‘Argument!’ helping students understand what essay writing is about Ursula Wingate * King’s College London, Department of Education and Professional Studies, Waterloo Rd, London SE1 9NH, UK Keywords: Argumentation Essay Genre Teaching writing abstract Argumentation is a key requirement of the essay, which is the most common genre that students have to write. However, how argumentation is realised in disciplinary writing is often poorly understood by academic tutors, and therefore not adequately taught to students. This paper presents research into undergraduate students’ concepts of argument when they arrive at university, difficulties they experience with developing arguments in their essays, and the type and quality of instruction they receive. A three-part definition which describes argumentation by what students need to learn was used as the framework for analysis. The findings show that students have only partial or incorrect concepts of argument. Many problems they encounter are caused by their lack of knowledge of what an argumentative essay requires, particularly of the need to develop their own position in an academic debate. The advice they receive does not make the requirements explicit and refers to argumentation inconsistently and vaguely. An ‘essay writing framework’, based on the three-part definition, is proposed for improving the teaching of writing. This approach puts argumentation at the centre of instruction and explains other aspects of writing according to the function they have in the development of argument. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The ‘argumentative essay’ is the most common genre that undergraduate students have to write (Wu, 2006: 330), particularly in the arts, humanities and social sciences (Hewings, 2010). Although the nature of the essay varies considerably across and even within disciplines, the development of an argument is regarded as a key feature of successful writing by academics across disciplines (Lea & Street, 1998). Nesi and Gardner (2006) found in their survey of assessed writing in 20 disciplines that a commonly recognised value of the essay is its ‘ability to display critical thinking and development of an argument within the context of the curriculum’ (p. 108). However, many students struggle with argumentation: they are either unaware that they are expected to develop an argument in their essays, or have difficulty in doing so (Bacha, 2010; Davies, 2008), often because they have acquired starkly different concepts of argument at secondary school (Andrews, 1995). At university, they receive little help, as argumentation is not explicitly taught in most undergraduate programmes in the UK (Mitchell & Riddle, 2000). General advice on academic writing is usually provided in writing guidelines presented in course handbooks, and through tutors’ feedback on student essays; however, these methods have limitations. Lea and Street (1998) found that students have difficulty in applying general writing guidelines to their particular writing contexts. Tutors’ feedback comments are often of the categorical type, such as the imperative ‘Argument!’ written in the margins of student essays (Lea & Street, 1998; Mutch, 2003). Tutors tend to use this comment vaguely when they feel that the writer has somehow breached the writing conventions expected in the discipline, to indicate ‘different deficiencies from reasoning, to referencing to structure and style’ (Mitchell & Riddle, 2000: p. 17). It has been claimed that the vague use of the term reflects * Tel.: þ44 20 78483536. E-mail address: ursula.wingate@kcl.ac.uk. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of English for Academic Purposes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap 1475-1585/$ – see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jeap.2011.11.001 Journal of English for Academic Purposes 11 (2012) 145–154