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‘Many arguments’: L2 postgraduate students’ task representations in critical reading and argumentation for MA essay assignments


For writing argumentative essays, second-language postgraduate students must have a comprehensive task representation for academic argumentation - i.e., they must understand their audience, the purpose of argumentation, and how to critically review and contribute to the literature. Despite the importance of this theme, researchers have focused on L2 postgraduate students’ citation and writing strategies. To fill a gap in research, this study investigated how two successful L2 postgraduate learners conducted critical reviews of literature for argument construction. The approach to thematic analysis developed by Braun and Clarke (2006) was applied to analyse the interview data. The findings suggested that the two learners’ awareness of critical reading increased as they planned their essays for the academic audience. As they read selected review articles, they became more adept at participating in academic debate and were able to critically review researchers’ previous studies, and effectively use evaluation in their academic arguments.