1. Rationale
Nowadays, a majority of countries in the world speak English which is
one of the most important languages for international communication. It
becomes a second language in all universities, in all grades. However, it is
not easy to learn a foreign language well. English majors at HaiPhong Private
University are taught four skills of listening, writing, reading and speaking
from the first term. Of the four skills, many students consider writing the most
difficult because it requires the knowledge and professional use of grammar
and vocabulary to write a paragraph as well as a complete essay. Writing is
different from spoken language. In spoken language, we use many unfinished
sentences, ungrammatical structures. However, written language requires
formal vocabulary, correct spelling and grammar structure as well as well
organized sentences and ideas. Moreover, writing uses letters and punctuation
under rules of grammar.
Writing is used as a basic working skill and requires a hard working
process and continuous practice. A first year English major at HPU gets used
to many writing tasks such as topic- based writing paragraphs, a letter, etc.
Learners have to think clearly about what and how to write in order to have a
good writing. Punctuation marks also contribute to a complete and good
writing. Therefore, it is time to pay more attention to appropriate punctuation
marks using because good punctuations show that a student or a writer has a
good competence of using English. Besides, that helps us to express the ideas
more clearly. A student in the first year should take serious consideration into
punctuation using in writing. However, many first year English majors
actually make punctuation mistakes, which urges me to choose a study on
punctuation errors of first year English majors at HaiPhong Private University
as my graduation paper.
2. Aims of the study.
The purpose of the study focus on helping the first year English majors
at HaiPhong Private University to have more specific and clear understanding
of English writing, and especially punctuations, Giúp to find out their
punctuation errors and suggest solutions to these mistakes. That includes:
Studying on the basic theories of academic writing and
punctuations.
Finding out the mistakes of punctuation markings of first year
English major.
Finding out the effective solutions for frequently-made
punctuation errors.
3. Scope of the study.
Punctuation is a large aspect; however, because of limited time and
knowledge, the study only focuses on finding out the punctuation errors of
first year English majors, supplying them with the misusing of punctuation
markings, and helping them find out the effective solutions.
4. Method of study.
With the purpose of the study are to Giúp first year English majors find
out their mistake in using punctuation marks as well as the causes for these
errors, my methods are:
Material collection through reference book study related to
English writing, grammar, and punctuations.
Quantitive and qualitive method through a survey among first
year English majors at HPU to explore their mistakes.
Data analysis
5. Design of study.
My study includes three parts as following:
Part A, Introduction is the introduction of my study including rationale,
aims of the study, scope of the study method of study and design of the study.
Part B, The study on punctuation errors of the first year English
majors, the main part of my study contains three chapters.
- Chapter 1: Theoretical background supplies the readers with the
theoretical background including the theory of academic writing,
paragraph, and punctuation.
- Chapter 2: Punctuation errors of first year English majors at HPU
deals with the punctuation errors of first year English majors. All the
most common errors in using punctuation marks of first year English
majors are specifically mentioned.
- The last chapter: Causes of errors and suggested solutions mentions
the causes found and the suggested solutions to avoid the mentioned
errors.
Part C, Conclusion is the conclusion and suggestions for further study.
