The Analysis of Theme in the Background of the Research of Skripsi Written by English Education Department Students of Muria Kudus University

Background of the research is a crucial part in writing skripsi; it becomes the foundation of the research, exposes the reason of the researcher do the research, and introduces the reader’s point of view about what will be reported in the research. Since this part is extremely important, students are supposed to compose it appropriately. It, at least, fulfill the characteristics of a good text; they are coherence and cohesion. Coherence plays a crucial role in making paragraph read well, where the parts of paragraphs are unified, they are about the same main idea and they flow from one part into another without distracting the organization of the information in paragraphs. In order to follow the flow of information in paragraph, we can analyze Theme choices in it. Theme is defined as the point of departure for what the speaker is going to say. The objectives of this research are to find out the types of Theme and the most dominant Theme in the background of the research of skripsi written by English Education Department students of Muria Kudus University who graduated in April 2012. In matter obtaining the objectives of the research, the writer used content analysis qualitative design; whereas the data of the research is Theme and the data source is background of the research of skripsi written by English Education Department students of Muria Kudus University who graduated in April 2012. The writer limits this research by only analyzing four backgrounds of the research of skripsi. After analyzing the data, the writer found that two out of four students used three types of Themes suggested by Eggins (topical, textual and interpersonal), while the rest only used topical and textual Theme. The most dominant Theme used by students in writing background of the research is topical Theme; it is mostly used to introduce new ideas and maintain the progression of information. Therefore, the writer suggests that students should enrich their knowledge about Theme; it will benefit them in drafting and revising their compositions. Lecturer is also highly recommended to introduce Theme to students; it will be useful to guide students become aware of how information develops in text