The Students’ Writing Ability of Argumentative Essay at English Department of Universitas Negeri Padang

Abstract

Writing as a productive language skill take a part important role in the curriculum of English. In academic field, ideas are mostly conveyed through writing instead of speaking, because they are more visible and last longer in written form. Argumentative essay is one of the genres studied by students of English education department at Universitas Negeri Padang. The students are commanded in creating and writing an argumentative essay. This research aimed to analyze the ability of students’ writing. argumentative essay. The subject in this study was the third-year students of English in Universitas Negeri Padang. Twenty five students were selected as samples. This study was used descriptive research. The research data came from the document of students’ writing final test to get the ability of students in writing an argumentative essay. There were twenty five documents that had been analyzed based on Brown’s indicators. It consists of content, organization, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics. The finding of this study showed that the ability of English education department students were good (68,7). It indicated that the students should increase their ability in writing argumentative essay properly.