teks

Teks is a term used in many languages to denote a written or printed piece that communicates information, ideas, or artistic expression. In everyday usage, teks can refer to any body of written material, from a novel or article to a letter or code documentation. The concept encompasses both the content and the form of writing, including structure, genre, and intended audience.

Etymology and linguistic usage distinguish teks from the physical medium. The word derives from historical roots meaning a woven or composed thing, a sense that survives in modern usage as a cohesive piece of writing. In linguistics and education, teks is studied as a unit of discourse with varying features such as coherence, cohesion, audience, and purpose. Texts can be analyzed for genre conventions, rhetorical strategies, and information organization.

In education, particularly in Indonesian-language studies, teks refers to specific types of written compositions and documents, such as teks naratif (narrative text), teks deskriptif (descriptive text), teks prosedur (procedural text), teks eksposisi (expository text), and teks laporan (report). These categories guide how information is presented and structured, from introduction and body to conclusion, with attention to audience and purpose.

In computing and publishing, teks can denote plain text or textual content in contrast to richly formatted text. Plain text is unformatted and easy to process by software, while teks kaya (rich text) supports formatting features.

The acronym TEKS is also used in a different context: Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, the public school standards for subject-matter learning in Texas, United States. This usage is unrelated to the linguistic sense of teks but shows how the same letters appear in different domains.