Menyunting Karya Ilmiah ~ MKWU4108 Bahasa Indonesia

Editing Scientific Writing

Editing is a stage in the writing process that improves a manuscript’s accuracy, clarity, and quality. It involves checking not only spelling and punctuation, but also the organization of ideas, the accuracy and consistency of content, and the effectiveness of the language.

What Editors Should Check

Editing focuses on three broad areas:

• Organization: Ideas should be presented in a logical, orderly sequence.
• Content: Claims and information should be accurate and appropriate.
• Language: Word choice, sentence construction, spelling, and punctuation should follow language conventions.

Paragraphs should have both coherence and cohesion:

• Coherence is the unity and continuity of meaning between ideas.
• Cohesion is the visible connection between words, phrases, sentences, or other elements in a text.

Cohesion Devices

Four types of cohesion devices are discussed:

• Reference: A word refers to another word or expression. The reference may point backward to something already mentioned (anaphoric) or forward to something introduced later (cataphoric).
• Conjunction: Words or phrases connect clauses, sentences, or paragraphs, such as but, because, therefore, and however.
• Ellipsis: A word or part of a sentence is omitted because the reader can infer it from context.
• Lexical cohesion: Words connect through their meanings, including repetition, synonyms, hyponyms and hypernyms (more specific and more general terms), and antonyms.

Effective Sentences

An effective sentence should be clear and well-formed. The program identifies qualities including equivalence, parallel structure, emphasis, precision, economy, cohesion, and logic. Editing may involve:

• Making the subject and intended meaning clear.
• Keeping list items grammatically parallel.
• Removing unnecessary or repetitive words.
• Reordering words or phrases to prevent ambiguity.
• Using punctuation to show how parts of a sentence relate.
• Avoiding wording that makes an inanimate object appear to perform a human action.

Choosing Words and Using Spelling Conventions

Diction means selecting words that express an idea accurately and suit the context. Editors need to distinguish between words with similar meanings and choose the one that fits the sentence, audience, and tone. A broad vocabulary helps make these distinctions.

The program also reviews common editing concerns, including:

• Capitalization and the use of italics or bold type.
• Word forms, affixes, compounds, abbreviations, numbers, and pronouns.
• The difference between a preposition written separately and an affix written together. For example, a word indicating a place is written separately, while an affix forming a verb is attached.
• Punctuation, since incorrect punctuation can cause ambiguity.
• The spelling of borrowed words, which may retain their original forms or be adapted to Indonesian spelling conventions.
• Consistent formatting of names, titles, abbreviations, and academic credentials.

Suggested Editing Workflow

1. Skim the manuscript to understand its overall subject and structure.
2. Edit the ideas and paragraphs:
   • Keep one main idea in each paragraph.
   • Use supporting ideas and sentences that develop that main idea.
   • Remove or relocate sentences that do not fit the paragraph’s focus.
   • Check that cohesion and coherence connect the ideas.
3. Edit the sentences:
   • Ensure each sentence expresses a complete thought.
   • Clarify unclear or ambiguous wording.
   • Remove redundant words and choose a consistent construction.
4. Edit diction:
   • Replace inaccurate or unsuitable words with more precise alternatives.
   • Match the wording to the intended meaning and tone.
5. Edit spelling and mechanics:
   • Check letters, word forms, punctuation, capitalization, and formatting.
6. Use correction marks to show the writer what to change. The marks described include instructions to delete or add letters and words, separate or combine forms, and move text.

Careful editing requires both language knowledge and close attention to how ideas are organized and expressed.

Speakers and Sources

• Marisha Riana — presenter and host.
• Brillianing Pratiwi, S.S., M.A. — course tutor and featured subject-matter expert.
• Anang Santoso and colleagues — authors of the MKWU4108 Bahasa Indonesia main course material cited at the end.
• The program also includes UT Radio station identifications and prerecorded University promotional material; no individual speakers are named for those segments.