Persuasive writing is one of the main writing genres secondary students are required to master. However, while the students can naturally argue verbally and in an informal setting, they lack the skill to compose a persuasive argument for academic purposes. The main problem is that students can barely construct an argument while composing a persuasive essay. The objectives of this study are to verify the effectiveness of the secondary students’ arguments according to Toulmin’s Model. A sample size of 150 students from three different secondary schools in the Klang area was chosen for this study. The students were instructed to write an essay according to a set of essay prompts provided by the researcher. The Toulmin’s Model was employed as the main tool to analyze the essays to tag and label the persuasive elements that were used by the students while writing the essays. The findings reveal that the students are mostly able to apply the basic persuasive elements (grounds, claims and warrant) but do not take full advantage of the optional elements (qualifier, rebuttal and backing). It is concluded that new strategies and a new model need to be proposed to help train the students to improve their persuasive writing skills.

中文翻译：

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为中学建立有说服力的写作模式

说服性写作是中学生必须掌握的主要写作类型之一。但是，尽管学生可以自然地在非正式场合进行口头辩论，但他们缺乏为学术目的撰写有说服力的论据的技巧。主要的问题是，学生在撰写有说服力的论文时几乎无法构造论据。本研究的目的是根据Toulmin模型验证中学生论证的有效性。本研究选择了巴生地区三所不同中学的150名学生作为样本。根据研究人员提供的一组论文提示，指导学生写论文。Toulmin模型被用作分析论文的主要工具，以标记和标记学生在撰写论文时使用的说服力元素。调查结果表明，学生大部分能够运用说服力的基本要素（理由，主张和保证），但没有充分利用可选要素（限定词，反驳和支持）。结论是，需要提出新的策略和新的模式来帮助训练学生提高说服力的写作技巧。