AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ERRORS IN WRITING NEWS ITEM TEXT AT THE 10TH GRADE OF SMAN 2 PANDEGLANG IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

This research aimed to know kind of errors that made by the students and found the sources behind the errors. The researcher used surface strategy taxonomy stated by Dulay (1982) to specify the errors analysis. This research used qualitative method specifically in content analysis. The population of this research was the 10th grade students of SMAN 2 Pandeglang and the samples was 27 students from X-8 class. The instruments that used by the researcher were observation, document or artifact, and interview. The result of this research showed that there were 166 errors found in students’ writing. There were divided into four types; 1) omission was the highest errors made by the students with 101 errors or about 60.8%, 2) addition with 26 errors or about 15.7%, 3) misformation with 20 errors or about 12% and 4) misordering with 19 errors or about 11.5%. Based on the data analyzed, the source of those errors mostly influenced by interlingual source since the students still mixed the rule of English with the rule of their native, Indonesian Language.

Key Words: error analysis, surface strategy taxonomy, source of error, news item text