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EVWDFWItislogicaltobelievethatabetterthinkerwhohasgreatercontroloverthe
thinkingprocessislikelytogetmorebenetsinhis/herlife.Forstudentsoflanguageingeneral
andofEnglishlanguageinparticular,beingabletothinkcriticallyiscrucialindeveloping
language prociency and communicative ability, which helps not only produce good
argumentativewritingbutalsojoinadebatablespeech.Inspiredbytheabovebenets,thisstudy
aimstoassessstudents’manifestationofcriticalthinkingthrough21argumentativewritings
onbothfamiliarandunfamiliartopics. Thewritings were carried outundertime pressure
duringclasshoursbythethird-yearEnglishmajorsofclass113213atHungYenUniversityof
TechnologyandEducation(UTEHY).BycombiningthemodelproposedbyStapleton(2001)and
Ennis-Weir’ssetofcriteriaintheinvestigationquantitativelyandqualitatively,theresearcher
coulddeterminewhethercontentfamiliarityplaysaroleincriticalthinking.Theresultsnot
onlyprovidetheanswertothisinquirybutalsoshowacertaingraspofcriticalthinkinginthe
students’writings.Accordingtothis,studentsneedmoretraininginbothwritingandreasoning
skillstoavoidfallingintoinconsistencyandaslipperyslope;besides,students’familiaritywith
acertaintopicsignicantlycontributestothequalityoftheirarguments.Basedonsuchresults,
someimplicationsandsuggestionsforbothlearnersandteachersarepresented.
.HRGV: critical thinking skills, writing skills, personal developments, thinking process,
argumentativewriting.
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particularly inuenced by Greek culture
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educatorsinbothrstandsecond-language
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