Student Competence in Writing Job Application Letters Seen from a Spelling Perspective

Abstract

Writing a job application letter as a form of official communication requires the correct use of spelling in accordance with Indonesian language rules. This study aims to determine and describe the forms of spelling errors made by class XII MIPA in writing job application letters, especially in the aspects of the use of capital letters, punctuation, and loan elements. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach with a documentation method on 36 job application letter manuscripts of class XII MIPA 5 in the 2023/2024 Academic Year. From the results of the analysis, it was found that there were still many spelling errors made by students, with details of 134 errors in the use of capital letters, 55 errors in the use of loan words, and 180 errors in the use of punctuation including 78 uses of periods (.), 75 uses of semicolons (;), and 27 uses of commas (,). These findings indicate that students' understanding of Indonesian spelling rules, especially the latest edition of EYD, still needs to be improved. Therefore, the results of this study are expected to be used as evaluation material in learning Indonesian, especially in the material on writing official letters.