Correlation Between Lexical Richness and Overall Quality of Argumentative Essays Written by English Department Students

This study aims at revealing the contribution of diction to the overall quality of argumentative essays written by 42 EFL students. The researcher compared two sets of scores, the score of students’ lexical richness, measured with LFP (Lexical Frequency Profile), and the score of overall quality of EFL students’ argumentative essay, using analytical scoring rubric. The small and not significant correlation (ñ=.18, sig=.23) implied that diction had small contribution to the overall quality of the essay. There might be another factor related to the diction that supports the quality of written text. Thus, further research is needed to be conducted.