AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN USING PUNCTUATION FOR WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AT SMP NEGERI 1 TEMPUNAK IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2022/2023

Purnama, Wahyuni. 2023. An Analysis of Students‟ Ability in using Punctuation for Writing Descriptive Text at SMP Negeri 1 Tempunak in the academic year 2022/2023. Thesis, English Language Education Study Program STKIP Persada Khatulistiwa Sintang. Advisor I: Henry Elisa, M.Pd, Advisor II: Ilinawati, M.Pd. Keywords: Punctuation, students‟ ability, descriptive text The background of this research focuses on students' ability in using punctuation in writing descriptive text. The objective of this research is to classify the kinds of punctuation found in writing descriptive text, and to describe the factors that cause students to writing descriptive text. The research design of this method is descriptive qualitative research. The subject of this research was the students‟ writing product of class VII that consists of 25 students‟. The techniques used by the writer were documentation and interview. The writer used students‟ worksheets and interview guidelines as the instrumentation of this research. To analyze the students‟ worksheets the writer used placements error analysis procedures. The result of this research showed that as many as 168 placements errors were found in punctuation used in students‟ writing descriptive text. There were four types of placements errors found in this research, namely capital letters, period, commas, and quotation mark.