This study aimed to find out the critical thinking patterns of students in the argumentative essay, explain and explore students’ arguments that contain critical elements. This study used the content analysis method. Data was obtained from argumentative essays written by first-year students of Brawijaya University who took Indonesian Language courses. The total of data was 90 posts. Data collection was done by assignments and interviews. Data was analyzed using data analysis procedures from Cresswel. Three critical thinking patterns were found in the student's essay, namely pattern I (Inference-Evaluation), and pattern II (Analysis-Evaluation), pattern III (Interpretation-Evaluation). In pattern two, there were four pattern variations while there was only one pattern in patterns I and III. The results of this study indicated that students' critical thinking patterns were oriented towards analytic thinking, namely analyzing various phenomena by revealing evidence and reasons to draw logical conclusions. The pattern found can be used as a reference for writing lecturers in developing students' critical thinking skills in higher educationThis study aimed to find out the critical thinking patterns of students in the argumentative essay, explain and explore students’ arguments that contain critical elements. This study used the content analysis method. Data was obtained from argumentative essays written by first-year students of Brawijaya University who took Indonesian Language courses. The total of data was 90 posts. Data collection was done by assignments and interviews. Data was analyzed using data analysis procedures from Cresswel. Three critical thinking patterns were found in the student's essay, namely pattern I (Inference-Evaluation), and pattern II (Analysis-Evaluation), pattern III (Interpretation-Evaluation). In pattern two, there were four pattern variations while there was only one pattern in patterns I and III. The results of this study indicated that students' critical thinking patterns were oriented towards analytic thinking, namely analyzing various phenomena by revealing evidence and reasons to draw logical conclusions. The pattern found can be used as a reference for writing lecturers in developing students' critical thinking skills in higher education