Genre analysis has been frequently employed in Malaysia to analyse undergraduate and postgraduate target discourse, particularly research articles and abstracts. On the other hand, just a few studies have been done on argumentative essays written by pre-university students taking the Malaysian University English Test (MUET). The goal of this study is to examine rhetorical moves of the argument stage in 60 argumentative essays. The major instrument utilised to assess the rhetorical structure in the assembled essays was a compiled representative corpus of argumentative essays, COMWArE. The identification of rhetorical moves was investigated using BCU approach, which is aided by a computer-assisted corpus analysis (CACA). In addition, two subject matter experts were interviewed in order to gain insider perspectives. The analysis reveals that the argument stage in argumentative essays consists of three moves and five steps. The findings of the study lend itself to providing a representative template of rhetorical organisation for organising argument stage in producing an argumentative essay. Pedagogically, this rhetorical structure is useful particularly to novice writers to better understand how argument stage is produced.