Written Argumentation Skills of University Students

Habilidades de argumentación escrita en la universidad

Abstract

In this article we present the results of a research work done in a doctoral thesis. In this case we concentrate in the results obtained so far with respect to the analysis of a part of the total corpus of the doctoral thesis; specifically, it is the descriptive analysis of 28 argumentative texts written by a group of first-year students of Linguistics Program at the University of Sonora, who participated in two work sessions with various activities -such as reading, oral discussion and exposition of information-, which resulted in two versions of a text for each student. The objective of the research is to describe how the students elaborate the arguments to defend their points of view over a general controversial topic, as well as to analyze the changes that appeared between each version of the texts elaborated in the two phases of the composition process. Methodologically, the texts were first analyzed from a pragmatic-dialectical framework of argumentation, which consists in transferring the texts to a graphic version, so that the general structure of the texts can be then analyzed by making visible the different argumentative elements that the students used to construct the defense of their points of view. The results showed that in the texts of the first working session, students used a moderate amount of total argumentative elements, but the diversity of types was limited. On the other hand, in the texts resulting in the second working session there was a general increase, both in the amount of total elements used and in the diversity of these, which was reflected mainly in the inclusion of components that imply a certain degree of awareness about the existence of a critical audience that may question their opinion.