Rina Rahmaningsih

Rina Rahmaningsih

Class               : 3c

NPM                : 10211210037

Steps of Procedural Text

As we know, in the daily activity we almost find or use procedural text of written or orally. How do make a cake. How we can achieve our dream. How get the place. In the procedural text there are materials or ingredients, there are steps how to make something that we want. In the Steps (instructions) comprise procedures and are sequential. Decide what a reader needs to do first, next, and last. Write clearly and number the steps so that a reader understands exactly what to do. Verbs do most of the work in instructions. Use imperatives when writing steps, and reserve participles and gerunds for lists. Introduce steps with one of the following constructions, making sure that you create an effective context for the procedure:

• Full paragraph

• Complete sentence that ends with a period

• Complete sentence that ends with a colon

• Sentence fragment that ends with a colon

In the book that I have read exactly “Writing Academic English”, I found about aim or goal of procedural text, material of procedural text. Genre of procedural text

ü  Social Function : to describe how something is accomplished through a sequence of actions or steps

ü  Generic structure:

-          Goal

-          Materials

-          Steps

-          The frame

-          The Covering:

1. The first, you need to grow plants from seed or buy young plants

2. Next, break up any large clods of earth with a trowel.

3. After that, dig several small holes for your plants with the trowel

Procedural text tells about explanation of getting something. I think if we learn about procedural text, we do not also writing but we also learn about speaking, because we can tell procedural text orally.

Capitalizing and Punctuating Step

Unlike lists, steps always should be complete sentences.

• Use sentence-style capitalization.

• End the sentence with appropriate punctuation.

Writing Steps

Use steps whenever you instruct a reader to complete a task.

• Never bury steps in a paragraph.

• Always use numerals and letters (for sub-steps) when a procedure comprises two or more steps.

• Use single-step procedures, when needed, but don't number them.

If you assign a numeral "1" to a single-step procedure, a reader looks for "2" and may think you incorrectly omitted a second step. To avoid this, you can indicate a single-step procedure by replacing the "1" with a glyph, such as a solid triangle or an arrow before the step.

• If a reader must perform different actions depending upon the outcome of a step, use bullets to show the alternatives (use letters to show sub-steps).

• Determine the correct order in which to present the steps.

• Write each step as a complete, correctly punctuated sentence.

• Begin steps with an active verb in the imperative form.

For example, "Click the Open button." "Press the Standby switch to turn off the power."

·         Provide as many visual cues to a reader as you can, and tell a reader what is supposed to happen after each step.

For example, show a reader the screen that is displayed after successful completion of the step, or describe the screen.

• Don't combine two tasks into one step.

An exception to this guideline is when you conclude a step with "and press Return," because that keystroke is a necessary component of the step. However, if all steps in a procedure conclude with "and press Return," you could inform a reader of this in the text that introduces the procedure, and eliminate the redundancy from the steps.

• Avoid redundancy in the text.

For example, "check to make sure" is a redundancy that creeps into many steps. You don't need to tell the writer to "check," only to "make sure."

• Avoid cross-references in the instructions.

When performing a task, readers may become frustrated if they have to frequently flip through pages or go to another document to find required information.

For example, a typical format for a procedure could be:

To open the disk drive enclosure:      

1. Remove the Phillips-head screw from the center rear of the drive.

2. Press in the tabs on the left and right sides of the enclosure. The tabs are near the air vents on the enclosure.

3. Remove the acoustic foam that covers the disk drive. The foam has finger holes for you to use for quick removal.

I found about procedural text in some books that are different. In the first one, tell about the aim or the goal of procedural text and in the second one tell about steps of procedural text. I know it still related, because if we want to make procedural text we have to know about the generic structures of procedural text. As I have explained in the first paragraph procedural text not only written but also it can do orally, because in our life we almost use procedural to get something. In some source like internet I found about how to make paper, it also called procedural text, because there are many steps to get it. Principal we have to know wherever and whenever we speak about how to get something, insensibly we always use procedural text. And it is easy.

A procedural text has a formal:

ü  Recipes usually have the information presented in at least two basic groups: ingredient and method.

ü  Games instructions usually include instructions on how to play, rules of the game, method of scoring and the number of players.

ü  Scientific experiment, equipment that you need, procedure, observations and conclusion.

The conclusion is procedural texts are part of our daily life. That tell us how something is done through steps or actions. We often use procedural text, even though we rarely realize it. The examples are when we follow the instructions of a recipe on television, read a manual on, how to turn on a CD, do a simple scientific experience, etc. Do not make sentence that is same in the other paragraph, because it happen redundancy in the text. We have to know about this text, because in the daily activity we always use procedural text unconsciously.