CRITICAL THINKING IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ WRITING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS

Writing, particularly argumentative writing, is one method for teaching critical thinking. All stages of writing an argumentative essay necessitate critical thinking on the part of the writers. University students are the most appropriate subject for this study regarding the importance of critical thinking in writing argumentative essays. As a result, the subject of this research is students in the English Department at Hanoi University of natural resources and Environment during the 2021 academic year. The study aims to identify how students use critical thinking to construct argumentative essays and describe how critical thinking is reflected in students' argumentative essays. This study is a descriptive qualitative study. The findings of this study can be divided into two categories. First, the students had effectively reflected their critical thinking by incorporating the critical thinking characteristics proposed by Cottrell's theory into their argumentative essays. In the second point, the students used critical thinking to construct an argumentative essay very well, particularly in selecting the topic, organising the arguments, and resolving problems that they encountered while constructing the essay. Finally, the students' critical thinking skills were put to good use in writing an argumentative essay. The results of this study may pave the way for further studies on how critical thinking is integrated to develop students' practical language skills in the future.