of formal alphabet (Sartini,2014: p.4)
Furthermore, Linderman (2001: p.10) as cited in
(Suningsih, 2016: p.12) defines writing as process of
communication that uses a conventional graphic system to convey
a message to a reader. It means that writing is process to sending
the message by using letters, punctuation, words or sentences as a
graphic system. Thus the process of communication can be said
successful if the reader and the writer understand the language
being used in written communication (Suningsih,2016: p.12)
According to Alexador and Cooperin (Zetira, 2015: p.12)
state,”Writing is a process of discovering and shaping meaning”.
They add experienced writers rarely gather and understand
immediately all the information they need. From the definition
above, writing needs a process which must be surpassed by the
writer, and writing is tools of human beings to share information or
stories to others because someone can read it by several times.
In addition, Raymond as cited in (Zetira, 2015: p.12)
defines that writing is more than a medium of communication. It
means that writing is not just the way to communicate to each other
but also as means of ideas and emotional expression. Writing
 6

makes word permanent, and thus expands the collective memory of

human being from the relatively small store that we can remember
and pass on orally to the infinite of a modern library.
Based on the definition above, it can be concluded that
writing is communicating a message to a reader for a purpose. It is
complex skill used by people to communicate in written form to
express their own express their idea, though , opinion, belief and
provide information. Writing skill should be acquired by students
in order to use English perfectly.

2. Writing Process
Writing process is the process that going on during the
writing. A process approach to writing helps the students to write
as professionals at the writer do, choosing the topic and genres, and
writing for their own experiences or observations. According to
Oshima and Ann Hogue (2006: p.265-273) the process of writing
has roughly four steps.
a. Prewriting
Prewriting is a way to get ideas. In this step you choose a
topic and collect ideas to explain the topic.
b. Organizing
The next step in the writing process is to organize the ideas
into a simple outline. The writer wrote a sentence that named
the topic and told the main idea.
c. Writing
The next step is to write a rough draft, using your outline as
a guide. Write your rough draft as quickly as you can without
stopping to think about grammar, spelling , or punctuation. Just
get your ideas down on paper. You will probably see many
errors in you rough draft, this is perfectly usual and acceptable-
after all, this is just a rough draft. You will fix the error later.
 7

d. Polishing : Revising and Editing

In this step, you polish what you have written. This step is
also called revising and editing. Polishing is most successful if
you do it in two steps. First, attack the big issues of content and
organization (revising). Then work on the smaller issues of
grammar , punctuation , and mechanics (editing).

B. The Nature of Cohesive Devices

1. The definition of cohesion
The definition of cohesion is familiar in the study of
language. It is part of system of a language. (Halliday &
Hasan ,2013: p.4) stated that the concept of cohesion is a
semantic one. It refers to relations of meaningthat exist within
the text, and that define is a text. According to Gerot and
Wignell as cited in (Nurhayati,2012: p.17) “ Cohesion is the
resourches within languge that provide continuity in a text,
over and above that provided by clause structures and clause
complexes”. Cohesion helps reader or listeners to understand
some missing pieces which are not present in the text necessary
to its interpretation.
Moreover, Eggins in (Badrul,2015: p.7) define the term
cohesion refers to the way of the part of discourse art related
together. Cohesion dinotice certain features of a text like the
semantic tie in a text, the consistency of participaned and the
connections in terms of lexical selections. Similarity, Halliday
& Hassan have decribe that cohesion is “Semantic relation
between an element in the text and some other elements that is
crucial to the interpretation of it” (Badrul,2015: p.7)
Then Richards and Platt, “Cohesion is defined as the
grammatical and /or lexical relationship between sentences in a
text” (Thankiengsirsin,2010: p.5) in additon, Yule as cited in
 8

(Lestari,2015: p.11) argue that cohesion in text must have a

certain structure of single sentence.
Based on the definition above, it clear that cohesion is part
of the system a language. It is a crucial part to connect between
the sentences or paragraph and to helps reader easy to
understand what the writer meant.

2. Types of Cohesive Devices

Schriffins in (Nurhayati,2012: p.19) argue that
“Cohesive device arclues used by speakers and heares to find
the meanings which underline surface uterances”. Futhermore,
Al-Farra defines cohesive device as the words that are used to
find sentence or clauses with each other to created a coherence
text such conjunction , pronoun (anabora and cathabhora)
which the researcher would like to identify their effect on the
students writing (Letari,2015: p.11). Additionaly, Halliday &
Hassan as cited in (Badrul,2015: p.8) classify cohesion in
english in to categories : Grammatical cohesion and Lexical
Cohesion

a. Grammatical Cohesion

Grammatical cohesion in the surface marking of semantic

link between clauses and sentences in writtrn discourse and
between utterances and turns in speech. In grammatical cohesion,
the relationship between and within a text is signed by means of
grammatical elements. Grammatical cohesion is devided into four
types: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction (Anom et
al,2012: p.3). Each of them will be discussed below:
 9

1.) Reference
Reference is one of Grammatical cohesion. According to
Renkama in Efendi “Reference is the act of referring to
preceding or following elemen, deals with a semantic
relationship”. Then, according to Richard & Schmidt (2002:
p.450) they said reference in its narrower sense is the
relationship between a word or phrase and a specific object, e.g
a particular tree or a particularanimal (Lestari,2015: p.12)
In addition, according to Gerot and Wignel in
(Nurhayati,2012: p.7) said that reference refers to systems
which introduce and track the identity of participants through
text. Moreover Halliday and Hasan in (Badrul,2015: p.10)
define reference refers to items of language that instead of
being interpreted semantically in their own right, make
reference to other item for which the context is clear to both
sender and reciver. Reference shows relation between the
language and the world.
Halliday and Hasan as cited in (Anom et al,2012: p.3)
classify refrence into two kinds, namely: ‘exophoric’ and
‘endophoric’. Exophoric reference directs the reader out of text.
In this case, the reference items are outside of a text. In
addition, as said by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004: p.552)
“Exophoric reference means that the identity presumed by the
reference item is recoverable from the invorenment of the text,
a in the example just give above. Here the reference links the
text, except indirectly when references to one and the same
referent can function in an anaphoric and cataphoric way.
Anaphoric reference points the reader ‘backward’ to a previous
mentioned entity. On the other hand, cathaphorical reference
points the reader ‘forward’. It draws the readers futher into the
text in order to identity the elements to which the reference
 10

item refer to (Halliday and Hasan in Anom et al,2013: p.3).

Moreover , Halliday and Matthiessen (2004: p.552) argue that
“Endophoric reference means that identity presumed by the
reference item is recoverable from within the text itself – or, to
be more precise, from the instantial system of meanings created
as teh text unfolds”
There are three main types of references: personal
reference, demonstrative reference, and comparative reference
(Al-Farra in Lestari,2015: p.12)
b) Personal reference
Personal reference is reference by means of function in
the speech situation, through category of person. There are
three classes of personal reference: personal pronouns,
possessive adjectives (possessive determiners), and
possessive pronouns (Halliday & Hasan in Suningsih,2016:
p.21)
Example:
 My husband and I are leaving. We have seen quite
enough of this unpleasant.
From example above, there are two kinds of personal
reference which my as the posessive determiners that refer
to the speaker. I and we shows personal pronoun. I refer to
the speaker and we refer to my (speaker’s) husband and the
speaker (1).

c) Demonstrative reference
Demonstrative reference is reference by means of
location on scale of proximity. It is essentially a form of
verbal pointing, as said before the speaker identifies the
referent by locating it on scale of proximity (Seken et
al,2013: p.3)
 11

Example:
 Last year we went to Devon for a holliday. The
holliday we had, there was the best we’ve ever had.
The demonstrative reference in example above is
there which has the function of far proximity. It refer to
Devon that is located far from the speaker now. In addition
it is indirect speech.

d) Comparative reference
In comparative reference, Halliday and Hasan
recognize two types general comparison and particular
comparison. Halliday and Hasan define comparative
reference is indirect referenceby means of identity or
similarity (Swastami,2014: p.16)
There are two kinds of comparative reference: General
and Particular comparison. General comparison deals with
comparison which is simply in terms of likeness and
unlikeness. Meanwhile, particular comparison means
comparison that is respect of quantity and quality (Anom et
al,2012: p.5)
Example:
(a) We have received exactly the same reportas was
submitted two months ago
(b) He’s a better man than I am
The example consist of general comparison reference. In (a)
same means, the report is like the report that was submitted
two months ago. Same is identity general comparison. In
(b), better is particular comparison which better i an epithet.
 12

2.) Substitution
Hidayat (2016) stated that substitution is a relation within
the text body. A substitute is a short of couter which is used in
place of the repetition of a particular item. A word is not omitted,
but is substituted for another more general word.
Moreover, substitution has various types. According to
Halliday and Hasan (1997), substitution is divided in to three types.
1. Nominal substitution
Nominal substitution is perceived as substitution
one/ones.Example :The car’s price is too expensive. I can only buy
the cheaper one.
2. Verbal substitution
Verbal substitution substitutes the noun in the sentence use
of does, did, doing, and done.
Example :You think Sue already drink. I think everybody does.
3. Clausal substitution
Clausal substitution substitutes the clause in the sentence
used of so and not.
Example :It is going to rain ? I think so.

3.) Ellipsis
According to Seken et al (2013: p.4) ellipsis is an omission
of an element required by the grammar which is assumed obvious
from the context and need not to be raised. In other words, ellipsis
occurs when some important elements are omitted from a sentence
or a clause and can only be recovered by refering to an element in
the preceding text.
In addition, Thompson (2014) assumed that “ellipsis is the
set of resources by which full repetition of a clause or clause
element can be avoided, and by which it can be signalled to heares
 13

that they should carry offer the wording from a previous clause
“(p.216). Futhermore Halliday & Hasan in (Andayani et al,2014:
p.3) assert that there are three types of ellipses : nominal, verbal,
and clausal.
a. Nominal ellipsis
Nominal ellipsis is with in the nominal group, where the
omission of nominal group is serverd common noun, proper
noun or pronoun.
Example :
 Would you like to hear another verce – I know twelve
more
b. Verbal ellipsis
Verbal ellipsis refers to ellipsis with in the verbal group where
the elliptical verb depends on a preceding verbal group.
Example :
 Have you do you read very much Kafka? – I am try in
c. Clausal ellipsis
Clausal ellipsis function as verbal ellipsis where the omission
refers to a clause.
Example :
 Who taught you to spell ? – Grandfather did

4.) Conjunction
According to Halliday & Hasan as cited in
(Suningsih,2012: p.2) conjunction, since it is not simply an
anaphoric relation, is rather different in nature from other types of
cohesive relation, from both reference and substitution and ellipsis.
They state ,
Conjunction elements are cohesive not in them selves but
in directly, by virtue of their specific meanings they are not
primarily devices for reaching out into the preceding (or
 14

following) text, but they express certain meanings which

presuppose the presence of other components in the discourse
Moreover, according to (Thompson,2014: p.225)
“Conjunction is concerned with transition between message,
managing progression as the text unfolds”. In addition, by
Bailey (2004) state that conjunction are words and phrase wich
join part of sentence together (p.25). on other hand, Grot and
Wignell in (Nurhayati,2012: p.25) argue that,
“conjunction is the semantic system where by speakers
relate clauses interm of temporal sequence, comparison and
addition. Unlike reference,substitution, and ellipsis, they use of
conjunction does not in struck the reader to supply missing
information either by looking for it else where in the text or by
feeling structural slots.

Halliday & Hasan as cited in (Suningsih,2016: p.29) state

that conjunction can be devided into additive, adversative, causal,
temporal and other conjunctive items (continuatives).
2. Additive
Additive conjunction signal the presentation of addition
information such as: and, or , and also, nor thus, in
addition, futhermore decide similarly likewise, by
contrast, for instance.
3. Adversative
Adversative conjunction is conjunction which moderates
or qualifies the information in the following sentence of
a text with the information in the preceding. For
example: but, yet, however, instead, nevertheless, at
least, actually, thought, only, as a matter of fact.
 15

4. Causal
Causal conjunction interprets the relationship between
the cause and consequence such as : because of this ,
for , so , it follows , because , hence , therefore ,
otherwise.
5. Temporal
Temporal conjunction expresses the relationship which
exit when the events in a text are related interms of the
timing of their occurrence. For example: first, then, after
that, next, in short, in conclution, just then, at last,
finally.

b. Lexical Cohesion
Lexical cohesion refers to relationships between and among
words in a text (Gerot and Wignell in Nurhayati,2012” p.26). It
involves the repetition of a noun phrase, or the use of another noun
phrase which bears a relation to the antecedent noun phrase.
Accoding to Eggins as cited in (Seken,2013: p.4) Lexical cohesion
refers to how the writer uses lexical items such as nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverbs to relate to the text consistenly to its area of
focus.
Halliday and Hasan define lexical cohesion as “the
cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary”.
Moreover, they divide lexical cohesion into two main categories:
reiteration and collocation (Anom et al,2012: p.5)

1) Reiteration
Reiteration is a mechanism of producing cohesion in a text
by means of repetition or two more lexical items that are
observable at the surface of the text (Halliday and Hasan in Anom
 16

et al,2012: p.5). Halliday and Hasan in (Tanskanen,2006: p.32)

devide reiteration into four types.
a) Repetition
Repetition is a restating items in a sequence of
sentences (Trianasari,2013: p.116).
Example:
 There’s a flower in the vase. The flower was bought
from a market.
The word flower is repeated in the sentence.
b) Synonym
Synonymy used to express a similar meaning of an
item. In addition, according to Riemer (2010:151)
synonymy is a part of the metalinguistic stock-intrade
of ordinary speakers of English: we often refer to words
as ‘having the same meaning’
Example:
 Jack is a seaman
 Jack is a sailor
For establishing that seaman and sailor are synonyms.
c) Superordinate
It includes the use of general class words
(Nurhayati,2012: p.28)
Example:
 Henry bought himself a new jaguar. He practically
lives in the car. The word car refers to the word jaguar
as jaguar as the brand of a car.
d) General word
General word used to refer back to a lexical item
like: person, people, man, woman for human nouns;
things, object for inanimate,concrete countable nouns;
 17

stuff for inanimate, concrete uncountable; place for

location...etc (Nurhayati,2012: p.27)
Example:
 The computer should be replaced. That old thing works
erratically. The word thing is the general word referring
to computer.

2) Collocation
Collocation is achieved trought the association of lexical
item that regularly cooccur . It pertains to lexical item that are
likely to be find together with in the same lexical environment
(Andayani,2014: p.4)
Example :
 In a theatre review we would expect to find words as
actor, director, audience, cast.
Each of the bold words is collocated one to another.

c. Definition of Argumentative Essay

According to Ramage et al (2009: 380) the explain that the

core of the argument is a question formed from an issue that has
more than one possible answer. It is supported by Ramage et al,
(2009: 378) who maintain that, in search of the truth, the argument
must consider all sides of a problem, look information and
alternative available in order to arrive at the best solution.

Moreover, Ludahl (2009: 220) say that when writing

argumentative texts, the need for adapting to the audience is high.
The writer needs to consider three aspects: his/her own opinions
and thoughts, the ideas represented in the literature and the reader’s
thoughts and ideas. Ludahl (2009: 221) further argues that the
 18

ability to cope with these three aspects is part of accommodating

the audience and by that also part of the writing and language
development.

Andrews (2009) states that 'arguments' and 'arguments' are

often used interchangeably. Though the two terms have
differences. Arguments are a more general term that refers to a
product or manifestation of arguments, such as debates,essays,
research papers, and is also used for a wider range in verbal,
written, and other modes. Arguments are part of an argument that
refers to something more technical. Argumentation is the process
of debating in education, politics,business, law, and other contexts.

Arguments are essential in everyday life, because almost all

work or all things require argument (Syaifudin & Pratama, 2013).
Arguments have a major role in developing, evaluating, and
validating knowledge (Duschl& Osborne,2002). In addition,
arguments can serve to control the compatibility of opinions with
evidence or phenomena (Wijaya,Rahayu, &Agustini,
2017).Andrews (2009) states that arguments are very important in
education because of the following points. First, it is important to
argue rationally in a civilized society and students (higher
education level) are expected to do so both in school and in the real
world. Second, advances in knowledge often come through
arguments. Third, the argument is about classification and
persuasiveness. Fourth, arguments can be fun.

Newell et al (2011) suggests that learning to write texts

argues defiantly for the following reasons. First, the argument
essay learning is complex. Secondly, the students have no audience
other than the teaching teacher. Third, the argument essay learning
 19

does not fit the learning approach. Fourth, teachers may be less
experienced in dealing with complexity.

It's hard to teach a good argument (Andrews, 2009). Even

some countries assess teachers' ability to build student arguments
to achieve certification (Harris, 2014). Building arguments is also
seen as an active and effective element of citizen ship(Howell,
Butler &Reinking, 2017). Teaching students to write effective
argument texts has been identified as an instructional challenge
(Howell, Butler & Reinking, 2017). The teacher needs to design a
case of thought or problem (Liu, 2016).

Essay is the developed form of group of paragraphs. It is

developed into such a way then becomes better structured.
Boardman & Frydenberg (2009) state that an essay consists of
introduction paragraph three arguments and ended by one
conclusion. The introduction contains a thesis statement. For the
three arguments, each of them contains supporting sentences that
can be identified to be major and minor supports. After that, they
also contain concluding sentence. For the last one, they are ended
by one single conclusion paragraph.In the end, the conclusion
paragraph has to be modified with more simple elaboration of the
arguments. Some essays allow the writer to leave an unforgettable
sentence to remember after summary all of the points derive from
the previous arguments. Like what is stated by Bowker, Blanchard,
and Root (2010) also say that an essay has three subdivisions. They
are an introduction, a body with several supporting paragraphs, and
a conclusion. Each of them stands for a specific purpose. In
summary, an essay is a piece of writing product that contains three
important elements. They are one paragraph of introduction, three
paragraphs of the body, and one paragraph of the conclusion. The
introduction paragraph contains one thesis statement which is the
 20

general idea that the writer wants the reader to find; the body
paragraphs contain some logical arguments that will answer the
thesis statement; and the conclusion is where the reader will find
the elaboration from all paragraphs above it. In the conclusion, the
reader is given suggestive sentence which is easy for the reader to
remember.

From definitions above, the researcher conclude that

argumentation essay is a piece meant to persuade someone to think
the way you do. Argumentative essay is contain a lot of the opinion
of the writer which aim to the reader to permit the opinion and the
conclusion conveyed by the writer (Solahudin: 2009).
Argumentation essay is typical essay in humanities subjects
requires that the writer states a claim on a controversial issue and
supports this claim by evidence in order to convince the audience
(Wood: 2001).

d. Related Studies
There are several previous researches which are relevant
with this study.The first one is conducted by Mubarak (2013)
entitled “An analysis of Students’ Ability in Building Cohesion
and Coherence in Argumentative Essays Written by the Fourth
Year Students of English Department of University of Bengkulu”,
in 2012/2013 Academic Year. The subject of the research was 72
students who were randomly chosen by using data sampling
technique. The data was analyzed by using percentage formulae
and scoring rubric. The researchresult showed that the students of
English Department at University of Bengkulu gained low score
which were in range 3 to 3.5 in constructing cohesion and
 21

coherence in a text. In addition they had low understanding of the

cohesion in a text and cohesive material.

After that, Arieza (2013) conducted a research entitled

“Analysis of Coherence in Argumentative Essays Written by the
Six Semester Students English Study Program of Universitas
Bengkulu”. The research was aimed to investigate the coherence in
students’ argumentative essay. The data was taken by using
purposive sampling where 30 students were asked to make
argumentative essay. The result shows that there were 2 essays
categorized as very good (6.66%), 16 essays categorized as good
essays (53.33%), 10 essays categorized as barely acceptable essay
(33.33), and 2 essays categorized as poor essays (6.66%). Those
finding means the students still need to learn more the writing
coherence.

The last one, Zulaiha (2012) carried out a research entitled

“An Analysis of Transition Signal/Connector Used in Essay
Writing by the Fourth Semester Student for English Department of
Bengkulu University on Academic Year 2011/2012”. The result
shows that there were 4 types of transition signals used in students’
essay such as Coordinate Connectors, Adverb Clause Connectors,
Noun Clause Connectors, and Adjective Clause Connectors. Most
mistakes found in this study wasthe inability of using appropriate
punctuation mark of the sentences that uses transition signals.
 22

CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Design
This research used a qualitative descriptive approach in this
study. According to Sukmadinata (2015: p.72) descriptive research
is research to describe phenomena that exist, either natural or
engineered. Furthermore, Sukardi (2013) state that descriptive
research is method that try to describe and interpret the appropriate
object (p.157). Therefore, this study tries to describe the cohesive
device manifest in the student argumentative essay.

B. Setting and subject of the research

1. Setting of the research
The research will be conducted at Sixth Semester of English
Education Department UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.

2. Subject of the research

The subject of this research is the Sixth Semester of English
Education Department UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi in
academic year 2020. This research choose one of class that consist of
30 students which they have already learnt the argumentative essay.

C. Types of the Data

Primary data
Primary data is data collected by the researcher from respondent and
information or the fact that observed. According to Sugiono (2009:
p.225) “primary data is the data has been taken directly from respondent
that correlated with this research “ in this research, researcher got
primary data from students writing argumentative essay which is it got
from the students at Sixth Semester of English Education Department
UIN Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi.
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D. Instrument for Collecting the Data

Documentation
In this research, documentation study was used to search
data in written documents. Documentation is much useful too
look for some information written data source to solve problem
through documentation analysis. Arikunto (2006, p.231) stated
that documentation is a number of data that presents the verbal
data such as journal, memory, report and others written text
that can be mutual responsible. This is meant that the
documentation is in the form of written data. This kind of
documentation is used to know students writing competence
and performance. Meanwhile to collecting the data to this
research, the researcher had to make an appointment with the
teacher and had to ask them for permission

E. Technique of data Analysis

This research used qualitative data, so it was analyzed by using
technique of analysis of descriptive qualitative. The analysis of
descriptive qualitative gives predicate to researched variable according to
real condition. The analysis is based on Mayring (2018: p.82).
1. Data reduction
The data obtained from field is quite a lot, because of it,
it should be noted in trough and detailed. As has been stated, the
longer researchers into the field, then the amount of data will be
more and more, complex and complicated (Sugiyono,2009:
p.247). Therefore, there should be a reductions of the data. This
study, the intended data were tabulated and given codes. For
coding the data, the primary types of cohesive device are shown
by : Rf (Reference), Sb (Subtitution), Ep (Ellipsis), Cj
(Conjunction), Rt (Reiteration) and Cc (Collocation).
 24

2. Data display
After the data is reduced, then the next step is displayed
data. Data displayed can be done in the form of brief description,
charts relation between categories. This study, the data which
displayed in the form of table in order to know types of cohesive
devices used by the students as follow:

No of Writing Types of Cohesion

Grammatical Cohesion Lexical Cohesion
Rf Sb Ep Cj Rt Cc
W1
W2
W3
W4
W30

Note:
Rf : Reference
Sb : Subtitution
Ep : Ellipsis
Cj : Conjunction
Rt : Reiteration
Cc : Collocation

3. Conclusion drawing
The third step in the analysis of qualitative data is
drawing conclusion or verification . According to
(Sugiyono,2009: p.253) Conclusions in qualitative research is a
new finding that had not been there. Findings may be a
descripstion of an object that is still not clear so researched
became clear. The conclusion drawing in this research was
design in the form of description and explanation in order to
answer the problem stated in this study.

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