PREFACE

This papers containing explanation about Genre of

Information Report. And also examples to help the

readers to understand and comprehend it. And the

readers can also use report text to inform events.

Before we come to the first unit, we would like

to say thanks to our lecturer, Drs. Johan Sinulingga

that gives us chance to complete these papers.

And also the readers enjoy this paper.

Medan, Dec 4th, 2012

Group IV

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Structure

• Opening statement

- Lead in sentence to state the topic and capture

interest

- May include a short description of the subject

- May include definition

- May include classification or categorization of

types

• Paragraphs

- Each paragraph is about a different aspect of the

subject

- Begins with the topic or a preview sentence

- Focus on the fact and opinion

• Conclusion

- Summarizes the information presented

- Does not include any new information

Language features

• Technical language related to subject

• Formal and impersonal language

• Uses timeless, present tense e.g. Adelaide is

popular with international students.

• Often uses the passive voice e.g. “are being

created”

• Many “being” and “having” verbs

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Objective

1.Information report has 3 important points to be

comprehended. The three is:

a)Communicative purpose

This kind of text is very good to be used for

tell information about natural and non-natural

phenomena or things in the world. The information

purpose is to give knowledge to the readers. The

phenomena is natural, such as, living things like

flora and fauna, and non-living things like

forest, mountain, galaxy, satellite, and any

other phenomena in society, such as parliament,

party, economics, trading, etc. It is to give

information about things in the world.

b)Rhetorical Structure

This kind of information report has text elements

that arranged in rhetoric form: Title > General

Statement > Description.

Title, phrase that contains topic to be

informed for readers.

General Statement, contain sentences that

consist of particular statement that

connected to topic.

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Description, contains explanation about

things that being told in title and in

general statement.

c) Grammatical Pattern

Declarative sentences are commonly used in

information report text, and usage of present

tense, besides usage of conjunction is fully

needed. Form present tense is dominant due to

the context of information report, what is

explained in description is a facts, general

accepted-facts and reality.

2) Here some examples of title and general statement.

Title + General Statement

#1

The Body Plan of Crocodiles

In body form, crocodiles are rather ‘lizard-

like’

#2

Drought

Drought are extreme water shortage that last

for a long time

#3

The Place of English

Although English is not the language with the

largest number of native or first language

speakers, it has become lingua franca.

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#4

Asteroid and dinosaurs

A single, gigantic asteroid slammed into earth

65 million years ago, wiped out dinosaurs and

many other species.

#5

Dolphins

As the members of Delphinidae family, they are

classified as sea mammals, which have to

breathe air or will die.

#6

Small in size but massive in number

There are more different kinds of insects in

existence today than the total of all kinds of

other animals put together.

Description

In title + general statement example #6,

explanation or simple description upon general

statement can be used in text below:

Scientific discover approximately 7,000 to 10,000

new insects appears every year, and it’s believed

that there are more than 10 million species are

not yet discovered. According to a study, insects

outnumber all other animals at rate of 4 to 1,

and the total weight of insects on earth in 259

hectares of rural land than there are human

beings on the entire earth. Insects and arachnids

make up 80 percent of all the animal species on

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earth. (Resumed from The Jakarta Post, December

5th,2006)

In example #5:

Dolphins have smooth skin. Only baby dolphins are

born with a few bristly hairs on their snouts.

These hairs soon fall out. They have a long tail

and the fin on the top of their backs keeps the

dolphins from rolling over. The female dolphins

have a thick layer of fat under their skin to

keep them warm when dive very deep. The dolphin’s

front fins are called flippers. They us them to

turn left and right. Dolphins grow from 2 to 3

meters long and weigh up to 75 kilograms (resumed

from Genre-Based Writing, Literacy and Education

Research, p. 25)

3) With the reference to the title + general

statement about Body of Crocodiles, there are few

questions to be given:

- Have you ever seen a crocodile?

- How long is it?

- How many kilograms does it weigh?

- Is it included as a mammal?

- Do you know more about crocodiles?

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Text Elements and Rhetorical Structure

Comprehension about rhetorical structure for

every single kind of text is really important to

help them to explain information. With the

comprehension of genre, purpose of the text is more

clearly, and all the sentences can be made in good

form, and also textual devices. Here’s some

explanation.

Text

Elements

Function

Title - Phrase-form, or usually in noun-

phrase-form.

- Topic is usually things in the

world; about living things like

plans and animals, non-living

things like volcanoes, tidal

waves, galaxy, satellite and

things in society like way we

organize parliament, our

economy, trade union, and

different kinds of technology.

General

Statement

- Form of statement also connected

with topic that is explain in

the title

- Can be consisted in one sentence

or more, that explain about

characteristic or property from

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topic that is also explained in

title.

Description - Contains about information or

explanation that also stated in

title and general statement

- Grammatical Patterns:

o Usage of declarative

sentence (positive or

negative)

o Usage of present tense.

Text Example

1. Giving model

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The body plan of crocodiles

In body form crocodiles are rather

‘lizard-like’

They have a long tail and the limbs are

short and straddled sideways from the

body rather than being erect beneath it,

as in mammals. The elongated snout of

crocodilians is probably one of their

most distinctive features. The head is

typically one-seventh the total body

length, regardless of whether the

species has a narrow or bread snout. The

shape of the head is intimately

associated with the way crocodilians

position themselves in water.

Crocodilians have a ‘minimum exposure’

posture in water in which only the eyes,

the cranial platform (overlying the

brain), ears and nostrils lie above the

water’s surface. All the sensory

apparatus is exposed while most of the

snout length and the bulk of the body,

is hidden. To potential prey, the

exposed areas of the head give little

indication of the actual size of the

predator’s body to appear smaller than

it is.

The ‘minimum exposure’ posture has

obviously been important to crocodilians

throughout their evolution. Alligators,

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Title

Description

General Statement

Description

for example.

(Webb, J. and C.Manolis, in Hammond J., et al,

1992:91)

Here some question from the text.

- What is the title of the text?

- What does the text tell us about?

- What is the body of a crocodiles like?

- What makes crocodile different from other

mammals?

- During their stay in the water, what parts of

body rest above the surface of water?

As reinforcement, we would like to continue the

explanation.

Title is to indicate topic of report. It is very

often in the form of noun phrase.

General statement is a statement to introduce the

topic of report.

Description is to provide details of topic such

as physical appearance, behavior, landforms and

uses (typically organized in paragraphs)

2. Discussing the structure and practicing to write

Communicative purpose

Identified genre in form as reinforcement

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Identified rhetorical structure : Title >

General Statement > Description

Do analysis about grammatical patterns to

conclude :

Types and kinds of sentences

Kinds of tense

Textual device.

And here another example of explanation of

Information Report text.

The Place of English

1. Objective

Learning objectives with third topic is to

explain how to update the knowledge of the English

language can be written in the form of reports that

effective text information.

Important things that should be done by the

teachers before giving an example of a text are to

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provide a set of questions to the students.

Accordance with this topic the following question can

be given:

a.Do you think that English is used as

international language?

b.How long have you been learning English?

c.Do you know why many people learn English?

d.Do you think that you native language is not as

good as English?

e.Do you know what lingua franca is?

After responding to students' answers to several

questions, teachers can give examples of other text.

Keep in mind that the teacher right or wrong answers

of the students do not matter. The main purpose of

the provision of these questions is to capture their

attention.

This is an example for the student:

The Place of English.

Although English is not the language with the largest

number of native or first language speakers, is that

become lingua franca.

A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely

adopted for communication between two speakers whose

native languages different from each other’s and where

one or both speakers are using it as ‘second’ language.

Many people living in the European Union, for example,

frequently operate in English as well as their own

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languages, and the economic and cultural influence of the

United States has led to increased English use in many

areas of the globe.

Like Latin in Europe in the Middle Ages, English seems to

be one of the main language of international

communication, and even people who are speakers of

English often know words such as bank, chocolate,

computer, hospital, hot dog, hotel, piano, radio,

restaurant, taxi, telephone, television, etc.

English has borrowed many of these words from other

languages, such as those of chocolate, hamburger, taxi,

etc, and speakers of romance language are likely to have

a number of words in common with English.

After the students were given time to explore the

text, the teacher can give you some oral questions

relating to the content of the text, for example:

- What is the title of the text?

- What is lingua franca?

- According to the text, in what place of the

world is English used as international language?

- Name some word that English has borrowed?

As reinforcement in the context of the example

texts as models in teaching writing, teachers need to

repeat and re-explain briefly about structure or

rhetorical structure of the text information to

report.

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As shown in the example, the text begins with (1)

title, followed by (2) the general statement, and (3)

description, which is then added (4) concluding

statement.

2. Linguistic Realization

1.Objective

Describes the intended use of language in

general and the kinds of kind’s sentences to

express purpose.

Related to the grammatical pattern commonly

used to report information on a particular text,

and other text in general, students need to be

taught some grammar topics following learning

materials. Some of these explanations had been

given in English in order for teachers and

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prospective teachers more easily understand and

convey to students.

1. Pronoun

Repetition of the same subject or object in a

series of sentences in a text, or in a paragraph

should be avoided. Instead, the subject or object can

be replaced with a suitable pronoun.

A pronoun is not to be used to introduce as the

subject of a sentence for the first time, instead the

use of a noun or a noun phrase, a name or a

participant (human or non human) is more common. A

pronoun is to be used to follow after a noun or a

noun phrase as the subject is used.

a.In body form, crocodiles are rather ‘lizard-

like’.

b.They have a long tail and limbs are short and

straddled sideways from the body rather than

being erect beneath, as in mammals.

c.Although English is not the language with the

largest number of native or first language

speakers.

d.It has become lingua franca

2.A noun phrase

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Teachers need to explain to the students that one

of the forms of the noun phrase subject or object

positions are very common words such as adjective

clause summarized (reduced).

A noun phrase as a subject is very often to be

formed by adding adjective clause that is reduced

into a phrase. The adjective clause very often takes

the forms of ‘passive’ construction.

a)The elongated snout of crocodilians is probably

one of their most distinctive features.

b)The snout of crocodilians which is elongated is

probably…

c)To potential prey, the exposed areas of the

head give little indication of the actual size

of the predator’s body.

d)To potential prey, the areas of the head which

are exposed give little indication of the

actual size of the predator’s body.

3.Tense choice, noun phrase and adverb phrase and

complex sentence.

Need to explain again to the students that

writing is basically pouring information through a

series of sentences. Thus the point of departure is

the information, not the sentence. Because the

information has a diverse cast of complexity, forms

also varied sentence simple, compound, complex, and

compound complex.

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The use of present tense is important to indicate

timeless nature of information. In addition, the use

of verbs of being and having is more dominant than

the use of action verbs. The use of noun phrase

either functioned as subjects or objects are very

common as to compact information. In addition, the

use of long adverbial phrase or adverbial clauses

makes the sentences longer or complex.

As it can be seen in the text above, within one

paragraph there can be only three sentences.

- As in mammals, they have a long tail and the

limbs are short and straddled sideways from the

body rather than being erect beneath it.

According to its elements, it can be fleshed out

follows;

- As in mammals (adverb)

- They (subject)

- Have (predicate)

- A long tail (object)

- And

- The limbs (subject)

- Are short (predicate)

- And

- Are straddled sideways (predicate)

- From the body (adverb)

- Rather than being erect beneath it (adverb)

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If fleshed out further from the point of clause,

this long sentence looks like as follows;

They have long tail (sentence / main clause 1)

And the limbs are short (sentence / main clause 2)

And the limbs are straddled sideways (sentence / main

clause 3)

+ Adverb

From the body rather than being erect beneath it, as

in mammals.

The use of connector ‘and’ is very practical to

connect sentence (independent clause), so that three

sentences (three clause) can be combined into one

long sentence. In addition, the use of more than one

adverb makes the sentence longer.

- A lingua franca can be defined as a language

widely adopted for communication between two

speakers whose native languages different from

each other’s and where one or both speakers are

using it as a ‘second’ language.

When it fleshed out, the sentence above consist of

several adverbs that make the sentence longer.

- A lingua franca (subject)

- Can be defined widely adopted for communication

between two speakers whose native languages

different from each other’s and where one or both

speakers are using it as a ‘second’ language.

(adverb)

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When fleshed out further, this long sentence is as

follows;

- A lingua franca can be defined (main clause /

sentence)

+ Adverb

- As a language widely adopted for communication

(adverb clause)

- Between two speakers (adverb phrase)

+ Adjective in adverb

- Whose native languages different from each

other’s (adjective clause)

- And where one or both speakers are using it

(adjective clause)

+ Adverb in adjective

- As a ‘second’ language. (adverb phrase)

The following is another example

- The elongated snout of crocodilians is probably

one of their most distinctive features.

This sentence, when it is fleshed out, it consist of

a reduced form of adjective clause

- The snout of crocodilians, which is elongated, is

probably one of their most distinctive features.

The use of adverbial clause also contributes to cause

the sentence a little longer. Pay attention to the

following example;

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- The head id typically one-seventh the total body

length, regardless of whether the species has a

narrow or broad snout.

1) The head id typically one-seventh the total

body length (sentence / main clause)

+ Adverb

2) Regardless of whether the species has a

narrow or broad snout. (sentence / sub clause)

- The shape of the head is intimately associated

with the way crocodilians position themselves in

water.

1) The shape of the head is intimately associated

(sentence / main clause)

+ Adverb

2)With the way crocodilians position themselves in

water. (Sentence / sub clause).

Bibliography

http://www.google.com/

http://sac.its.ac.id/

Pardiono, M.Pd.2007.Pasti Bisa! Genre-Based

Writing.Yogyakarta:ANDI

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