That most alarming New Year’s morning question — “Uh-oh, what did I do last night?” — can seem benign compared with those that may come later, like “Uh, what exactly did I do with the last year?”
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Where Did the Time Go? Do Not Ask the Brain

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By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: January 4, 2010

That most alarming New Year’s morning question — “Uh-oh, what did I do last night?” — can seem benign compared with those that may come later, like “Uh, what exactly did I do with the last year?”
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Or, “Hold on — did a decade just go by?”

It did. Somewhere between trigonometry and colonoscopy, someone must have hit the fast-forward button. Time may march, or ebb, or sift, or creep, but in early January it feels as if it has bolted like an angry dinner guest, leaving conversations unfinished, relationships still stuck, bad habits unbroken, goals unachieved.

“I think for many people, we think about our goals, and if nothing much has happened with those then suddenly it seems like it was just yesterday that we set them,” said Gal Zauberman, an associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business.

Yet the sensation of passing time can be very different, Dr. Zauberman said, “depending on what you think about, and how.”

In fact, scientists are not sure how the brain tracks time. One theory holds that it has a cluster of cells specialized to count off intervals of time; another that a wide array of neural processes act as an internal clock.

Either way, studies find, this biological pacemaker has a poor grasp of longer intervals. Time does seem to slow to a trickle during an empty afternoon and race when the brain is engrossed in challenging work. Stimulants, including caffeine, tend to make people feel as if time is passing faster; complex jobs, like doing taxes, can seem to drag on longer than they actually do.

And emotional events — a breakup, a promotion, a transformative trip abroad — tend to be perceived as more recent than they actually are, by months or even years.

In short, some psychologists say, the findings support the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s observation that time “persists merely as a consequence of the events taking place in it.”

Now researchers are finding that the reverse may also be true: if very few events come to mind, then the perception of time does not persist; the brain telescopes the interval that has passed.

In a study published in the December issue of the journal Psychological Science, Dr. Zauberman led a team of investigators who tested college students’ memory of a variety of news events, including the appointment of Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve (33 months before the study) and Britney Spears’s decision to shave her head (20 months). On average, the students underestimated how much time had passed by three months, the study found.

This was not entirely a surprise. In one classic experiment, a French explorer named Michel Siffre lived in a cave for two months, cut off from the rhythms of night and day and manmade clocks. He emerged convinced that he had been isolated for only 25 days. Left to its own devices, the brain tends to condense time.

But the way it fixes the relative timing of events depends on memory, the new study found. To the extent that the students in the study remembered developments related to the original event — Ms. Spears’s complicated love life, say, or Mr. Bernanke’s interventions in the economy — that event seemed farther away. In a series of experiments, the researchers tested personal memories and memories of film clips seen in the lab. The pattern held up: the more intervening related developments came to mind, the longer away the original event seemed.

“People have a hard time understanding the passage of time,” Dr. Zauberman said, “and in order to understand it latch onto something we do understand” — the unfolding of events.

His co-authors were Jonathan Levav of Columbia University, Kristin Diehl of the University of Southern California and Rajesh Bhargave of the University of Texas, in San Antonio.

In earlier work, researchers found a similar dynamic at work in people’s judgment of intervals that last only moments. Relatively infrequent stimuli, like flashes or tones, tend to increase the speed of the brain’s internal pacemaker.

On an obvious level, these kinds of findings offer an explanation for why other people’s children seem to grow up so much faster than one’s own. Involved parents are all too well aware of every hiccup, split lip and first step in their own children; whereas, seeing a cousin’s child once every few years, without intervening memories, telescopes the time.

On another level, the research suggests that the brain has more control over its own perception of passing time than people may know. For example, many people have the defeated sense that it was just yesterday that they made last year’s resolutions; the year snapped shut, and they didn’t start writing that novel or attend even one Pilates class. But it is precisely because they didn’t act on their plan that the time seemed to have flown away.

By contrast, the new research suggests, focusing instead on goals or challenges that were in fact engaged during the year — whether or not they were labeled as “resolutions” — gives the brain the opportunity to fill out the past year with memories, and perceived time.

Finally, the mind is perfectly capable of interpreting a fast-forward year, or decade, as something other than a frittering away of opportunities for self-improvement. In another series of experiments published in Psychological Science, psychologists found that when people were tricked into believing that more time had passed than was really the case, they assumed they must have been having more fun. The perception heightened their enjoyment of music and eased their annoyance at doing menial tasks.

“One thing that social psychology taught us over and over is that the mind is a wonderful sense-making device, that it takes ambiguous or confusing information and simplifies it according to rules of thumb,” said Aaron M. Sackett, a psychologist at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota who was the study’s lead author.

“In this case, feeling time is shortened but knowing that it’s inflexible, we have to rely upon our own beliefs to make sense of the difference. And one of those is ‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ ”

A year like 2009 surely wasn’t all fun. But some of it surely was — and what better excuse for neglecting the dreary demands of self-improvement? Selengkapnya...

Which syllabus: The traditional and the holistic syllabus

Traditional and holistic syllabuses reflect different views of language and language learning and teaching. Both viewpoints are quite valid, and most courses nowadays will reflect elements of both. It is the relative emphasis given to language as a body of knowledge to be mastered, or language as a communicative process to be developed, which will determine which of the labels 'traditional' or 'holistic' I would apply to a given syllabus.

* The traditional syllabus
o An example
o Advantages
* Arguments for a more holistic syllabus
o How this works
* A comparison of traditional and holistic approaches
* Summary


The traditional syllabus
In traditional syllabuses and materials, linguistic content is primary. The situational and thematic choices are made once the linguistic content has been established. The selection of the linguistic content itself is based on a particular theoretical view of the nature of language and the way in which we acquire it.




Traditional and holistic syllabuses reflect different views of language and language learning and teaching. Both viewpoints are quite valid, and most courses nowadays will reflect elements of both. It is the relative emphasis given to language as a body of knowledge to be mastered, or language as a communicative process to be developed, which will determine which of the labels 'traditional' or 'holistic' I would apply to a given syllabus.

* The traditional syllabus
o An example
o Advantages
* Arguments for a more holistic syllabus
o How this works
* A comparison of traditional and holistic approaches
* Summary


The traditional syllabus
In traditional syllabuses and materials, linguistic content is primary. The situational and thematic choices are made once the linguistic content has been established. The selection of the linguistic content itself is based on a particular theoretical view of the nature of language and the way in which we acquire it.

An example
The audiolingual method, for example, emphasised a careful sequencing of grammatical structures, which were presented and then repeated, with gradual memorisation of the dialogue. This approach was developed following research by behaviourist psychologists, who saw language as a system of building blocks, and language acquisition as a process of habit formation, through imitation and repetition. Such an approach tends to ignore thematic content, and grammar and vocabulary are presented in isolated sentences without any thematic thread.

Advantages
Traditional syllabuses are suited to some types of learner. Breaking the language down into bits and pieces can help to focus students on a particular aspect of the language and avoid the focus being blurred by other problems of a lexical or phonological nature.


Arguments for a more holistic syllabus
Those who criticise the traditional syllabus argue that it isn't logical to break language into bits and pieces when it is always experienced comprehensively, as a whole. Language consists of more than a stock of objective facts. This means that a holistic approach uses texts, i.e., whole pieces of language, rather than individual sentences, to prepare the learners for the language they will encounter outside the classroom. Widdowson claims that we must progress form learning about the language (language usage), to considering how language works in a communicative sense, (language use), which, 'requires us to go beyond the sentence and look at longer stretches of language.'

This holistic view has gained prominence in recent years. A holistic syllabus will front texts, topics and tasks, placing great emphasis on meaningful communication from the learner's point of view. Texts should be authentic, tasks should be communicative, and learners will be encouraged to respond to the topics and texts, rather than to isolated phonemes and morphemes.

How this works
Whereas traditional syllabuses select language items solely on the basis of linguistic criteria, a holistic syllabus will select the items the learner needs to know in order to get things done, i.e., to complete the task.

Language errors are repaired by the teacher or the class while the students are on the task. Thus grammar is taught reactively, rather than pre-emptively. Such approaches of course throw up their own problems, such as of how to order the tasks and of how to choose the task which learners need. However, adherents of this approach would argue that a focus on function, fluency and use is still more like how learners experience the language outside the classroom, than a focus on form, accuracy and analysis.


A comparison of traditional and holistic approaches
Traditional Holistic
Focus on language as a sequence of grammatical patterns. Focus is on communication.
Selects language items on basis of complexity of linguistic criteria. Selects on the basis of what language items the learner needs to know
Language used tends to be more formal and bookish Genuine everyday language is emphasised.
Aim is to have students produce formally correct sentences. Aim is to have students communicate effectively in order to complete the task.
Reading and writing are emphasised. Speaking is given at least as much time as reading and writing.
Tends to be teacher-centred. Tends to be student-centred.
Focus is on the form of expression rather than the content. Resembles the natural language learning process by concentrating on the content / meaning of the expression rather than the form.


(Adapted from 'The Learner-Centred Curriculum' David Nunan. CUP 1988.)

Summary
Nowadays, many coursebooks opt for a more mixed approach. If you are interested in finding out more about the thinking behind the course book syllabus that you are using, it can be very helpful to read the introduction to the teacher's book, which accompanies your coursebook. This usually reveals the coursebook writer's methodology, selection criteria, and approach to grammar and vocabulary. As a teacher, it is very useful to know the ideas behind a particular sequence of exercises or tasks, as this can help you to judge whether or not such an approach is suited to your students' needs.

Further reading
'Course Design' by Dubin and Olshtain. CUP 1986
'The Learner-Centred Curriculum' by David Nunan. CUP 1988
'Language Teaching Methodology' by David Nunan.

Selengkapnya...

l Qaeda's decentralized structure across the Middle East is proving one of its biggest advantages over American firepower.

U.S. and allied-government officials have claimed significant progress against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq recently. But the group appears able to nimbly deploy forces to places where international military pressure isn't as concentrated or has eased, including most recently Yemen and Somalia, according to officials and analysts.

Arab intelligence officers say they have tracked foreign fighters allied with al Qaeda traveling from one Mideast battlefield to another -- in particular from Iraq to Yemen, and, over the summer, from Pakistan to Yemen.
[Al Qaeda fighters have been able to move across the Middle East and beyond, despite a lack of centralized control from Osama bin Laden] Agence France-Presse/Getty Images




Al Qaeda fighters have been able to move across the Middle East and beyond, despite a lack of centralized control from Osama bin Laden

High-profile plots -- like the Christmas Day attempted plane bombing in the U.S., linked by U.S. officials to al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen -- can also boost regionwide recruitment efforts for local chapters, without much help from affiliates or from al Qaeda's global leadership.

The global network "moves to the weakest point," says Mustafa Alani, director of security and terrorism studies at the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, a think tank. "In Yemen, they have found opportunity."

After almost a decade of concerted U.S. and allied offensives, al Qaeda's affiliate groups work with a high degree of autonomy. The global group's top leadership, Osama bin Laden, and his lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are both believed by U.S. officials to be in Pakistan.

Following Mr. bin Laden's expulsion from Sudan in 1996, al Qaeda found a well-established jihadi infrastructure in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group never inspired an official affiliate, instead forming what U.S. officials and experts describe as "symbiotic" relationships with already established Islamist militant groups.

But al Qaeda's ability to operate in Pakistan and Afghanistan has been tightly curtailed over the past year or two. Senior military and civilian officials familiar with Afghanistan and Pakistan operations, speaking before the Christmas attack, said the pressure on al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan had prompted some operatives to shift to Yemen and Somalia.

The U.S. and allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan may have also killed operatives who provided key links to affiliated groups, forcing local cells to boost their own autonomy. One casualty in Pakistan was Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior commander slain in a January 2008 missile strike. U.S. officials believe he oversaw operations in parts of Africa.

As it was battling U.S. and allied forces elsewhere, including Iraq, al Qaeda branched out to northern Africa, effectively opening a new franchise in 2006. Mr. al-Zawahiri permitted a militant Algerian group to take the name al Qaeda in the Maghreb. It has claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Algeria and for abducting foreigners in Mali and Mauritania.

In Somalia, al Qaeda is suspected of sending fighters to buttress the Islamist group al Shabaab, which is battling the U.S.-backed government. The government is staying afloat with the protection of African Union peacekeeping troops stationed in Mogadishu, the capital.

At least 47 people were killed in weekend fighting between al Shabaab and a moderate pro-government Muslim group in Dusamareb, 350 miles north of Mogadishu, Reuters news agency reported.

For the past year, foreign fighters linked to al Qaeda have been arriving in Somalia to support al Shabaab, according to Western and Somali officials. Since then, attacks by Somali militants have grown more sophisticated and deadly. Over the weekend, al Shabaab's leadership said it was ready to send fighters to Yemen to counter any U.S. military attack there.
—Sarah Childress contributed to this article.

Write to Chip Cummins at chip.cummins@wsj.com, Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com and Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com
Selengkapnya...

Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Fahad Al-Saud (left) from Saudi Arabia Kingdom presents a Holly Koran to the rector of University of Indonesia Rusliwa Somantri (second right) while Nazaruddin Umar (second left), director general of Islamic society affairs at the Religious Affairs Ministry looks on during the opening of a mosque at the Salemba campus, Jakarta, on Tuesday. The development of the Attauhid Arief Rahman Hakim mosque was partly sponsored by the kingdom. JP/P.J. Leo
Selengkapnya...

Commission for Missing Persons and Victms of Violence (Kontras) members hold placards with pictures of missing activists at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Jakarta on Tuesday. Kontras urged President Susilo Bambang Yuhdoyono to establish a human rights ad hoc court as a commitment to protect human rights. JP/Nurhayati
Selengkapnya...

Gus Dur remembered as the father of tolerance

Friends and foes, Muslims and non-Muslims, old and young as well as majority and minority groups across the country all agreed that Abdurrahman “Gus Dur” Wahid has left an invaluable legacy of moderation to the people of Indonesia, and to the whole world.

As soon as he passed away at Cipto Mangunkusumo hospital in Jakarta on Wednesday, many people from various walks of life, including officials in the regencies, agreed that the former president had, at times almost single-handedly, carried forward Indonesia’s image as a pluralist and democratic country in the eyes of the international community, despite a world marked by conflict and extremism.

“We just lost a great statesman who fought to keep the country pluralist, while fighting fundamentalism. He was a true democrat, respecting even his political foes,” noted lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis said.

Todung, who together with Gus Dur led the battle against the New Order authoritarian regime under president Soeharto, said the legacy of the former Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) chairman would never fade from the nation’s collective memory.

A respected young politician from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, Anas Urbaningrum, said that Indonesia had lost one of its greatest leaders who would sadly be irreplaceable for a long time to come.

“Gus Dur was an excellent example of a beautiful and peaceful marriage between Islam, Indonesia and modernity. He will always be remembered as an open-minded leader, with a free way of thinking, capable of leading us through any obstacles,” he said.

While the NU is a conservative religious organization, Gus Dur has consistently maintained that faith is a personal matter, rejecting calls for Islam to have an institutionalized role in the state.

He said such calls could spell the end of Indonesia, already threatened by ethnic separatism, a minority of extremists and some inter-religious tension.

His position brought him criticism from some Islamic circles but earned him the respect of many non-Muslims, as well as Muslims, throughout Indonesia, including the vast democracy’s Christian and ethnic Chinese minorities.

Indonesian Chinese descendant and respected lawyer Frans Hendra Winarta agreed that it was Gus Dur who had stood in the front line to defend the rights of the country’s minority groups.

“He was the one who allowed the Chinese community here to celebrate Imlek (Chinese New Year).”

Human right activist and respected scholar, HS Dilon, also praised Gus Dur for defending minorities.

“He was a true pluralist and gave meaning to our nation’s foundation, Bhineka Tunggal Ika (unity in diversity). He was unflinching in supporting the rights of minorities,” he said.

Selengkapnya...

Bagaimana Sih Menulis Essai Yang Bagus Itu?

Untuk membuat sebuah esai yang berkualitas, diperlukan kemampuan dasar menulis dan latihan yang terus menerus. Berikut ini panduan dasar dalam menulis sebuah esai.

Struktur Sebuah Esai

Pada dasarnya, sebuah esai terbagi minimum dalam lima paragraf:

1. Paragraf pertama

Dalam paragraf ini penulis memperkenalkan topik yang akan dikemukakan, berikut tesisnya. Tesis ini harus dikemukakan dalam kalimat yang singkat dan jelas, sedapat mungkin pada kalimat pertama. Selanjutnya pembaca diperkenalkan pada tiga paragraf berikutnya yang mengembangkan tesis tersebut dalam beberapa sub topik.

2. Paragraf kedua sampai kelima

Ketiga paragraf ini disebut tubuh dari sebuah esai yang memiliki struktur yang sama. Kalimat pendukung tesis dan argumen-argumennya dituliskan sebagai analisa dengan melihat relevansi dan relasinya dengan masing-masing sub topik.

3. Paragraf kelima (terakhir)

Paragraf kelima merupakan paragraf kesimpulan. Tuliskan kembali tesis dan sub topik yang telah dibahas dalam paragraf kedua sampai kelima sebagai sebuah sintesis untuk meyakinkan pembaca



Langkah-langkah membuat Esai

1. Tentukan topik

2. Buatlah outline atau garis besar ide-ide anda

3. Tuliskan tesis anda dalam kalimat yang singkat dan jelas

4. Tuliskan tubuh tesis anda:

o Mulailah dengan poin-poin penting

o kemudian buatlah beberapa sub topik

o Kembangkan sub topik yang telah anda buat

5. Buatlah paragraf pertama (pendahuluan)

6. Tuliskan kesimpulan

7. Berikan sentuhan terakhir


Memilih Topik

Bila topik telah ditentukan, anda mungkin tidak lagi memiliki kebebasan untuk memilih. Namun demikian, bukan berarti anda siap untuk menuju langkah berikutnya.

Pikirkan terlebih dahulu tipe naskah yang akan anda tulis. Apakah berupa tinjauan umum, atau analisis topik secara khusus? Jika hanya merupakan tinjauan umum, anda dapat langsung menuju ke langkah berikutnya. Tapi bila anda ingin melakukan analisis khusus, topik anda harus benar-benar spesifik. Jika topik masih terlalu umum, anda dapat mempersempit topik anda. Sebagai contoh, bila topik tentang “Indonesia” adalah satu topik yang masih sangat umum. Jika tujuan anda menulis sebuah gambaran umum (overview), maka topik ini sudah tepat. Namun bila anda ingin membuat analisis singkat, anda dapat mempersempit topik ini menjadi “Kekayaan Budaya Indonesia” atau “Situasi Politik di Indonesia. Setelah anda yakin akan apa yang anda tulis, anda bisa melanjutkan ke langkah berikutnya.

Bila topik belum ditentukan, maka tugas anda jauh lebih berat. Di sisi lain, sebenarnya anda memiliki kebebasan memilih topik yang anda sukai, sehingga biasanya membuat esai anda jauh lebih kuat dan berkarakter.

Tentukan Tujuan

Tentukan terlebih dahulu tujuan esai yang akan anda tulis. Apakah untuk meyakinkan orang agar mempercayai apa yang anda percayai? Menjelaskan bagaimana melakukan hal-hal tertentu? Mendidik pembaca tentang seseorang, ide, tempat atau sesuatu? Apapun topik yang anda pilih, harus sesuai dengan tujuannya.

Tuliskan Minat Anda

Jika anda telah menetapkan tujuan esai anda, tuliskan beberapa subyek yang menarik minat anda. Semakin banyak subyek yang anda tulis, akan semakin baik. Jika anda memiliki masalah dalam menemukan subyek yang anda minati, coba lihat di sekeliling anda. Adakah hal-hal yang menarik di sekitar anda? Pikirkan hidup anda? Apa yang anda lakukan? Mungkin ada beberapa yang menarik untuk dijadikan topik. Jangan mengevaluasi subyek-subyek tersebut, tuliskan saja segala sesuatu yang terlintas di kepala.

Evaluasi Potensial Topik

Jika telah ada bebearpa topik yang pantas, pertimbangkan masing-masing topik tersebut. Jika tujuannya mendidik, anda harus mengerti benar tentang topik yang dimaksud. Jika tujuannya meyakinkan, maka topik tersebut harus benar-benar menggairahkan. Yang paling penting, berapa banyak ide-ide yang anda miliki untuk topik yang anda pilih.

Sebelum anda meneruskan ke langkah berikutnya, lihatlah lagi bentuk naskah yang anda tulis. Sama halnya dengan kasus dimana topik anda telah ditentukan, anda juga perlu memikirkan bentuk naskah yang anda tulis.

>kembali



Membuat Outline

Tujuan dari pembuatan outline adalah meletakkan ide-ide tentang topik anda dalam naskah dalam sebuah format yang terorganisir.

Mulailah dengang menulis topik anda di bagian atas

Tuliskan angka romawi I, II, III di sebelah kiri halaman tersebut, dengan jarak yang cukup lebar diantaranya

Tuliskan garis besar ide anda tentang topik yang anda maksud:

Jika anda mencoba meyakinkan, berikan argumentasi terbaik

Jika anda menjelaskan satu proses, tuliskan langkah-langkahnya sehingga dapat dipahami pembaca

Jika anda mencoba menginformasikan sesuatu, jelaskan kategori utama dari informasi tersebut

Pada masing-masing romawi, tuliskan A, B, dan C menurun di sis kiri halaman tersebut. Tuliskan fakta atau informasi yang mendukung ide utama

>kembali



Menuliskan Tesis

Suatu pernyataan tesis mencerminkan isi esai dan poin penting yang akan disampaikan oleh pengarangnya. Anda telah menentukan topik dari esai anda, sekarang anda harus melihat kembali outline yang telah anda buat, dan memutuskan poin penting apa yang akan anda buat. Pernyataan tesis anda terdiri dari dua bagian:

Bagian pertama menyatakan topik. Contoh: Budaya Indonesia, Korupsi di Indonesia

Bagian kedua menyatakan poin-poin dari esai anda. Contoh: memiliki kekayaan yang luar biasa, memerlukan waktu yang panjang untuk memberantasnya, dst.

>kembali



Menuliskan Tubuh Esai

Bagian ini merupakan bagian paling menyenangkan dari penulisan sebuah esai. Anda dapat menjelaskan, menggambarkan dan memberikan argumentasi dengan lengkap untuk topik yang telah anda pilih. Masing-masing ide penting yang anda tuliskan pada outline akan menjadi satu paragraf dari tubuh tesis anda.

Masing-masing paragraf memiliki struktur yang serupa:

Mulailah dengan menulis ide besar anda dalam bentuk kalimat. Misalkan ide anda adalah: “Pemberantasan korupsi di Indonesia”, anda dapat menuliskan: “Pemberantasan korupsi di Indonesia memerlukan kesabaran besar dan waktu yang lama”

Kemudian tuliskan masing-masing poin pendukung ide tersebut, namun sisakan empat sampai lima baris.

Pada masing-masing poin, tuliskan perluasan dari poin tersebut. Elaborasi ini dapat berupa deskripsi atau penjelasan atau diskusi

Bila perlu, anda dapat menggunakan kalimat kesimpulan pada masing-masing paragraf.

Setelah menuliskan tubuh tesis, anda hanya tinggal menuliskan dua paragraf: pendahuluan dan kesimpulan.

>kembali



Menulis Paragraf Pertama

Mulailah dengan menarik perhatian pembaca.

Memulai dengan suatu informasi nyata dan terpercaya. Informasi ini tidak perlu benar-benar baru untuk pembaca anda, namun bisa menjadi ilustrasi untuk poin yang anda buat.

Memulai dengan suatu anekdot, yaitu suatu cerita yang menggambarkan poin yang anda maksud. Berhati-hatilah dalam membuat anekdot. Meski anekdot ini efektif untuk membangun ketertarikan pembaca, anda harus menggunakannya dengan tepat dan hati-hati.

Menggunakan dialog dalam dua atau tiga kalimat antara beberapa pembicara untuk menyampaikan poin anda.

Tambahkan satu atau dua kalimat yang akan membawa pembaca pada pernyataan tesis anda.

Tutup paragraf anda dengan pernyataan tesis anda.

>kembali



Menuliskan Kesimpulan

Kesimpulan merupakan rangkuman dari poin-poin yang telah anda kemukakan dan memberikan perspektif akhir anda kepada pembaca. Tuliskan dalam tiga atau empat kalimat (namun jangan menulis ulang sama persis seperti dalam tubuh tesis di atas) yang menggambarkan pendapat dan perasaan anda tentang topik yang dibahas. Anda dapat menggunakan anekdot untuk menutup esai anda.

>kembali



Memberikah Sentuhan Akhir

Teliti urutan paragraf Mana yang paling kuat? Letakkan paragraf terkuat pada urutan pertama, dan paragraf terlemah di tengah. Namun, urutan tersebut harus masuk akal. Jika naskah anda menjelaskan suatu proses, anda harus bertahan pada urutan yang anda buat.

Teliti format penulisan. Telitilah format penulisan seperti margin, spasi, nama, tanggal, dan sebagainya

Teliti tulisan. Anda dapat merevisi hasil tulisan anda, memperkuat poin yang lemah. Baca dan baca kembali naskah anda.

Apakah masuk akal? Tinggalkan dulu naskah anda beberapa jam, kemudian baca kembali. Apakah masih masuk akal?

Apakah kalimat satu dengan yang lain mengalir dengan halus dan lancar? Bila tidak, tambahkan bebearpa kata dan frase untuk menghubungkannya. Atau tambahkan satu kalimat yang berkaitan dengan kalimat sebelumnya

Teliti kembali penulisan dan tata bahasa anda Selengkapnya...