Investigation of Sequential Progressions in Iraqi English Students' Writings

Abstract

This study attempts to describe and analyze how sequential progression topics employ in Iraqi English students' writings. The research materials are written essays gathered  from sixty students(30 students from third and forth stages) . the students' writings are closely examined by utilizing the sequential topics as one of the topical progression types propose by Lautamatti (1987) in his Topical Structure Analysis, which examines the semantic relationship between discourse topics and sentence topics and provides insight into the internal coherence in paragraphsThe results indicate that the problem of  incoherent and illogical ideas find in the most students' writings  is properly due to use many indirectly related or unrelated sequential progressions in writing.

The aims of the present study are:

1- The present study is designed to investigate to identify sequential progressions in Iraqi English students' writings .

2- It intends to show and improve the influence of sequential topics on the coherence of the students' writings .

3- Indicating how unrelated SPTs distract the reader from the main ideas of the paragraph .

The hypotheses of the present study are:

1- The use of  related SPTs in the students ' writings have  the effective role in maintaining the main logical ideas in English writings

2- Unrelated SPTs can lead to digression and incoherence.