Mapping Syntactic Vulnerabilities in Thesis Writing among Islamic Religious Education Students: A Three-Level Error Profile

Abstract

Syntactic accuracy is essential to the clarity, coherence, and effectiveness of academic writing, yet undergraduate thesis drafts may contain structural problems that extend beyond isolated grammatical errors. This study aims to identify and interpret syntactic problems in thesis writing among Islamic Religious Education students and to map these problems into a three-level profile of syntactic vulnerabilities. A descriptive qualitative approach with a language error analysis design was employed. The data consisted of phrases, clauses, and sentences identified in three undergraduate thesis drafts. Data were collected through documentation and note-taking and analyzed through identification, classification, description, correction, and interpretation based on Indonesian grammatical standards. The analysis identified 30 reported syntactic problems distributed across phrase, clause, and sentence levels. Phrase-level problems primarily involved redundancy, overlapping expressions, and inappropriate prepositional selection, reflecting weaknesses in syntactic economy and selection. Clause-level problems involved dependency relations, relative constructions, and conjunctional overmarking, indicating difficulties in dependency control. Sentence-level problems concerned introductory structures, parallelism, and coordination-subordination patterns, reflecting weaknesses in sentence architecture. The study proposes a three-level syntactic error profile that moves beyond cataloguing incorrect forms toward diagnosing broader areas of syntactic vulnerability in thesis writing. The profile offers practical implications for academic-writing instruction, thesis supervision, and analytical revision, while emphasizing the importance of contextual linguistic judgment in evaluating and correcting student writing.