An Analysis on Students' Argumentative Essays Through Rhetorical Structure Theory in Class XI IPA 1 at SMA 10 Padang

This research was conducted to explain the quality of students’ argumentative essays whether they are good or poor through Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) analysis. This research was descriptive textual analysis research. The participants of this research was IPA 1 class of the eleventh grade students at SMA 10 Padang. This research used random sampling technique to define the sample of the research. To collect the data, the researcher used the writing of argumentative essay test. Then, the data were analyzed through Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) analysis where there were three indicators proposed by Mann and Thompson (1988); the connectedness, uniqueness, and completedness. The results of this research was most of the students’ argumentative essays do not have the completedness, they also lack of uniqueness and their nucleus-satellites relations are not fully connected. From the data got, it can be concluded that the quality of students’ argumentative essays in class XI IPA 1 at SMA 10 Padang is poor. Therefore, this research implies that RST analysis is suggested to be used as a tool to analyze many kinds of text because it is useful to explain how the quality of the texts themselves. The English teachers at Senior High School are suggested to give more practices in writing related to the students’ ability in producing a good quality of essays writing. And future researchers are suggested to conduct a further study related to the findings of this research and analyze other kinds of texts by using Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST).