TURNITIN: An Analysis Of Contrastive Discourse Markers In Students’ Essays

The interest of the theoretical status of discourse markers has been increasing within the past two decades. The studies of it are focusing on what they are, what they mean, and how they function in many contexts. In writing, the use of discourse markers is to create the coherence and cohesion in a text which is considered as the requirement of a good text. It is found that very few studies concerning discourse markers in English writing were conducted in Indonesian setting especially in Aceh. Aimed to find out how students use contrastive discourse markers in English writing, the current study was carried to use qualitative approach focusing on document analysis as the instrument of collecting data. The participants engaged in this study were 26 students at the Department of English Language Education of UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh. The result of this study showed that students used variants, misused and overused CDMs. The misuses were ranging from incorrect position of certain markers, inappropriate punctuation, and the misunderstanding of the use of markers. The overuse of CDMs was also found by the researcher in students' essays. Based on the findings, this study provided implications for students, teachers, and researchers