A Case Study on Advanced Writing Strategies through Writing Process in Academic Writing

Abstract

In the university level, academic writing is one of the subjects that must be mastered by the students in English Education Department. However, many students insist that they have not yet developed a comfort level with writing in English, particularly for academic purposes since they frequently encounter several obstacles during writing. The suitable strategies in writing process is one of the important parts that can help to compose a good academic writing. This research focuses on the EFL learners’ preparation of writing process from pre-writing, while-writing, and revising to discover their strategies in every step of the writing process. This qualitative research with case study approach aimed to find out the strategies that tend to frequently do in writing process according to the outstanding fourth-semester students of English Education Department in University of Islam Malang. The participants are 5 selected of the outstanding fourth-semester students recommended by the Writing IV lecturer. The data were collected by distributing questionnaires and doing interviews via online with the selected students. The finding of the research indicated that there are 10 strategies that the students do in every step of writing process. In pre-writing, there are 4 strategies that the students’ frequently do; read the requirements of the writing activity, consult the references for more information about the topic, read the teachers’ feedback, and choose a relaxing environment. In while-writing, there are 2 strategies that they often do; periodically check whether keep in the topic and use grammar and spell checkers to correct the errors are their strategies. Then in revising, there are 4 strategies that frequently did by the students; check whether have written whatever they wanted to write, check whether the sentences in the paragraph are connected, check the punctuation and spelling, and check to make sure they have met the requirements of the writing activity. Based on the finding of the research, the data found that every student used all of those strategies even though they have their own way to do that. This research addressed to Writing Lecturers to know how the students’ strategies in completing their writing, so that the lecturers can provide suitable teaching methods in Writing subject. For future researcher, can investigate one of the strategies that are frequently used by the students, such as writing the rough draft or outline to determine how those strategies affected the students’ potential. Key Words: Academic Writing, Writing Process, Writing Strategies, Outstanding Students