| Indonesian students tend to follow their cultural values when writing.
They do not go straight to the point but instead play around with unnecessary
words.
(Djoko)
| Based on my knowledge, western and eastern cultures have the same
concept of good academic writing. It should be relevant, critical,
well-reasoned and appropriate. Besides that it should not go around
and around, but should be to the point. Even though they have a similar
concept, there are differences in the rules. In English you should
use transitional markers to connect one sentence to another.
Sentences in Indonesian writing often seem unrelated to each other.
Another difference is that Indonesian students have less essay assignments.
As a result they are less skilled at writing good essays - even though
they know the concept, they don’t apply it. In my opinion Indonesian
students should try to learn the rules and styles of western academic writing
as well as that of Indonesian writing.
(Dina Yulia ADS student)
|
 Even
native speaker writers rarely write something completely correctly the
first time, so allow yourself the time to redraft your work, putting each
draft away for a short time before revising it. If possible, let
someone else look at your written work and ask them to give you feedback,
not just on the grammar but also on the content and organization.
Go back over previous pieces of work and highlight errors you have made.
Do you tend to keep making the same mistakes? If so, find a grammar
book with a section on the grammar point in question and work through it.
Take pride in your written work, don’t submit something unless you are
110% sure it is your best effort!
(Caroline Bentley, Teacher, IALF Bali)
As a non-native speaker, I often have problems with writing in English.
The main cause is a different grammar. Firstly, I must use articles
and often make mistakes in using ‘a/an’ and ‘the’. Secondly, the
word order is different, for example, ‘bunga merah’ in Indonesian but ‘red
flower’ in English. Also, English has countable and uncountable nouns
and I often make mistakes and forget to put ‘s’ at the end of plural countable
nouns.
(Eko Agus Suyono, ADS 9 student)
| Good academic writing is very important for studying overseas, unfortunately
I haven’t found the formula yet. I think there are several factors
which cause this problem. Firstly we are not used to write in academic
purpose, either in our first or second language. Secondly there are
a lot of formulae that a teacher gives us but then a different teacher
teaches us a different style of writing and I get confused.
What’s the rule to produce good academic writing?
(ADS student)
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I think that cultural differences are not the only obstacles
to academic writing. They also come from other aspects, such as differences
in fields of study. For instance, someone who is studying Social
Sciences has a different way of thinking and writing compared to someone
who is studying ‘ exact’ sciences (eg Maths, Physics, Engineering,
Biology). Social scientists tend to write essays using lateral thinking
rather than going straight to the point as scientists do.
(ADS student)
There are many steps to academic writing; thinking of ideas, making
an outline, writing, reading and rewriting. The way to practice
this is by writing regularly.
(ADS student)
| In my opinion writing is difficult. Not only should we learn
about structure, but also it is important to know how to describe our opinion.
Even in Indonesian it is hard for me to write coherently and simply.
It is true that many Asian students take a long time to get to the point.
I sometimes use lots of sentences to make one point, or I say nothing and
readers can’t understand what I’ve written. I think this is caused
by the Indonesian education system. Writing is rarely practised in
schools and students only receive knowledge from their teachers and don’t
often express their opinion or discuss issues in writing, except
when writing a thesis at university. Another problem is plagiarism
as originality is not a major consideration and plagiarists aren’t heavily
punished. This doesn’t motivate students to produce good writing.
It is right that culture is like an iceberg and we should discuss and share
information to help us understand the writing styles of other countries.
(Agung ADS student)
|
Indonesian students are not familiar with writing to the point.
Maybe this is influenced by our culture so that when we speak we avoid
going straight to the point. Also, writing is not the main focus
in our education system. We usually focus on formulae, such as in
Maths.
(ADS student)
Even when students can deal with the cultural problems, many
still find it difficult to answer the question and interpret it ‘their
way' and can't seem to focus on aspects of the question they need to deal
with. Here ia a recent example. The question was, ‘It is often
claimed that TV encourages violance. What is your opinion?'
Some talked about whether TV and films are responsible for violance - right
answer? 
Others talked about the positive effects of TV and films - wrong?
It must be difficult, though. I've been speaking and reading Indonesian
for years, and I'm sure I would also have problems with choosing the right
focus.
(Tim Stuart, Teacher, IALF Bali)
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