Improving the problems of using punctuation marks in paragraph writing skills: the case of first year Sociology department students at Dambi Dollo University

Abstract

This action research was conducted on the topic of “Improving the problems of using punctuation marks in writing skills of 1^st year Sociology students’’ at DambiDollo University. The basic questions of this action research were do the students tell the meanings of punctuation marks? Do the students mention the uses of punctuation marks and can the students identify the types of punctuation marks? The main objective of this action research was improving the problems of using marks in writing skills and its specific objectives were to identify whether the students tell the meaning of punctuation marks; to identify whether the students describe the use of punctuations and identifying whether the students can list the types of punctuation marks. The main purposes of this research were to give awareness for the students to develop their skills on the meaning and use punctuation marks and to give direction for the teachers on the gap of the students’ knowledge. This research was an action research that conducted through qualitative method. The source of data for this action research was the students of first year Sociology department in Dambi Dollo University and the sampling techniques used for this action research were through purposive sampling. The data were collected through testing system. The collected data were organized in a paragraph and analyzed by qualitative method. As the result shows the students have no knowledge of using punctuation and they can’t identify the types of punctuation as all. Depending on these results we gave additional tutorial for all students. Then, we test them again. As we evaluate most of the students change their understanding of using punctuation. So, finally as a recommendation we gave the following points. First, for the future to understand what they read and to make clear communication in writing all the students have to understand the uses of punctuation mark; next, to teach punctuation mark, the teachers have to use different methodology such as discussion methods and teaches it in sentence and paragraph. Then, all stake holders such as students, teachers and others have to take punctuation as a part of writing and use it wisely and finally, the teacher should have to give immediate feedback (make corrections) for the students on the error of students on using punctuation marks.