This research aims at knowing: (1) the types of errors on analytical exposition texts, (2) the percentage of errors on analytical exposition texts, and (3) the causes of errors on analytical exposition texts written by the first year students of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Sebelas Maret University in the academic year 2015/2016.
The method used in this research is descriptive method. The research was carried out to the first year students of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Sebelas Maret University in the academic year 2015/2016 in March 2016. From the population, there were 22 students taken as the sample by using simple random sampling. In collecting the data, the writer used writing test of analytical exposition text. The data are analyzed by using error analysis procedure which consists of: collecting the data, identifying errors from the students’ work, describing and classifying the errors based on the errors types, explaining errors based on their sources, and evaluating errors.
The result of the study shows that the errors made by the students based on surface category taxonomy fall into the category of omission error, addition error, misformation error, and misordering error. The writer found 101 total errors consisting of 50 omission errors or 49.50% of total errors, 29 misformation errors or 28.71% of total errors, 18 addition errors or 17.82% of total errors, and 4 misordering errors or 3.96% of total errors. Omission error is the most frequent errors made by the students. It is followed by misformation error, addition error, and the last is misordering error.
The factors causing errors made by the first year students of English Education Department are: (1) interlingual transfer which is caused by the interference of their mother tongue, (2) Intralingual transfer which is a negative transfer within the target language. Thus, the teacher should minimize the cause of errors by considering those causes and trying to overcome students’ problems in writing.
Keywords: error analysis, surface category taxonomy, analytical exposition text