STRATEGIES IN DEVELOPING ENGLISH AND INDONESIAN ACADEMIC WRITING BY EFL STUDENTS

This study was aimed at seeing the writing strategies used by EFL Undergraduate students at Muhammadiyah University of Malang. This study used content analysis as the design, focusing on the quality of rhetoric and strategies in developing English academic essays written in Bahasa Indonesia and in English Language. The study assigned 10 students as the subject of the study. Data of this study included English and Indonesian essays, answers of questionnaires and responses of interview given to the 10 students. The study revealed that good writers wrote linear essays in Bahasa Indonesia and in English language. In writing practices and strategies, poor writers did not write draft of the essays, did not revise, and did not edit the essays, either. Good writers, on the contrary did make drafting, revising, and editing before final copy of an essay was achieved. In addition, reading references were also influential for the good writers to improve writing style and quality of the content of the essays, but not for the poor ones.

TO WRITE well is not something that comes naturally.It is a skill that most people have to work to develop.One can learn to write effectively if he is willing to learn some strategies and practice them (Oshima and Hogue, 1991).It is most dangerous belief that there is no writing process, that experienced writers simply sit down at the typewriter or the computer, begin at the beginning, and write through to the end, with no planning, revision, or break in the linear flow (Krashen, 1984:33).
The current study focuses on analysis of the process and strategies of developing an academic writing.Kaplan (1966) posits that besides rhetoric, writing involves the transfer of language into the written form.Transfer on the logic, development of ideas, and strategies to organize ideas, occurs in writing.For the learners of English whose native language is not English, the process of transfer of the rhetoric of their native language into English will be the main problem in writing.The writing process and strategies in developing academic writing evolve through the maturity of writing competence and the process and strategies in the native language and in English are required to observe.
The process and strategies of writing appear in the styles of linguistics features in the academic writing.The syntactic and mechanic quality of writing that are reflected in the use of sentence complexity, grammar, and mechanic quality (Raimes, 1987) indicate clearly how process of writing and strategies of writing are employed by the writers.In this regard, theories concerning the process of developing academic writing (Hogins and Lillard, 1972;Andrew, IB and Gardner R, 1979;Krashen, 1984) that specifically deal with characteristics of academic writing, writing process, and analysis of an essay into pieces of traits are applied.
Various studies on writing indicate that as beginners, when students of English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) write in English, they translate or attempt to translate the L1 words, phrases, and organization into English.The students use patterns of language and stylistic conventions that they have learned in their native language and cultures (Connor, 1996:3-4).When they are mature to achieve successful accomplishments the advanced level of mastery in writing, of course, they will not translate L1 words and patterns of L1 conventions into English anymore.
The key to grasping a writing style is experience.In this respect, choosing the appropriate style of writing becomes a common problem for college students.Many students complain that achieving some level of formality sounds too difficult and also sounds as if it must result in a hopelessly dead, dry, unnatural style that few would want to read.However, with more practice in writing and more reading of college texts, the style will automatically become more formal and polished (Hogins-Lillard, 1972:13-16) without necessarily being dead and dry.
For academic purpose, however, learning writing skills is an obligation that students must meet in college.Essentially, students should assimilate a specific body of knowledge and demonstrate the familiarity with the knowledge in a written form.In this regard, performing a scholarly writing, e.g.abbreviated essay, term paper, report on research is repeatedly required by the college students (Hogins and Lillard, 1972:5).As writing skill is an imperative obligation for college students, scholarly writing is a primary means to demonstrate the knowledge they have achieved.
The matters of writing to be taught have turned to be the focus of interest.The current approach to the teaching of writing focuses on what goes on when a learner writes and what the teacher could do to help a learner get into the natural process of writing.Oshima and Hogue (1991) argue that process of writing consists of a series of drafts.The writing process consists of four main strategies: prewriting, planning, writing and revising drafts, and writing for a final copy.
When writing a writer does not begin working by thinking of all ideas they want to put down, then organize them, then write them out, then reread, and finally edit the text.Planning, drafting, and revising usually all take place throughout the process of writing (Caudery, 1995).Skilled writers pose themselves questions about audience and purpose, while unskilled writers tend to simply respond to the topic.Moreover, experienced writers tend to use draft, make substantial changes, and much more concerned to take account of the responses of a hypothetical reader.Conversely, inexperienced writers are much more concerned with detail, e.g. to change the word choice or to correct only surface errors of grammar and punctuation (Flower and Hayes, 1986;Sommers, 1980).
Producing a piece of writing means conveying a written message for a particular purpose to a particular audience.Therefore, before the task of writing begins, the writer should realize that she or he is working in a specific situation.She or he has a topic to write about, persons willing to read or listen, and reason for writing.The writer is involved in a communication square with its sides labeled as audience, purpose, persona, and message.Specifically, the communication square is expressed into such questions: "Who is my audience?What is my purpose?What is my persona or role as a writer?What is my message or thesis?" (Hairston, 1981:44;Hartfiel et al., 1985:18).
The audience refers to the prospective readers or who are supposed to read the essay.The purpose deals with the reason to write such as to inform, to tell a story, to describe an object/a person or a process, and to persuade or to argue.The persona meaning the character being acted deals with how effective writer adapts her or his tone and approach to the audience being addressed.The message or the subject refers to what is conveyed to the reader, what topic is to be presented (Hairston, 1981:44;Hartfiel et al, 1985:18).
Writing is a process through which the writer discovers, organizes, and writes her or his thoughts to communicate with a reader.The writing process gives the writer a chance to compose, draft, rethink, and redraft to control the outcome of her or his writing (Wingersky, Boerner, and Holguin-Balogh, 1992:3).
The general steps in the writing process include prewriting, organizing ideas, drafting, revising, and making a final draft.Each step has different activities that will help a writer get the ideas from his mind to the paper in an organized fashion.Prewriting is a way of generating ideas, narrowing a topic, or finding a direction.Organizing involves sorting ideas in logical manner to prepare to write a draft.Drafting is the part of writing process in which the writer composes sentences in paragraph form to produce the first copy of an essay.Revising involves smoothing out a writing, adding more detail, and making other changes that helps achieve best way to write.Editing is checking mechanical problems and correcting the problems.Making a final draft and deciding it ready for the intended audience involves a sincere look at the paper and decide if the essay is in its best form (Wingersky, Boerner, and Holguin-Balogh, 1992:3).

METHODS
This study used content analysis (Holsti, 1969:42-43) that aimed at analyzing the content of corpus of academic written discourse.Data were based on documents consisting of students' English and Indonesian essays and responses to the questionnaire.Responses of interviews to the students and writing instructors elaborating the writing product, steps, and process of writing were also included.
Specifically, this study attempted to see the process and strategies of developing English and Indonesian essays on the basis of the task environment and the composing process (Connor, 1996:75).The task environment consisted of writing topic, the audience, and the text produced.The writing processes included planning and reviewing.Planning involved generating ideas, goals, and procedures; reviewing includes evaluating and revising.
The participants of the study were 10 EFL undergraduate students learning in the tenth semester of MUM.The participants were preparing to write a research report of an undergraduate thesis in English.Of 10 participants, 7 came from class A and 3 from class B. As the policy of MUM, the students of class A achieved GPA 3.0 and up and students of class B achieved GPA 2.74 to 2.29.Of 10 participants, 6 students finalized the final copy of the thesis reports and 4 prepared to have a thesis exam.The 10 students were selected mainly because of the availability of the participants in the field.
To elaborate the writing process and problems a questionnaire and the open-ended interview were used.The instrument of this study consisted of three kinds: the writing prompt of argumentative or expository essay, a questionnaire, and the open-ended interview guide.To see the writing skills, the writing process and strategies, a questionnaire and an open-ended interview were developed in Bahasa Indonesia.
The 10-item questionnaire was intended to elaborate writing skill of the participants.In addition, the interview guide consisted of questions on the students' problems with an emphasis on supporting and clarifying their process in developing an essay.Similar to the questionnaire, the interview was conducted in Indonesian to make sure that the participants' answers were fully described.The interview consisted of 7 questions.They are (1) Formal background of writing: writing courses, training on scientific writing, supervisory writing; (2) Writing experiences: summary, note-taking, paper, personal writing; (3) Writing objectives: paper, discussion, journal; (4) Writing materials: textbooks, journals, lectures; (5) Writing process: planning with an outline, planning without an outline, no planning, proofreading; (6) Writing difficulties: language, content, organization, grammar, ideas, and (7) Writing strategies: in Indonesian, in English, etc.

Quality of the Essay
Table 1 describes that of 10 subjects writing English essays, 6 subjects shared linear patterns and 4 used non-linear ones.Of 6 subjects writing linear English essays, 3 devoted the linear Indonesian essays and 3 developed the non-linear ones.In addition, of 4 subjects writing non-linear English essays, 1 maintained a linear Indonesian essay and 3 asserted the non-linear ones.
In writing Indonesian essays, 4 subjects wrote linear patterns and other 6 asserted nonlinear patterns.Of 4 subjects writing linear Indonesian essays, 1 shared a non-linear English essay.In addition, of 6 subjects developing non-linear Indonesian essays, 3 devoted the linear English essays and 3 others admitted the non-linear ones.For convenience, the number of participants writing linear and non-linear essays is summarized in Table 1.
The evidence of the linearity and non-linearity ideas in the above discussion indicates that thought patterns of the subjects under study were not necessarily parallel in an English essay and in an Indonesian essay.A writer using linear pattern in an English essay did not always produce a linear pattern when he or she wrote an Indonesian essay.
In this regard, two factors are influential: the education and writing frequency.The higher education serves more academic exercises on reasoning.This provides better quality on the logic.In addition, higher education also requires more reading and writing frequency.The more frequency of reading and writing is factor that increases the better writing quality.The more the frequency is, the better the writing quality will be.

Linear Essay
Linearity of an essay was characterized mainly by the existence of an explicit thesis statement in the essay and clear supporting sentences that corresponded to the thesis (Wahab, 1995c).The thesis might appear in the introductory paragraph or in the closing paragraph.Each point of a thesis was described using examples, illustration, facts, statistics, citation, or a combination of each.Progression of topics was parallel and topics of successive sentences were the same.
All of the 6 linear English essays were characterized by the use of introductory sentences as the general statement.The thesis was defined before a specific statement was clarified.All thesis statements of the linear essays were stated in the introductory paragraph.
In addition to the Indonesian essay, this study revealed that 4 of the linear Indonesian essays were characterized with the use of thesis in the introductory paragraph.The thesis was introduced with some points of general statement.
It is evident that the writer uses the same strategies to writing Indonesian and English essays.Using similar strategies to writing English essay, each point of the controlling ideas in Indonesian essays is developed in the body paragraphs.Admittedly, this paragraph also asserts something different from the thesis, providing a new comment and information irrelevant to the thesis.Moreover, neither does the closing restate nor summarizes the thesis.

Non-Linear Essay
A non-linear essay was characterized mainly with the absence of a thesis statement in the introductory paragraph.The non-linear essay might take one of the four types.First, ideas of a non-linear essay were not clearly defined and no relationship between one paragraph and other paragraphs appeared.Second, thesis statement appeared, but the thesis was introduced with irrelevant general statements.Third, progression of topics was sequential; topics of successive sentences were always different, as the comment of one sentence became the topic of the next.Fourth, progression of topics was extended parallel; the first and the last topics of a piece of text were the same but were interrupted with some sequential progression (Wahab, 1995c).Any essay using one or a combination of the four types of non-linear patterns used in this study is categorized a non-linear essay.
The same 10 subjects under study wrote 10 English essays and 10 Indonesian essays.The English essays consisted of 6 linear and 4 non-linear.The Indonesian essays comprised of 4 linear and 6 non-linear.In addition, of 4 subjects writing non-linear English essays, 3 of them wrote non-linear Indonesian essays; and of 6 subjects writing non-linear Indonesian essays, 3 developed linear English essays.Excerpts (3a) and (3b) below illustrate a non-linear English essay and a non-linear Indonesian essay written by a same writer.

Results of Questionnaire and Interview
The questionnaire that consisted of 10 items was served to obtain additional information of process of writing and writing strategies.In addition, the interview was used to clarify more detailed information on the writing process and strategies of rhetoric.Interview was given to 10 participants and 1 writing instructor at MUM, previously teaching the 10 participants.
In response to the question of the writing frequency, 4 of 10 students asserted that they wrote English and Indonesian articles excluding papers for final projects twice in a semester and 6 students did not write any articles.Further identification on questionnaire and interview suggested that the 4 students showed characteristics of good writers and those 6 students showed characteristics of the poor writers.
The 10 students admitted that they used similar strategies when writing both English and Indonesian essays.None of them developed an outline before writing, as outlining was as difficult as writing an essay.However, good writers stated that they informally jotted down points to be developed and poor writers outlined ideas in their mind.In addition, all students used translation strategies to develop their ideas; they might write ideas in Indonesian or construct their sentences in Indonesian first, then translated them into English.
All students realized that an essay --English or Indonesian--should consist of introduction, discussion, and conclusion as a standard convention of academic writing.The introduction was an introductory paragraph that had a thesis and controlling ideas.The discussion was the body paragraphs that comprised some developing paragraphs inside to support details of controlling ideas.In addition, the conclusion was the concluding paragraph that summarized or restated the thesis.However, the awareness on writing convention did not indicate a full mastery of writing; the students failed to transfer their knowledge on writing convention to an actual essay.
There were four main factors responsible to the evidence on the problems of writing convention.First, the students did not realize how logic in an essay should be developed.Second, students tended to rely on essay models equipped when they were following Writing Courses.Third, students were more occupied with grammar problems that made their ideas difficult to express.Fourth, students had the limited reading practice and writing frequency.
Problems on logic resulted that the students writing the linear English essays did not always share linear Indonesian essays, because the rhetoric model was not yet a permanent intake for them.An English essay model was an intake for a linear essay and an Indonesian essay model equipped linear and non-linear essays.The application of logic in an essay needed intensive frequency of practices in writing for similar use.To achieve linear English essay, practices in writing a linear English essay were required.Similarly, to achieve a linear Indonesian essay, practices to write linear Indonesian article were inevitable.
Students maintained that as the beginning writers, writing competence in L1 asserted the same competence in L2, so that some organizational features of L1 writing appeared in the writing of L2.As a result, the way the students developed ideas in the syntax level was similar in English and Indonesian essays.Syntax errors in English emerged, because incomplete mastery of English rules; and syntax errors in Indonesian existed as a result of logic in style.
As the novice of L2 writers, the students maintained that they would of course make more errors in grammar and lexical choices than would L1 writers.They tended to concentrate on the form rather than on the content of the essays.As they already had the basic rules of L1, when they produced thought with insufficient L2 rule system, they transformed the available L1 rule system.
With respect to the writing practice and reading frequency, the students writing the linear essays maintained that they had more practice in writing different topics for different use.Practice in writing was related to improvement in writing ability.Practice made students improve their writing competence.
In addition, students also asserted that they received more influential writing competence from reading.Writing competence came from self-motivated reading.The conventions of writing were acquired by reading.The students believed that to learn how to write for newspapers, one must have read newspapers.For magazine, one should browse through magazines.
With regard to revision process, good writers asserted that they made different strategies in revisions than those of poor writers for three ways: in planning, rescanning, and revising.The good writers planned more than poor writers.Few used standard outline forms and a few used some kind of planning of content and organization before writing.Flexible plans were developed as changes of ideas to revise and new arguments emerged.The good writers paused more during writing and reread their text more.
In addition, rescanning appeared to help good writers maintain a sense of the whole composition or conceptual blueprint.Writers were pausing to plan what to write next, rescanning if their plans fitted, pausing again to reformulate.In short, the good writers revised more than poor writers did.The poor students basically revised to rewording and adhering to the rules.Some assumed that their desired meaning was present in their first draft; revision was simply a matter of finding the best words to express it.Good writers, on the contrary, made revision as an effort to find the line of the argument.The good writers focused on content in revision.Poor writers used revision to clarify the meaning contained in the first draft, mechanics, grammar, and spelling.
In line with the writing instruction, students admitted that the role of the teacher was significant.Students asserted that they received approximately 8 writing papers in one semester for the whole 4 Writing Courses.Of the 8 papers, 3 were corrected by the instructor, revised by the students, and returned to the instructor again for further revision.The other 5 papers were done for home assignment and exercises.Students and the writing instructor clarified that the returned papers were focused more on grammar, mechanic, and mechanical convention of writing, e.g. the presence of topic, opening, discussion, and conclusion.Detail discussion on the content and rhetoric strategies was not included.The writing instructor admitted that he intentionally did not discuss the content and rhetoric because of his limited time.Besides, the number of students in one class was big enough, more than 40 students.
In addition to the learning-teaching process, students asserted that some writing assignments were done in-group of two or three.This implied that not every student actually did the task; one student depended the other.The writing instructor, on the other hand, argued that giving the writing assignment in-group provided the practical way in correcting the papers.

DISCUSSION
Rhetoric features of English essays and Indonesian essays served by the same EFL undergraduate students of MUM indicated similar patterns on linearity and non-linearity of ideas.This finding suggests that linearity of English patterns was not necessarily parallel to linearity of Indonesian patterns.Results of questionnaire and interview showed that when writing an essay, the students attempted to follow a model essay, having similar mode to the essay they would develop.When reading an English essay model, in which linear patterns were the main model, the students were equipped with linear essays.
With regard to the rhetoric, this study suggests that logic, which is the basis of rhetoric, comes from culture; it is not universal.Rhetoric, therefore, is not universal either but varies from culture to culture.The rhetorical system of one language is neither better nor worse than the rhetorical system of another language, but it is different.English logic and English rhetoric are linear, that is, a good English paragraph begins with a general statement of its content and carefully develops that statement with a series of specific illustrations (Oshima and Hogue, 1991).
With regard to the writing practice and writing process and strategies, analysis of questionnaire and interview noted some points.Assuming linear English and Indonesian essays were ones that met the criteria of academic English so that they were considered good essays, this study clarified Krashen's (1984) finding.The students writing the linear essays maintained that they had more practice in writing different topics for different use.Krashen (1984) reviewed that there was some evidence that practice in writing, especially expository writing, was related to improvement in writing ability.Some aspects of the writing skill could be taught, but there were limitations.The most general and obvious features of form and organization might be teachable.In this regard, practices made students improve their writing competence.
In addition, the students also maintained that they received more influential writing competence from reading.This finding confirmed two studies by Krashen (1984) andSmith (1983).Krashen (1984) posited that writing competence came only from large amounts of self-motivated reading for interest or pleasure.It was acquired subconsciously.In addition, Smith (1983) maintained that the conventions of writing were acquired by reading.To learn how to write for newspapers, one must have read newspapers; textbooks about them would not suffice.For magazine, one should browse through magazines rather than through correspondence courses on magazine writing.
With regard to the writing process and strategies, the students writing the linear essays asserted that they made more revisions than those students writing non-linear essays.This finding clarified Krashen's (1984) study.According to Krashen, good writers differed from poor writers in their composing process, that is, they had better and more sound procedures for getting their ideas down on paper.Specifically, good writers differed in three ways: in planning, rescanning, and revising.
Good writers planned more than poor writer.This did not mean the use of formal outline, nor was it always prewriting.Few used standard outline form but some kind of planning of content and organization before writing.They used flexible plans, they were willing to change their ideas as they wrote and to revise their outlines as new ideas and arguments emerged.Krashen (1984) cited that good writers paused more during writing and reread their text more.Rescanning appeared to help good writers maintain a sense of the whole composition or conceptual blueprint.Writers were pausing to plan what to write next, rescanning if their plans fitted, pausing again to reformulate.
Good writers revised more than poor writers did.What poor students revised was basically rewording and adherence to rules.Some assumed that their desired meaning was present in their first draft; revision was simply a matter of finding the best words to express it.Good writers, on the contrary, made revision as an effort to find the line of the argument.The first draft might be just an attempt to define their territory, while subsequent revisions helped continue to create meaning.The good writers focused on content in revision; the poor writers used revision to clarify the meaning contained in the first draft, mechanics, grammar, and spelling.
In addition to sentence variety, students asserted that their English knowledge and their ability to write in English were incomplete.Some English idiomatic and sentences embarrassed them to freely express ideas with correct styles.As a result, the students wrote awkward English sentences and various grammar errors.Sentences with subordination were limited, reflecting immature English.
The above finding supports Oshima and Hogue's (1991) statement.In English, maturity of style was often judged by the degree of subordination rather than by the degree of coordination.Therefore, Indonesian styles of writing seemed awkward and immature to an English reader.Students used an indirect approach, in which topic was viewed from a variety of angles and was never analyzed directly.The rules of English rhetoric required that every sentence in a paragraph is related directly to the central idea.The students who had mastered the grammar of English might still write poor papers unless they also mastered the rhetoric of English.Also, the students might have difficulty reading an essay written by the rules of English rhetoric unless they understood the logical differences from those of their own native tongue.
Clarifying problems on immature English sentences, the students claimed that writing instruction contributed an important role.During writing classes they followed, the instructor did not include more models of paragraphs or essays with simple and complex sentences than with compound and compound-complex sentences.The instruction did not emphasize the importance of the variability in sentence construction.As a result, when writing an actual essay or report, students avoided to using compound-complex sentences because they did not want to make many errors in their writing due to the more difficult sentence construction (Latief, 1990).
Finally, this study maintains that the role of writing instructor is prominent to equipping students' competence in writing.The writing frequency might be enough to run the meeting target in one semester, but the way the writing instructor corrected and evaluated the students' writing needed improvement for three reasons.
First, the writing instructor did not give enough focus discussion on the content of the essays.This implied that the strategies of developing ideas and organization in the essay were not emphasized.Second, students did not receive enough variations on discourse modes providing descriptive, narrative, expository, and argumentative essays.This implied that students were still confused to use the different application of writing process and strategies for each mode.Third, students did not receive enough exposure in developing the rhetoric strategies in the essay.Some aspects of rhetoric, e.g. the layout structure of an essay, the presence of topic and controlling ideas, and the progression of the development of ideas might be discussed; but the substance in the application of writing an essay for various different modes would be ignored.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Writing academic essays was not just a matter of writing mature, complete, and errorfree sentences.A good mastery of language rules was not enough because writing used conventions appropriate to the language behavior.In addition, learners of English as a L2 under study were in the process of being mature to master English.EFL students devoted similar rhetoric and linguistic features in writing English and Indonesian essays.The rhetoric similarity was shared in the use of linearity and non-linearity of ideas. .Results of analysis on questionnaire and interview indicated that the students under study differed due to their experience in writing practice and reading frequency.In this regard, 4 students showed characteristics of good writers and 6 poor writers.The good and the poor writers indicated similarity in writing process and writing strategies, in developing linearity and non-linearity of the essay, in translating ideas from Indonesian into English, and in writing styles.In addition, the good writers differed from the poor writers in writing practice, reading frequency, and strategies to the revision of an essay.
Following Oshima and Hogue (1991) this study concludes that as the basis of rhetoric, logic comes from culture; it is not universal.Rhetoric, therefore, is not universal either but varies from culture to culture.The rhetorical system of one language is different from another language; it is neither better nor worse.In this regard, a study on similarities and differences is valued for all language students, first and second.
In the area of writing practices, there is some evidence that practice in writing, especially expository writing, relates to improvement in writing ability.Practice makes students able to learn some aspects of the writing skills, especially the form and organization of an essay.Besides, reading gives more influential writing competence.For instance, to learn how to write for newspapers, one must read newspapers; textbooks about them will not suffice.This study also concludes that good writers adhere to composing process, specifically in planning, rescanning, and revising.Good writers focus on content in revision.Poor writers use revision to clarify the meaning contained in the first draft, mechanics, grammar, and spelling.
Evidently, maturity of style in English is often judged by the degree of subordination rather than by the degree of coordination.The rules of English rhetoric require that every sentence in a paragraph relates directly to the central idea.Good mastery of English grammar does not mean good mastery of rhetoric.This study contends that the students' maturity of styles in English essays reflect their incomplete mastery of English knowledge; and the students' maturity of styles in Indonesian essays show the good mastery of Indonesian rules.However, the students perform immature styles of rhetoric in both English and Indonesian essays.
In adherence that writing style is more convincingly learned from reading frequency, writing instructors are suggested to equip students with reading texts exemplifying various modes of articles.After reading the texts, instruction is directed to encourage students with writing practices.Corrections are deliberately focused for three areas: (1) the organization of the essay that deals with rhetoric and development of ideas, (2) the coherence and accuracy of focus and details that relate the introductory paragraph, the body, and the concluding paragraphs, and (3) linguistic features that includes revision of incorrect syntax, incorrect grammar, and incorrect mechanics.The deep similarities that exist between L1 and L2 competence and performance requires similar instructions that are called for, --reading for the acquisition of the written discourse, and writing practice for the development of an efficient composing process.