AN ANALYSIS ON THE ABILITY OF THE THIRD YEAR STUDENTS AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY IN WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

Abstrak

Abstract

The background of the problem in this research was that the third year students got difficulties in writing argumentative essay. This research was aimed at describing the ability of the third year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University in writing argumentative essay dealing with content, organization ideas, vocabulary, grammar and mechanics. The design of this research was descriptive in nature. The total population were 112 students. The researcher took 30 students as the sample by using cluster random sampling technique. It means that the percentage of the member of sample was 27%. The researcher used writing test in the form of essay to collect the data. The test was try out to the students out of the sample since the instrument was categorized non-standard test. The researcher used inter-rater technique to know the reliability of the test. The reliability index of the test was 0.84. It was categorized very high correlation. It means that the instrument was reliable. Generally, the result of this research showed that the ability of the third year students in writing argumentative essay was moderate (22 students). In specific, there were 16 students had moderate ability in writing a good content, 19 students had moderate ability in organizing ideas, 19 students had moderate ability in using vocabulary, 21 students had moderate ability in using grammar, and 23 students had moderate ability in applying mechanics. Based on the findings above, it could be concluded that the third year students’ ability in writing argumentative was moderate.

Key words: Ability, Writing, Argumentative essay