Undergraduate Students’ Ability in Constructing Cohesion in the Background of the Problem of Thesis

The background of the problem is an important component of the thesis. Background of the problem is the first chapter of the thesis that contains the answers to what and why the research needs to be done. Making a background of the problem is not easy, college students are required to arrange ideas systematically so that people are interested and believe in reading the background of the problem of a thesis, then there must be cohesion. The students of a college are expected to write a thesis coherently with the right use of cohesive devices. This article has aim to analyze the ability of undergraduate students in constructing cohesion in the background of the problem of thesis at UIN Imam Bonjol Padang. The descriptive research design was used in this study to describe their ability in constructing cohesive devices. To find out their ability, 20 background of the problems from different thesis were chosen by using random sampling. It was found that some of undergraduate students had lack ability in constructing cohesion in their background of the students of thesis at UIN Imam Bonjol Padang. Thus, it can be interpreted if undergraduate students had a lack of understanding and could not apply the cohesion well enough in writing the background of the problem of thesis.