An Analysis of Coherence Use in the Essay Written by English Language and Literature Department Student

Abstract

Coherence is one of the characteristics of good writing. It is important for student to know how to use the way to achieve coherence in their writing. Therefore, it is also important to analyze students’ use of the ways to achieve coherence when using coherence in writing. This research implemented descriptive quantitative approach to analyze the use of ways to achieve coherence in the essays written by the English Language and Literature Department students. The data was 30 essays, 20% of the total source of data (152 students). The data were gathered from the essays written by the students at final semester exam for Essay Writing course. After the data were analyzed, the results showed that all four of the ways to achieve coherence were found in the essays analyzed. The results from the most used ways to achieve coherence to the least one are: the repetition of key noun (463 times, 48.28%), the use of transition signals (405 times, 42.23%), the consistent of pronoun (71 times, 2.37%) and the use of logical order (20 times, 2.09%). This result showed student familiarity to the ways of achieving coherence. However, a special care in teaching the use of pronoun as one of the way to achieve coherence, alongside other ways.