Short Instructions and Procedures

Short Instructions and Procedures

Objectives

Basic Competence: Understanding and responding the meanings as well as the rhetorical steps in a text using accurate, fluent and acceptable expressions in social and academic contexts in form of: short instruction and procedures.

Learn about it!

You will learn about the kinds of texts, specifically short instruction and procedures, and how to comprehend the meaning through reading.

Short Instructions

Short instructions is the type of functional texts containing sets of orders, directions, or instructions; something that has to be or not to be done.A short instruction can be a prohibition, invitation, short message, shopping list, notice, announcement, et cetera. Here, we are going to focus on discussing about short instructions.

According to its definition, an instruction is something that someone tells you to do; it contains some advice and information about how to do or use something. Often, short and clear instructions are more preferable in order to make the person who is given the instructions understand it clearly.

You may often encounter short instructions in your daily life. For instance, your teacher may give short instructions in class such as “should you have any questions, raise your hand”, or your parents say “tidy up your room” at home. But, have you ever heard about ‘Scavenger Hunt’?

A scavenger hunt is an outside game in which the participants will get a list of instructions—sometimes in riddles, and usually to collect or to find some items, often specific and unusual items.

The participants can be either individuals or teams, and the ones who finish and collect all the instructions given will get a prize. Look at the set of instructions below to complete your scavenger hunt!

Short Instructions

As you have studied earlier, a procedure text explains how to do, how to make, or how to use something. The diversity of ideas being presented in the texts ranges from simple procedures such as ‘how to make pancakes’ to complex procedures such as ‘how to defuse a bomb’. The aim of this text is to inform the readers on how to do or how to make something. The order is commonly divided into several steps.
The structure of a procedure text

·         There is a clear aim about what to make or to produce, it is usually stated in the title of the text;

·         There is a list of required ingredients, tools, or material needed to have the aim accomplished;

·         The steps are presented in an orderly clear explanation.

The language features of a procedure text

·         The present tense is used

·         Action verbs are used to make the clear idea of the necessary steps

·         Adverbs are often used in to make the steps clearer, such as “slowly”, “gently”, etc.

*Connectives are also used to make the sequence understood better.
Look at an example of a procedure text below.

Keypoints

So, we can conclude that a procedure text can be a set of instructions or directions to show steps or stages. The procedure begins with an aim or goal then followed be materials needed, and the steps of how to do such activity.