CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study Introductory paragraph is a paragraph that
begins the writing or essay writing and
where the main point of the whole essayis stated. Brereton (1982.50) says that introductory paragraph comes at the
beginning of an essay. It presents the
subject and thesis statement, the main point ofthe whole essay that you want your readers to recognize. The following
paragraphs, the body or development paragraphs
and the concluding paragraph should be matched with the thesis statement which states introductory paragraph
and of course with the topic chosen. The
development paragraphs must support thethesis statement and the concluding paragraph should also be
appropriate with the topic and it is the summary item of the essay.
Introduction places a significant
part of the essaybecause this is the paragraph
where the thesis statement is stated. Thesis statement is the central idea which controls the entire essay. Smalley &
Ruetten (1982: 140-141) say that the sentence
containing the central idea of the essay is called the thesis statement.
Moreover, they assert several
points to remember about the thesis statement; the thesis statement should be expressed in a
complete sentence, expresses an opinion, attitude, or idea; express an opinion not
fact, andit should express only one idea toward one topic.
Introductory paragraph is
extremely important because it sets the tone for the entire paper and introduces the reader
to the topic, yet carries the most trouble.
Braine & May (1996:44) say that paper musthave effective introduction.
The first few sentences of your
paper are especially important because they are the first impression that your readers will have
about the paper and about you, the writer.
A good introduction is not always easy to write. In fact, many writers often revise and rewrite this sections many times
before they are satisfied.
Hartley & Knapper in Robinson,
1988: 63, who had done a research in 1984
through responding to a questionnaire in Britain and Canada, found that one of the main difficulties in writing for native
speakers of English is clearly the process
of getting started. In their research they found that academics in both Britain and Canada mentioned two main sources
of difficulty, one of them is writing
the first paragraph i.e. getting started; Moreover, they say that if writing the first paragraph presents difficulties for
native-speakers of English, the problems
for non-native speakers of English must belarger still.
Because introductory paragraph is
very important, writers usually use number
of strategies to make a good introductory paragraph and to grab the reader’s attention to read the following
paragraphs. They may, for example, begins
with a universally accepted truth, a generalinformation, a strikingly fresh analogy, giving a brief story of the topic,
explainthe importance of the topic, quote
other people words or statement, build a questions about the topic, giving the opposite of the writer own thesis first, a
figure of speech or a common condition
(Saraka, 1988:183).
Smalley & Ruetten
(1982:142-143) states that there are four basic types of introduction: the “Turnabout,” in which the
author opens with a statement contrary
to his or her actual thesis; the “DramaticEntrance,” in which the author opens with a narrative, description, dramatic
examples pertinent to the topic; the “Relevant
Quotation,” in which the writer opens with a quotation pertinent to the topic; and the “Funnel,” in which the writer
opens with the general statement to the
specific statement.
A study about essay writing has
been done by several researchers.
Noniawati (2006), for example,
has studied essay writing and focuses on investigating the unity of the student’s
argumentative essay. Her research was descriptive
Qualitative, involving the students’ writing III of UIN Malang. She found that all essays she investigated have an
appropriate unity because the essays have
clear thesis statements and supporting sentences in its introductory, development and concluding paragraph.
Another relevant research was
done by Yuniati (2007). She studied the way
the writers present the claim of facts in opinion section of Jakarta Post published in April 2006. She took only
articles that concerning political issues as an object of study. She found that there are
five ways used by the writer to present their
claim of fact: a) using introductory paragraph which have a clear thesis statement, b) development paragraphs that
support thesis statement in introductory paragraph, c) all of the writers present the
evidence from specific to general, d) most
of the data use facts, inferences, examples and some of them use statistics and quotation, and e) only one of the data
uses ambiguous which are explained in the
text.
Hidayati (2007) also conducted
the study on writing; claim of fact in the opinion section of articles concerning
political issues in Tempo magazines, June th to July nd 2007. She found that the writer mostly did
not state explicitly what they are
trying to prove and they mostly used sufficient, accurate, recent, and typical evidence in the term of facts,
interpretation and opinion.
This study also concerned essay
writing but there are some differences from
those earlier studies. First, the object of this study is all articles included
in opinion column of Jakarta Post from st until th of February, 2008. The previous study took articles concerning political
issues in opinion section in Jakarta Post (Yuniati, 2007) and Time Magazine (Hidayati,
2007),and students’ essay writing III of
UIN Malang (Noniawaty, 2006). Second, this study investigated only the introductory paragraph focusing on the methods
of writing introductory paragraph and
the thesis statement. Whereas, the previous studies analyzed the whole contents of the essay and the unity of the
argumentative essay (Noniawaty, 2006), and
the claim of facts (Yuniaty, 2007; Hidayati, 2007).
This study is conducted to
analyze the methods usedto write introductory
paragraph and also about the thesis statement in essay writing. This study is under linguistics disciplinary since
writing is one of the productive skills in
language. When we talk about linguistics, we talk about language. Language is classified into two; productive language and
receptive language. Reading and listening
are receptive language, whereas speaking and writing are productive language.
1.2 Research Problems Based on the previous description on the
backgroundof study, this research
answers on the following questions: 1. What kinds of methods of writing introductory
paragraphs are used by the writers? 2. What
are the characteristics of thesis statement which is fulfilled by the writers? 1.3
Objectives of Study Based on the
problems mentioned above, the objectives of this research are: 1. to describe kinds of methods used in
introductory paragraphs.
2. to identify the thesis statement which is
stated bythe writer in introductory paragraph.
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