Randwick International of Education and Linguistics Science (RIELS) Journal Vol. 3, No. 4, December 2022 | Page 603-616 | http://www.randwickresearch.com/index.php/rielsj -603- 1 Bachelor of Arts in English Language Students, College of Arts and Sciences, Eastern Visayas State University, Tacloban City, Leyte Philippines 2 Faculty Researcher, Eastern Visayas State University, Tacloban City, Leyte Philippines *analyn.espano@evsu.edu.ph Markers in Select Electronic Essays of English Language Students | Marvic M. Casio 1 | Joan O. Sabalberino 1 | Rodel C. Tinonas 1 | | Analyn C. Españo 2,* | INTRODUCTION Writing is one macro skill that needs to be developed among university students. Proficiency in writing can lead to academic success. Few keys to good writing are language effectiveness and proper organization. Good writing likewise is characterized by focus, unity, development, correctness and coherence. A text must have a single main idea with unified, elaborated supporting ideas; must integrate a correct language syntax, and must have coherent sentences and paragraphs. The latter being the most important characteristics of good writing (Ferdanes and Fatimah, 2021). Coherence is an essential quality in writing as it can stick and logically flow ideas within the text. It is also a way that makes a composition sensible to its readers by allowing them to easily read and absorb the writer's thoughts (Putri Anggraini, 2019). And in order to achieve coherence in a text, ABSTRACT This study ascertained specific discourse markers used under the categories of contrastive, elaborative and inferential in the selected electronic essays of freshmen Bachelor of Arts in BA English Language students of a government run university in Tacloban City, Leyte, Philippines. It pinpointed the discourse markers that are used incorrectly by the freshmen students in their writings. Using a qualitative research design, the data were sourced from the sixty-two students’ electronic essays, enrolled in the History of the English Language course during the first semester of academic year 2021-2022. The essays were described, analyzed and interpreted using the framework on discourse markers developed by Fraser in 2009. Results showed that the students used restricted set of contrastive (“but” and “however”), elaborative (“and” and “furthermore”), and inferential (“because (of/this)” and “so (that)”) discourse markers (DMs). Furthermore, multiple incorrectly used DMs were also found as caused by misused, unnecessary, non-functional, and ungrammatical DMs. As use of discourse markers seemed restricted among the language students, the researchers found a gap of familiarization with other discourse markers and their functions among them, hence, limiting them to use common discourse markers (e.g. but, and, so that etc.). Moreover, students are also still incognizant with the basic functions and categorization of discourse markers which somehow affect the quality of their electronic essay outputs. KEYWORDS lexical markers; lexical expressions; language proficiency; electronic essays; writing errors. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47175/rielsj.v3i4.587