Students' Paragraph Structure in Writing Research Background

Abstract

This research was conducted to find out the realities of higer students’ capability in writing paragraph, especially in writing research background. The subjects of the research are the fifth semester English Department Students of teacher training and educatioin faculty who have taken writing subject for 3 semesters and they are equipped to be able to write a thesis. The method of the research is a descriptive qualitative research. The students were asked to write some paragraphs in their research bacgorund for their thesis proposal. The finding shows that the students’ paragraph structure are not complete. The paragraph structure only consists of topic sentence and some supporting sentences whereas the concluding sentence does not exist in any paragraphs made by the students. The topic sentence is most dominantly acceptable topic sentence presenting one idea. The number of supporting sentences is most dominantly in three or more supporting sentences but they are insufficient or undeveloped examples of supporting sentences.