The objective of the study is to find the empirical evidence of the types of errors and sources of errors which were made by the first grade students of SMA KARTINI Jakarta in their recount text writing. The population of this study was the first grade students which consist of 70 students and the sample was 20 students taken randomly. In this study the writer used descriptive analytical method. The writer administered a guided task on recount text writing. Meanwhile, to differentiate error and mistake, the writer asked the students to do the same task on different day. The students wrote a paragraph based on the instruction which was prepared by the writer. After getting the data, the writer analyzed the errors based on the grammatical aspects. The study showed that the most typical errors done by the first grade students were in verb tense area with 15.4%.Error in word choice area with 13.6%. Error in capitalization area with 12.2%, error in article area with 3.6%, error in punctuation area with 3.4 % and error in add a word area with 3%. According to the typical errors above, the writer found that the most sources which cause the students making errors are intralingual transfer with 40%, communication strategies with 36%, interlingual transfer with 22%, and context of learning with 2%.