Breaking Down Words: A Structural Analysis of Students’ Written Outputs

Abstract

The study structurally analyzed the written outputs of the students which were submitted online. The analyzed outputs were lifted from portion of the submitted academic requirements, quizzes, compositions and essays of the students. The evident errors committed by the respondents were classified according to the types of error. The findings of the study revealed that the university students have committed frequent errors such as absence of transitional words, punctuation errors, redundancy, incorrect prepositions, wrong used of words, run-on sentence, misplaced modifiers, error on subject-verb agreement, noun antecedent error, etc. The findings implied that the respondents have weak composition skills. They have not fully mastered grammar usage, functions and rules in using the target language. This paper has academic inferences to language teaching and learning.