The Ability of Indonesian EFL Learners in Writing Academic Papers

This study is meant to examine the thesis quality of students of English Department at IAIN Samarinda. Through the descriptive-quantitative research, the thesis quality of students of English Department at IAIN Samarinda is reviewed from the aspects of language, structure, concepts understanding, theoretical framework, methodology, content, writing mechanism, and references used. This study also tries to figure out any factors that affect the thesis quality of English Department students. Fourteen English Department Students’ thesis tested in 2013 are used as the main data. In addition, other data are obtained from respondents i.e. 19 students, and informants i.e. lecturers of English Department who are also their thesis advisors. The result shows that the average score of thesis written by 14 English Department students at IAIN Samarinda academic year of 2013 is 3.16 which is in the range of 2.61-3.40 scale, which is quite good quality. This quality is relevant with the informants’ perceptions about the quality of thesis written by their students. Judging from some aspects, they assume that their students are able to write a good quality of thesis with an average score of 2.81 which is at a scale of 2.61-3.40. The quality is affected by internal factors and external factors. The most decisive internal factor is the respondents’ low score of writing with appropriate and acceptable structure in English. This is the effect of respondents’ lack of ability of composing adequate paragraphs in English. Meanwhile, the most concerning external factor is the quality of learning structure course and the professionalism of the informants in guiding the students to improve their writing ability in thesis writing.


A. Introduction
De Poel & Gasiorek (2012) categorizes academic writing as a prominent component of academic discourse which may take a number of different forms, including essays, projects, lecture notes, and theses.It is not a mistake, then, if each country including Indonesia decides to develop educational policy derived from and for academic interest.In another case, especially in Indonesia, one of project interests is making a particular regulation initiated based on the government and the academic affairs.The Indonesian government works in hand with university staffs to define some specific issues such an issue which is concerning with the quality of university students regarding with academic abilities to develop academic discourses.
Hence, this requirement was issued, in this context, by the Ministry of Education and Culture from which each university student is required to write a final academic report.This report includes undergraduate thesis as one of the research forms undertaken by an undergraduate university student in accordance with some certain standards and processes.These standards and processes are the cornerstones for any undergraduate student to fulfill one of the requirements to be a bachelor in a certain field of study.
This regulation is inherent with the curriculum of a university in which research methodology and academic writing technique are offered as general courses.Both courses are very critical since there is a fact that Indonesian students face a crucial problem in scientific writing abilities compared to Malaysian, Australian, and European students (Yaqin, 2015).
Besides, English is also considered as major course among others which is taught in a university (Ariyanti, 2016b) so that university students may apprehend any literature written broadly in English (Prihatmi, 2017) and can compete with other students from all over the world in a matter of English writing in academic context.In doing so and based on the apprehension aspect discussed, Prihatmi (2017) states that a university student must master four skills of English: listening, reading, speaking, and writing.Meanwhile in the view of Ozdemir & Aydin (2015) can be divided into two skills, receptive and productive.Reading and listening are the receptive skills, while speaking and writing are the productive ones (Megawati, 2016 andAriyanti, 2016).For the productive skills, a student is about to produce language in terms spoken and written to communicate to others (Ariyanti, 2016a).
As far as the skills are concerned, writing is the most essential skill to acquire by students, especially by EFL learners in Indonesia.Sanu (2016), for example, reinforces the notion by stating that in the university context, writing is one of the English skills that should be mastered by EFL learners in order to be able to communicate in written forms with different specific objectives and emphasis.
Furthermore, writing ability is one of the keys to gain success to write a better academic writing because writing itself can be viewed as an academic practice.De Poel & Gasiorek (2012) asserts that this practice requires a considerable amount of language competence, especially when the language is being used as a second or foreign language for the speaker.It is undeniable that academic writing ability considered to be the most important aspect must be acquired by a student, particularly an Indonesian EFL student to fulfill any academic requirements at length such as writing observation report, book, and thesis (Supriyadi, 2015).Furthermore, to write academically, students should understand two aspects.At the beginning, they should understand the steps or process to present the meaning of an idea and the process to communicate the idea into a writing form.Secondly, they should understand the aspects of writing which generally contain the content, the form, the vocabulary, the grammar or language use, and the mechanics (Prihatmi, 2017).
In fact, many EFL learners still face some difficulties to master such skill since there are some differences between Bahasa and English such as structural and grammatical terms as well as styles.In addition, EFL students also should work hard on transferring the meaning from Bahasa to English context in order to make the result of writing understandable and make sense when it is read by people especially native speakers (Ariyanti, 2016a).Moreover, many EFL students still cannot express their ideas into good academic writing (Anshori, 2004).In addition, Maharsi (2007) shows that students of IP (International Program) FTI (Faculty of Technology Industry) at IUI (Islamic University of Indonesia) experienced the stages of writing process with limited knowledge of writing skills.
Still related to the EFL students' difficulties, the most common problems which the students also face are the clarity of meaning, the implementation of grammar and vocabulary usage variations, the writing groove, and the application of writing scientific paper technique (Ariyanti & Fitriana, 2017).The latter more specifically occurs mostly in the case of writing proposal and thesis.These problems are in relation to Lyons & B. (2009) who states that academic writing has at least two principles: clarity and honesty.In addition, Padmadewi (2016) and Wigati (2015) say that university students face difficulties in writing English argumentative discourse in terms of style, grammar, and spelling.With regard to writing an article, Persada (2016) shows that university students should struggle to maximize their writing performance in the matters of content, organization, vocabulary, language, spelling, and mechanism.In line with Persada, with a special reference to the problem of English Department students in writing critical essay, Rasyidah & Antoni (2014) shows that the students face difficulties in terms of vocabulary, punctuation, idea development, and paragraph development.To conclude, mastering the skills is not only an important point for EFL learners but they also have to be ready to encounter any major challenge (Cumming, Lai, & Cho, 2016).
These phenomena are affected by several relevant problems such as the study habit of an EFL learner from the early age until the university level, for instance the seriousness in academic writing class (Ariyanti, 2016b andWhite &Hall, 2014) and the reading-writing culture of Indonesian people in general, and Indonesian students in particular (Putra, 2011).In addition, Asik (2015) views that the quality of students' writing is also affected by mastering language problem, teaching strategy, and teaching writing materials.Moreover, Yaqin (2015) argues that the weakness in writing academic, in the case of Indonesian students, is the insufficient abilities in English.Likewise, in terms of the external factor, feedback of a teacher or an academic advisor as another critical effect.Brown (2001) maintains that giving feedback in the process of writing is important to improve students' writing quality.In addition, the importance of giving feedback on students writing is equal to the importance of doing revisions and/or editing in the writing process.Feedback given is as a source of information about the students' strengths and weaknesses on their writing improvement (Wahyuni, 2017).
Related to the students' thesis writing ability of Indonesian EFL learners, recently, there are studies which have been conducted (Cheung, 2012;Stapa et al., 2013;andDinamika Ilmu, Volume 17(2), 2017 Pratama, 2017).These researchers have undertaken serious academic works to identity and examine the abilities of university students in thesis writing.Cheung (2012) works hard to understand the writing of thesis introductions reviewed from exploratory study.She analyses 43 theses produced by students at a public university in Singapore from 1989 to 2009.Her research claimed to be valuable, especially for genre variation analysis of international student.On the other hand, (Stapa et al., 2013) analyses undergraduate research proposals written by students majoring in English Language Studies of University Kebangsaan Malaysia.She focuses on problems faced by 22 students in writing theses introductions.She has found 50% of the students have included all the 6 moves suggested by Dudley-Evans: introducing the field, introducing the general topic, introducing the particular topic, defining the scope of the particular topic, preparing for present research, and introducing present research.Pratama (2017), however, figures out potential problems contained in the students' undergraduate thesis of English Department students at Semarang State University (UNES) academic year 2015.He has found 10 potential problems which are sub-problems of three major potential problems: research topics of selected problem, statements of the research problem, and research methodology.
Other works such as Mohammed (2015), Sanu (2016), and Persada (2016) investigate parts of language i.e. grammatical problem, writing paragraph skill, and writing short article.Mohammed ( 2015) examines the problems in various forms of conjunction in students' writing in English as Second Language situation.On the other hand, Sanu (2016) studies the ability of EFL students in writing narrative paragraph while Persada (2016) explores critically the students' abilities in writing short articles.
The related previous studies mostly explore the students' abilities in writing some aspects of academic writing in the domains of language.Unfortunately, none of the researchers mentioned above studied comprehensively to the abilities of EFL learners.In this context, English Department students' thesis reviewed from several aspects.The aspects are mechanics (grammar, vocabulary, language function, paragraph organization (introduction, main body, and conclusion), concept of understanding (background, statement of the problem, objective of study, and terminological definition), theoretical framework (review of related studies, amount of page, and logics), methodology, content (clarity, meaningful, and logics in thinking and presentation) writing thesis mechanism (e.g., citation: footnote, reference list, and consistency), and references used (amount and relevance).
This study, therefore, aimed at discovering three major points.The first point is about the quality of thesis made by English Department students at IAIN Samarinda academic year of 2013 reviewed from several aspects.The aspects are more complex than the aspects investigated by the researchers above.The aspects are language structure, concept of understanding, theoretical framework, methodology, content, writing mechanism, and references used.The second point is the point about factors that affect the quality of thesis made by English Department students at IAIN Samarinda academic year of 2013.

B. Literature Review
Writing scientific papers in English refers to the rules of English writing.The low quality of writing in English is often caused by the failure of the authors to use the rules of English well and correctly.
In addition, there are several problems that are commonly faced by them, in particular non-native students who write in English.The first problem is the error in the aspects of English writing where the learners of English usually say that writing is the most difficult to master even by native-speakers of English.To analyze some kinds of error usually done by the learners would be somehow beneficial.Generally, the errors can be classified into three types as follows: Three broad types can be distinguished… The first type of error is the error which leads to a misunderstanding or, even worse, to a breakdown in communication… The second type of error is the error which leads to ungrammatical English, but which does not usually interfere with the meaning… The type of error is the error concerning style and usage.(Husin, 2008) Those problems stated above include logical errors which may occur in writing conclusions.Mike and Smith (1990) stated that good quality writing is "be logical in its thinking and in its presentation".The quality of both logic stated is determined by the approaches in the writing, which are the product approach and the process approach (Jordan, 1997).The product approach includes the rhetorical approach, functional, and academic genre; meanwhile, the process approach includes discussion, brainstorming, and drafting.In support with Mike and Smith (1990), Hamzah (2012) explored below theory regarding with logical problems in writing: Logical errors are commonly caused by several factors.First, it is the literal translation.Students tend to write a sentence according to their first language and try to translate it into English word by word.The second is grammatical complexity.Students may be confused with the grammatical pattern which looks the same but differs in meaning.Third, it is written in a long and complex sentences.Students may choose to write long and more complex sentences than to write simple and more practical ones.The fourth is writing as same way as they speak.In this context, students tend to write a phrase rather than a sentence, which causes readers not to understand the reference of their writings.The next problem is the use of grammar which more influenced by the failure of the students to choose an appropriate diction and correct tense.To discuss further, grammar in writing foreign languages, especially English, according to Rachmawati (2001), is a basic parameter.A top quality sentence is a grammatically correct sentence.Conversely, a sentence would not be said to meet the standard of a good sentence if it does not meet the criteria of the use of correct grammar.Unity, correspondence and coherence, aside from correct grammar, are standard of writing English to be met.A writing is said to meet the standard when readers can easily find the basic ideas and links between sentences and even paragraphs.Also, it must be logic, complete, clear and varied (Zemach & Rumisek, 2005).
Not only about grammatical terms and logical problems, problems in style context often happen due to the fact that students are unable to use the appropriate and common Dinamika Ilmu, Volume 17(2), 2017 words used by native speakers (Husin, 2008 andKuntarto &Putranto, 2015).Those problems and causes are two dominant aspects affecting the quality of writing in general.
Here is one of public opinions with regard to the style (Jordan, 1999): The main features of academic writing are as follows: it is formal in an impersonal or objective style (often using impersonal pronouns and phrases and passive verb forms); cautious language is frequently used in reporting research and making claims; vocabulary appropriate for particular academic contexs is used (this may involve specialist or technical words); the structure of the writing will vary according to the particular type (genre), for example, essay, report, thesis, etc.In addition, academic writing often contains references to other writers' publications, sometimes including quotations.Obviously, the ability to write with a scientific writing is one of the basic abilities that must be developed and even mastered by every student even professor.Therefore, the quality standard of writing in English is inseparable from the skills and knowledges of the author about content quality, content organization, writing technique, and the integrity of the skills and knowledges that are relevant and pertinent.

C. Research Methodology
This research is a descriptive-quantitative research which data obtained are narrated based on facts.The main subjects of this study are 14 (50%) of 28 English Department students at IAIN Samarinda's thesis tested in 2013.19 (64.28% or 64%) of 28 English Department students at IAIN Samarinda 2009 intake who were registered and were completing writing thesis in 2013 were used as respondents.Also, all lecturers of English Department at IAIN Samarinda, active as lecturers and thesis advisors in 2013 were used as informants.Specifically to the basic points to be assessed, the researchers focus on grammar, writing, vocabulary building, writing scientific paper technique, and research methodology.In addition, the topics of thesis to be researched are limited to education in English language studies.Furthermore, the researchers used a questionnaire to collect the data.The questionnaire consists of 30 questions about teaching and learning process of writing, structure, vocabulary building, research methodology, and writing scientific paper technique, and 28 questions about the process of thesis writing guidance.On the other hand, 67 questions were provided in the questionnaire for lecturers related to factors affecting the quality of students' thesis writing.In addition, thesis of 14 student in 2013 became the data source to analyze.The analysis technique used is based on aspects of good writing quality as defined as scale variations.

D. Findings 1. The Thesis Quality of English Department Students at IAIN
The data of English Department Students at IAIN Samarinda's thesis quality reviewed from aspects of language, structure, problematic basic concept comprehension, theoretical framework, methodology, content, mechanics, and reference can be seen in the following tables.Table 1 covers the average score of students' thesis quality.

E. Discussion
To discuss further, the average score of the quality of English Department students' thesis is 3.16, which indicates moderate level.This result is in line with Rasyidah & Antoni (2014) where she found that the abilities English Department students are quite good, particularly in writing critical essays in the aspects of vocabulary, punctuation, idea development, grammar, and paragraph development.
However, there are, for certain, some weakness aspects in terms of having less understanding about the components which support their English structures.The average score of this aspect is 2.65.This is categorized in the minimum score which is 0.05 from the determined range of 0.80.It means the quality of thesis in term of language aspect get in low category which means the writings are not well-organized.
The researcher also found more than one main ideas in a single paragraph, and the idea was not developed well.Chamot & O'Mailey (1994), state, "… In writing ESL students may not know how to plan sequence their ideas before writing (organizational planning) or conduct memory searches which include knowledge and experience gain through their first language".These weaknesses were in line with the data determined by Wigati (2015) where English Department of University of Singaperbangsa Kerawang had troubles expressing their ideas due to lack of vocabulary, inability to write with good grammar, and unsuitability between the chosen of descriptive essay with schematic structures.
In addition, Wigati (2015) also adds that the students' text organization was not coherent because of lack of vocabularies and inability to use the appropriate English grammar.The weakness in language aspect is mainly found in applying correct grammar Dinamika Ilmu, Volume 17(2), 2017 and language functions.There are many errors in the application of basic grammar, such as subject and verb agreement, singular and plural nouns, tenses, and article.Similarly, almost all respondents have a disadvantage in terms of unity and coherence.This means what the researchers found about capability from language aspect had also been found and stated by Jordan (1999) in Academic Writing Course as the common mistakes in writing most likely to appear.
On the other hand, one should realize that the logical thinking ability may be one of the common weaknesses of EFL learners.The weakness in this area urges respondents to use simple, fast, but "uneducated" language media such as transtool.The evidence shows that most respondents write English in Indonesian way, even worse they used transtool as the main instrument of writing.Respondents were not accustomed to thinking in English way.The reason why they used transtool was that they were lack of vocabulary and they found many difficulties in English writing.The tendency of mistakes of a student uses the transtool was considered as a serious problem.
On the other hand, the aspect of understanding the theoretical framework is the weakest aspect among others which gain 2.5 as the average score.In fact, this low average score was gained by the students because most of them are not able to enrich their understanding about theoretical framework and tend to have difficulties in writing.There are 3 respondents' thesis containing less than 10 pages of theoretical frameworks.Also, only two of all respondents include previous studies in their thesis.Theoretical frame thought depends on how proficient a student used to think logically.Based on this fact, a few researchers argue that to foster thinking skill, and critical thinking in particular, is challenging task (to make a good critical writing) for learners to organize enormous information (Klimmova, 2015 andLancaster, 2017).
Furthermore, it can be stated that the completeness and relevance of the reference, as the highest aspect of the quality of respondents' thesis, are not able to be a basis for the development of a theoretical framework that supports respondents in explaining concept of key terms precisely and comprehensively that describe main issues of the research.Less sharp analysis and discussion are other aspects affecting respondents to unable criticize the theoretical framework used.Fanani (2001) states that analyzing the main idea is the main activity in scientific writing.It is because analyzing the main idea is not only about how to organize the theoretical framework, how to use the method, and how to describe or provide evidences, but how to classify, develop, interpret, asses, and conclude the idea.
Nonetheless, there are certain aspects that respondents master well, they are methodology and references parts.Based on the calculation, the average score is 3.75 for methodological aspect and 3.8 for reference aspect.These scores are described as high quality.The mastery of methodological aspect and the suitability and completeness of references show the respondents' seriousness in conducting research.Respondents' capability of research methodology mastery can be seen from how they develop and formulate the instruments.Developing instruments depends on knowledge they found through literatures.In addition, most of the respondents are able to conduct validity and reliability test for developing instruments to be used in the research, as it is the main characteristics of English Department students at IAIN Samarinda's thesis.Sugiyono (2013) states that a right method is needed to produce a good quality research.
Methodology mastery is one of the important factors which will ease researcher to complete his or her research.
In addition to research methodology, one must remember that references contribute very significant in doing research as benchmarks of the existence of scientific explanation.Respondents' inability to understand authors' ideas in various references they used makes the theoretical frames dry with the atmosphere of cross references.In this case, the students' ability to paraphrase is among the matters.Educators have long recognized that a major challenge for students in learning to write for academic purposes is developing the ability to integrate source material effectively and appropriately into written compositions (Cumming et al., 2016).Or, more specific, Shi (2012) argues that the idea paraphrased goes beyond faithful reporting to personal interpretation of the source text highlights the role of paraphrasing in two other rewriting processes: summarizing source information and translating a source text from another language.
In conclusion, the dominant aspects which directly indicating the quality of the respondents' thesis is not in terms of the language components.However, they are mostly in the terms of research methodology component and its element.On the other hand, the weakest components which still become big home works for the respondents to deal with the area of logic and content of the thesis.
Specifically to factors affecting the quality of English Department students' thesis at IAIN Samarinda consist of two main items, i.e. internal and external factors.The internal factor includes students' educational background (11 out of 19 were graduated from public senior high school), learning motivation (Hermayati, 2010) -which covers reasons why students like English and learning English experience (table 6).Meanwhile, external factor covers lecturers' guiding experience (table 7) and teaching experience (table 8).In the case of teaching experience, for example, a lecturer using medium in his or her English teaching will help the students motivate and easily understand the material.Huang (2015) proves that English Medium Instruction (EMI) can motivate and strengthen English ability and professional knowledge of students.

F. Conclusion and Suggestion
Reviewed from several aspects, English Department students at IAIN Samarinda's thesis include in the category of moderate with an average score of 3.16 in the range of 2.61-3.40scale.In particular, the quality varies greatly when viewed from several aspects.This quality is reviewed from the aspect of language with an average score of 2.65, the aspect of structure with an average score of 3.4, the aspect of capability to develop basic concept of a problem with an average score of 3.2, the aspect of content with an average score of 2.8, and the aspect of writing technique with an average score of 3.1.
From some aspects above, the aspect of language becomes decisive to determine students' ability to write a thesis well and correctly.Meanwhile, the aspect of the development and use of a theoretical framework brings the quality being categorized as low with an average score of 2.5.However, the aspect of methodological capacity and the aspect of complete and relevant references make the quality categorized as very high with an average score of 3.8.
Furthermore, the internal and external factors affecting the students' ability in academic writing especially to thesis writing need to be highlighted.To cope with the problems and factors indicated in the theses examined, it is imperative that the

Table 1 :
The average score of students' thesis quality

The Quality of Thesis in Terms of Research Methodology in the View of the Thesis AdvisorsTable 2 :
The average score of informants' answer about research methodology of students

Students Answer Related to the Quality of Courses Taught to Support their Thesis WritingTable 3 :
The average score of respondents' answer about the quality of some related courses' teaching and learning process

1184 465 52 0 3.76 Total 2805 5164 2435 364 3 3.78 4. Students' Answer Related to Pre and During Learning Experiences at CollegeTable 4 :
The average score of respondents' answer about learning experience pre and during college

Table 6 :
The average of English Department lecturers at IAIN Samarinda's numbers of