Writing In English By Indonesian Higher Degree Students Studying Overseas

Indonesian Research Degree Students studying overseas in Australian Universities, ie. those undertaking a PhD, EdD, or Master Degree by Coursework and Minor Thesis, have exactly the same problems in thesis writing as local Australian students. They may have minor problems of language in writing in English as a result of transfer from Bahasa Indonesia. But the major problems of all first time research degree students is learning how to become researchers and how to present their research in a discourse format as a thesis or dissertation that has become the assepted norm internationally. This paper firstly examines some of the common surface written language problems of Indonesian Higher Degree Students. This data is drawn from an analysis of actual drafts of these written over the last ten years by a range of Indonesian students. Secondly, the paper discusses the nature of developing as a researcher and the associated problems of how this influences the presentation of research. And thirdly, the paper reflects on ways in which the process of learning to think and write as a researcher can be facilitated.

I want to stress at the very outset of this paper that Indonesian Higher Degree Students from local Australian or other English native speaking backgrounds.The assumption that Asian students in general and Indonesian students in particular have very different or special problems is not true in my experience over ten years as a supervisor of Higher Degrees.The research and thesis writing problems are largely the same as a supervisor of Higher Degrees.There may be some surface grarnmar problems and that is an issue I will deal with later in the paper.But the Lktyd, Thesis and Rcseurch Writing In lingli.shll.y Indtuu'.tirtrtIIrlqlrrr .. l.l-t general problems of conceptualising a research question, explaining clearly theoretical foundations underpinning the research question and designing, implementing and writing up a research project in the form of a thesis depends much on a student's previous experience of this process no matter what background they come from.These experiences need to have included practice in extended writing and independent thinking.The ideas in a thesis are arrived at through a process of individual research and argunnent and not through a process of consensus in face to face discussion with others.This process of individual argumentation is a lonely and frustrating one for most students who are accustomed to the support of their peers.
A thesis at a university aims at establishing some new knowledgo about a subject.The word thesis means basically an argument.And at thc level of the PhD it is expected that the argument the study is making in their thesis will rnake an original contribution to knowledge howefer small and prove that the candidate is capable of doing independent research., i.e. in rnany respects it is a licence to do researchn or passing is a statem$nt that the students has the capability to dn research that is worthwhile and can be accepted as valid.The validity of this knowledgc or truth like all so called truth is in some sense relative and bound up with what and how we consider what is knowledge and reality.These artr philosophical questions belonging to the study of metaphysics, ontology and epistemology.And I do not propose to so far as its logic is clearly arttl explicitly spelles out and its relationship to other knowledge is cleally defined and established.
In some sense writing a thesis is like ascending a mountain.In tlrc ciutter below you cannot clearly see how the bits and pieces fit.Only as you climb up can you begin to distiguish a pattern.And, of course, yotr have elected to climb one peak so you believe in that theory or argurncrrt which is the basis of your mountain which in part you are building.'l'hc view may look a little different from other peaks.But from whatever pcuk you stand on relationship can be seen and arguments made about how tlre whole the individual hills and peaks fit together.Another way of sayitrg this is that there are different perspectives from which to view the sittttc data.
, Apart form the large scale overview that can clearly be seen, thc: step$ and paths up the mountain can be made more easy and smooth lirr= those behind you to climb, i.e. your readers.In this sense there are nlttiot L32 choices of which path to take, and smaller decisions to remove a rock here and lop off a branch there.In some sense the mountain is your thesis and the path is your discourse organization to make that mountain easy to climb, and the minor smoothing of the path are making the language and smaller surface discourse features easier for your climber or reader.
I currently have a student working on a thesis about writing, or more specificailya about the citation practices of NNS thesis writers.The fact that these subjects are NNSs are to some extent irrelevant.What is emerging from the data is that the language of each particular thesis or its surface discourse features reflects in a much deeper way the beliefs or attitudes to knowledge of the students researchers.And these attitude are connected with the previous experiences the students have had with writing and learning.Only a few of the subjects seern able to develop a truly critical research perspective that leads to the kind of thesis writing that is most highly valued.In other words the problems for thesis writing is not necessarily one of being a NNS writet but of being an inexperi- enced research or leanier, and can only be solved through a lengthy process of being an apprentice researcher.NSs have exactiy the same problem if they are not experienced reserachers.
There may be particular problems of discourse that Indonesjan students may experience in writing criticallya as I have noticed that in the exchages from the floor during the TEFLIN conference the Indonesian students mostly started by saying that they a greed with the speaker even though they intended later to say that they absolutely disagreed.Even for native speaking thesis students of English it is regarded as presumptous for thern to totally refute more experienced reserarchess', finding, but there are ways of writing critically about previous findings tant are accetable by modifying one's criticism and certainly by placing one's critical comments in some conetextual fremework.It may well be that supervisors need to teach their students ways in which to accomplish such critical comments.Now I will turn to a selection of some of the common surf,ace language errors found in the academic writing of Indonesian students.The examples have been taken from actual theses but I have altered the examples in both content and the type of the research they refer to.So the example may have been taken from a thesis to do with reading h;t I will alter it to make it seems as if it comes from a thesis about sr:rken language., etc.If anyone thinks that the data has been taken from their l.uryd,'l'ht'si:; und Rtsutr<:h Writing In linglish By lndorrcsittrt llightr..l:15 thesis because of the topic they may well be mistaken.I have done this to protect students.I do not speak Bahasa Indonesia and you may well recognize that some of these elrors are due to transfer from the student' Ll.
la rEnglish in Indonesia is emphasized on reading comprehension' lb In Indonesia the emphasis in English Language teaching falls on reading comprehension.
lc In English, reading comprehension is emphasized in Indonesia.
1d Reading comprehension in English is emphasized in Indonesia.
In English sentences lb or ld would be preferable' The verb "ernphasize" is a transitive non-unaccusative verb which requires an agent doer to act as grammatical subject in the active voice, e.g."The speaker ernphasized the importance of reading com- prehension."The error in la probably arose as the writer tried to write a topic comrnent sentence, which is illustrated in lc.
However, English unlike mosf Asian languages is not a language where the grammar allows iopic comment structures as a matter of course.In English grarnmar the imperative is for the grarn- matical subject which is usually the active agent to appear as early in the sentence structure as possible' The preposition "on" is never used with the verb emphasize, only with the noun "emphasis".
2a *Johns describes that the students had difficulty with the task.2b Johns pinted out that the students had difficulty with the task.2c Johns describes the difficulty that the students had with the task.
2d Johns describes what difficulty the students had with the task.
The verb "describes" can take a noun or a noun clause starting with "what" but not a noun clause starting with "taht" because the problem or "difficulty" must be the object that is described and not the fact that there was a difficulty.
3a *Reading ability in general is not satisfying.3b Reading ability in general is not satisf,actory.
The writer uses a verb where an adjective is requered.Ability cannot be a subject agent hence it cannot be followed by a transitive verb like satisfy, which requires a agentive subject, e.g."He is satisfying his clients.""satisfying" means some desire is being met whereas "satisfactory" means a good enough standard has been achieved.
4a *Smith and Johnson (1999) observe the unsatisfactory results and point out that... 4b Smith and Johnson (1999) note the unsatisfactory results and point that...
While "observe" can sometimes be used as a verb meaning "to rnake a comment", as soon as "results" is used as its object we are forced to think of the classical experiment in which results are observed by the experimenter and this is not the meaning intended here by the writer, who means rather that the writer drew attention to the results already oberved.
5a xSuch reports suggest a serious concern of English language teaching is reading comprehension... 5b Such reports suggest a serious concern for English language teaching is the lack of reading cornprehension.." "A conceffi of' means it is a matter uryhich properly belongs to or is studied by that academic discipline, e.g.uothe study of tlie physical properties ofrnatteris the concem ofphysics"; whereas '"a concem f,or" trneans it is a matter which is a problem that must be dealt with as in sentence 5b.
6a *The challenge to maXce a study that may uncover the truth about... 6b The chailenge for a study is to uncover the truth about... 7a This study is rnade to study the effect of cultural background on language learning.
7b This study was conducted to study the effect nf cultural background on language learning.7c This project studied the effect of cultural background on language learning.8a * Smith (1980) found that leamers make negotiations with other learners to produce comprehensible messages.
8b Smith (1980) found that learners negotiated with other learners to produce comprehensible messages.
As 6a, 7a and 8a illustrate, there is general tendency amongst Indonesian ESL writers to overuse the word "make" as a Lirtytl, 'l.hesis arul Research Writing Iu l:ngli.thlly Indoncsiu,rt Itigln'r ... lJ7 causative verb where it is unnecessary.This may be due to Ll transfer.
9a *When a learner's expectation is met, he/she continues.9b When a learner's expectations are met, he/she continues.
In general, the English idiom "to meet expectations" is always used in the plural idiomatically" 10a *It is hardly found an American who does not know Kentucky Fried Chicken.
10b It is hard to find an Arnerican who.does not know Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Usualiy with the verb find we can say: "Hardly any trace of poison was found in the water", where "hardly" rnodifies the thing being looked for not the verb or process of "finding".But in the example sentence the writer means the finding is hard because there are so few of them.This way of saying this is a standard idiomatic expression in English.
lla *These factors seem to be influential on students' comprehen- sion.
On the surface this problem seems similar to that in example 1 where the preposition "on" is incorrectly inserted together with an unnecessary passive form of the verb" In English ooinfluence" is a noun-unaccusative transitive verb taking an active agent.
l2a *In another research the opposite results were found... 12b In another study the opposite results were found... 13a *The next group of research studies on listening comprehen- sion are those that focussed on... 13b The next group of research studies on listening comprehension are those that focussed on...The word "researchn' in English is an abstract noun for the process and is not usd to refer to a particular project or study as was incorrectly done in I2a and 13a.l4a *Many criticisms have been addressed to simplification.l4b Much criticism has addressed simplification.The word "criticism" is generally used as uncountable in re- search.The verb "address" is used in English meaning "to be concerned with" or "directed at".Idiomatically as shown in 14 b this is expressed in the active voice in English.
15a *Brown (1980) calls the system of interlanguage as a an ongoing process... 15 Brown (1980) calls the system of interlanguage an ongoing process... trndoensia ESL writers often seern to overuse "as a" with verbs which native speakers d not use it.
16a ESL learner's output cannot be viewed apart from the context in which it is uttered.16b ESL learner's output cannot be viewed in isolation frorn the context in which it is uttered.
"Apart from" means "besides" and has the sense that something is being added, whereas the writer rneans that the two things cannot be separated.
17a *The study by Smit (1999) revealed two main categories for language acquisition ... 17b The study by Smith (1999) argued that there are two main categories for language acquisition...The word "reveal" is vastly overused by research writers in English.The word "reveal" means that an active agent exposes sornething to the sight of someone elese.In 17a there is no active agent and since "categories" are in themselves abstract groupings concrete items that can be seen, this makes the use of "reveal" incorrect.What the writer means is that the research writers are creating an argument and this is better expressed by L7b.
18a *The student were willing to participate in questionnaire answering.18b The student were willing to participate in answering the ques- tionnaire.19a *Due to their vocabulary limitation, the students... Lioyd, Thesis and Research Writing In English By Indonesian Higher ... 139 19b Due to their lack of vocabulary, the students...lDue to their limited vocabulary, the student...There appears to be a general tendency amongst Asian of English to construct simple noun pharases that have a string of attributives (often just another noun as in 19a) followed by a single noun, where as noun phrases in English are often gerun- dive containing a gerund and an object of the gerund such as in l8b or two or more nouns joined with a preposition as in 19b.
19a *T'his approach was done given that the purpose of the study was to siudy listening comprehension. 19b This approach was used as the purpose of the stutiy was to study listening cornprehension.
Another verb which is often overused is oodone" as in 19a.This may be related do the problem of insterting a causative as discussed atrove in 5 through 8.
20a +A third alternative was to".. 20b A third possibility was to...An alternative rneans that there are only two possible choices so that logically there there cannoi be an altemative given there choices.
21a *Concerning with the illteraction, Figure 5 shows that was interaction between gender and level of proficiency.21b Figure 5 shows that there was interacition between gender and level of proficiency.21a contains a redundant phrase which appears to be an attempt again to create a topic comment style which is not natural to English grammar or discourse.
Z2a*Anderson and Smith (1975) summarized that ten variables affect second language learning.22b Anderson and Smith (1975) summarized previous studies and concluded that ten variables affect second language learning.
The verb "summarised" cannot be followed by a noun clause starting with "that".This error is similar to that discussed in example 2.
23a *We find out that the majority of learners are anxienty in the classroom.23b We found that the majority of learners are affected in the classroom.

afl'ected by by anxiety
The phrasal verb verb "find out" and the verb "find" are often confused."Find out" means to find out something like a specific secret, but "find" as intended by the writer means that the research established the truth about something.
24a *This theory will be the base of this study.24b This theory will be the basis of this study.
"Base" imples something physical whereas "basis" is an abstract or theoretical concept.The verb "base" also gives problems.
ESL writers often write "basing on" when they mean "based on".
26a *Srnith (i991) did not clearly classify good language learners from less good ones.26b Smith (1991) did not ciearly distinguistr good language learners from less good ones.27a *Srnith (1991) grouped the strategies into two groups.27b Smith (1991) classified the strategies into two groups.
Examples 25 through 27 illustraie some of the problems writers have with two sets of words with the roots: "class" and "category".These words are tricky.Basically, a "class" means some kind of group of items belonging together, such that the various groups are in some hierachical relationship to one another, whereas categories are not necessarily in any such relationship.The act of assigning an item to a class group is to classify it as an X, or place itu in class X, but in order to do so we "distinguish" it from ther items using certain criteria or a classification scheme.We can also group data or items accord- ing to categories, and in doing so we categorise the item as X, or assign it to category X.When we set out to make classes or 29bThe study investigates what skills correlate with irrtclligcrrrc Anather example of the unnecessary introdution ol' n vr.rlr "have" where the noun used can be a verb used in its owrr lrpilrr 30a *Refeming to the theories above, the learners lnaktr rrsc ,'t 30b From the theories above, we carr see that the lcarrrr:rs rrrnLr' use of... trn sentence 30a by using a participial phrase which dcscribcs thc leamers, the writer implies that the leamers refer t<l thc thcor rt.s, when in fact the writer simply means that if the readcr rcl'crs to the theories, the reader can understand what the learncrs lrc doing, i.e. that the theories explain the learners' beh:,viour.'l'his overuse of participial phrase is fairly common in ESL writirrg.ESL writers should be cautioned about using what is in luct a very Latin based construction in English and one which ollur leads to errors known as misrelated or unrelated particial phrascs.
l3lJ 'fEFLlN Joumil.Volunt XII Numhcr l, l;thruurv 2001 Lioyd, Thesis and Researt:h Writing In linglish lly Indrnwsitut llil4hrt ... 14l categories we can arrange or divide items int<l clnsses or categories.28a *This measured the frequency of a learner using dictiorrurrer 28b This measured the frequency wity which a lcarncr urerl dictionaries.Logically it is not the frequency of the learner but thc rnngt' which is being measured.29a *The study investigates what skills have corrclutkrn wllh intelligence.