The Argumentative Essay: An Evaluation of Indonesian University Learners' Writing in English

By the time students majoring in English at Indonesian universities reach the fourth semester, they have already studied the language for almost two years. At this stage, students are expected to be able to produce a well-structured, organized, coherent essay in English. For this sake, this study wa...

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Published inAsian EFL journal (Busan) Vol. 28; no. 3.2; p. 162
Main Authors Sinar, T Silvana, Putri, Liza Amalia, Putri, Dian Marisha
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Busan Time Taylor Publishing 01.06.2021
Subjects
Agreement (Grammatical)
Argumentation
College students
English as a second language learning
Essays
Paragraphs
Punctuation
Second language writing
Indonesia
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Summary:By the time students majoring in English at Indonesian universities reach the fourth semester, they have already studied the language for almost two years. At this stage, students are expected to be able to produce a well-structured, organized, coherent essay in English. For this sake, this study was set out to examine if this case is true with 120 students of the English departments at four different universities in Medan, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia. At least two types of errors are most frequently occurring in the writing of these students apart from poor organization of the essays. These are errors in subject-verb agreement and punctuation. Out of the sample of 120 essays, only one essay showed complete organization, introductory paragraphs. For some other essays, many parts of the essay such as the body, counterargument, etc., were missing in their essays. Moreover, in some other essays the concluding paragraph is not probably drawn. With all these shortcomings, the essays are not well developed and considered incomplete.
ISSN:1738-1460