An Analysis of Students’ Quality in Paraphrasing Thesis

The focus of this study was to figure out the quality of the students in paraphrasing part of the thesis in English Department of IAIN Langsa. Paraphrasing is a linguistic term which means re-expressing a concept that is different from the same language but without changing its meaning. In this research, the researcher used qualitative descriptive research. The process of collecting data was done by applying the documentation and interview. In the documentation, a test was given to 30 students who have taken paraphrasing courses in writing from the English Department. Lecturers give part of the text in the thesis to students and students must paraphrase the text. While the interview was also conducted to 30 students who have taken paraphrasing courses in writing from the English Department. Based on the research analysis of the documents as one of the research instrument, it was found that the students mostly used the changing synonym technique in paraphrasing the paragraph in the thesis. It was revealed that the changing synonym technique is the easiest technique rather than other techniques. Furthermore, based on the result of interview, the researcher found that the students frequently used changing the synonym technique and even never to use the other techniques. Although it was the most frequently used by the students, the synonym of words that the students choose did not maintain the information or even the inappropriate one. Indeed, the students still difficult to paraphrase a sentence or a paragraph which meet the criteria. Based on the result of the research, the researcher found out that most of the students are too often paraphrased a passage in the thesis by using the changing synonym techniques. In addition, based on the result of the students’ effort in using the techniques, it was revealed that the students are correct 35 times in using the paraphrasing techniques, then the students are incorrect 70 times in using the paraphrasing techniques. Hence, it can be concluded that most of the students have bad quality in paraphrasing a paragraph in the thesis. According to the result of the research, the researcher suggested to the students of English Department of IAIN Langsa have to improve their ability in paraphrasing and English Writing in order to increase and stimulate them in learning English.