Overview: Development & Support
The ACT Writing section is an optional fifth section where you write an argument essay. Before signing up, check with your target colleges or scholarship organizations to confirm whether they require it.
For this essay, you'll respond to a prompt that presents a debatable topic along with multiple perspectives. Your thesis takes a stance on the issue, typically aligning with one of the provided perspectives.
Two graders score your essay across four rubric categories: Ideas & Analysis, Development & Support, Organization, and Language Use & Conventions. Each grader gives a score of 1–6 per category, and the two graders' scores are combined. Your final Writing score (2–12) is the average of those combined category scores.
This guide focuses on how to earn the highest score possible on the Development & Support criterion.
Tips & Strategies Using the ACT Rubric
According to the ACT rubric, a score of 6 on Development & Support requires three things:
- Developing ideas and supporting claims that deepen insight and broaden context
- Integrating your line of reasoning and conveying the argument's significance
- Incorporating qualifications and complications that strengthen your ideas and analysis
Each of these areas plays a distinct role in your essay. Here's how to tackle them.
Developing Ideas & Supporting Claims
Every body paragraph needs evidence that backs up your reasoning. Without it, graders are left guessing at what you mean. Strong evidence makes your logic visible and persuasive.
A practical approach: when you address a perspective you disagree with, provide a concrete example that illustrates why that perspective falls short. Then explain the flaw. This shows you can engage critically with opposing views, not just dismiss them.
Finding examples under time pressure. One of the biggest challenges is coming up with evidence on the spot. Here's the good news: the ACT does not fact-check your essay (unless something is absurdly wrong, like claiming 2 + 2 = 5). You can fabricate plausible-sounding examples. The key word is plausible. If your made-up example sounds outlandish, graders may find it unconvincing rather than supportive.
For example, you could write: "A Harvard University study found that climate change could push millions into poverty by 2050." Citing a reputable-sounding source builds credibility, even if the specific statistic isn't verified.
One useful acronym for brainstorming evidence is REHUGO:
- Reading (books, articles you've read)
- Entertainment (pop culture, movies, TV)
- History (historical events and figures)
- Universal Truths (widely accepted general ideas)
- Government / current events
- Observations (personal anecdotes or everyday experiences)
Run through this list when you're stuck, and you'll almost always find something usable.
Practice With a Sample Prompt
Sample Prompt: Intelligent Machines
Many of the goods and services we depend on daily are now supplied by intelligent, automated machines rather than human beings. Robots build cars and other goods on assembly lines, where once there were human workers. Many of our phone conversations are now conducted not with people but with sophisticated technologies. We can now buy goods at a variety of stores without the help of a human cashier. Automation is generally seen as a sign of progress, but what is lost when we replace humans with machines? Given the accelerating variety and prevalence of intelligent machines, it is worth examining the implications and meaning of their presence in our lives. Read and carefully consider these perspectives. Each suggests a particular way of thinking about the increasing presence of intelligent machines.
Perspective One
What we lose with the replacement of people by machines is some part of our own humanity. Even our mundane daily encounters no longer require from us basic courtesy, respect, and tolerance for other people.
Perspective Two
Machines are good at low-skill, repetitive jobs, and at high-speed, extremely precise jobs. In both cases they work better than humans. This efficiency leads to a more prosperous and progressive world for everyone.
Perspective Three
Intelligent machines challenge our long-standing ideas about what humans are or can be. This is good because it pushes both humans and machines toward new, unimagined possibilities.
The main ideas from the prompt:
- Many daily goods and services are now supplied by intelligent machines instead of humans.
- Automation is generally seen as progress, but there's a concern about what is lost when humans are replaced by machines.
Now look at this excerpt from a sample essay that scored a 6. Pay attention to the bolded sentences, which serve as the supporting evidence:
The economic implications of the potential mechanical takeover alone should be enough to dissuade anyone from moving too fast. In the event the robots are more widely used in the workplace, humans would surely be replaced. At first, businesses would benefit from the efficiency of robots, but eventually a depressed job market would lead to a population that struggles just to feed themselves and their families, let alone purchase the products these robots make. In the long run, society will suffer if it does not take care to prevent the economic consequences of giving everything over to machines. Even in the face of these obstacles, some people argue that the increasing intelligence of today's machines is a good thing. After all, machine power can decrease the human work load. Computer processers double in power and ability every year. Computers are projected to reach human intelligence by as soon as 2025. The implications of this shift are unknown, but one thing is for certain. We are moving into this change too fast to anticipate and prevent damage to the human species. We are approaching this change too quickly for any sort of safety net to be built. Because of this, it is important that we as a species slow down our technological development so that we might consider all the implications of a change this big. We must figure out how to handle negative societal and cultural consequences before we embrace total integration of automated, intelligent machines.
Notice how the author doesn't just state an opinion. They use specific claims ("humans would surely be replaced," "Computers are projected to reach human intelligence by as soon as 2025") and then explain the consequences that follow. That's what strong development and support looks like: evidence paired with reasoning.
Integrated Line of Reasoning
Your line of reasoning is the logical backbone of your essay. Think of it this way: if someone read only your topic sentences and thesis, they should be able to follow your overall argument. That's your line of reasoning.
Here's a structure that naturally integrates your line of reasoning:
- Body Paragraph 1: Address the first perspective you disagree with. Explain why it falls short, and connect your critique back to your own thesis.
- Body Paragraph 2: Address the second perspective you disagree with. Again, show its weaknesses while reinforcing why your position holds up.
- Body Paragraph 3: Make your strongest case for your chosen perspective. Since you've already discussed it in relation to the other two perspectives, this paragraph ties everything together.
By the time you reach that final body paragraph, you've built a thread that runs through the entire essay. Each paragraph connects to the one before it, and your thesis stays present throughout. That's what the rubric means by "integrated."
Here's how the sample essay ties its reasoning together in its opening paragraph:
Advances in technology have become so widely accepted in today's culture that very few people are willing to pause to consider the consequences. People get so excited about what new technologies can offer that they forget to question whether there might be any negative effects. Without caution and deliberation, replacing the natural with the mechanical would undoubtedly be disastrous.
According to the official ACT page, this example effectively conveys the argument's significance by exploring the economic and cultural implications of blindly incorporating intelligent machines. The line of reasoning is clear: excitement about technology leads to overlooking consequences, which is dangerous.
Qualifications and Complications
This criterion is closely related to the "examining implications, complications, and tensions" piece of Ideas & Analysis, but here it's about how you develop those complications with evidence and reasoning.
A qualification is when you acknowledge a limit or condition on your own argument. A complication is when you recognize that the issue is more complex than a simple pro/con debate. Both show the graders that you're thinking critically, not just picking a side and ignoring everything else.
Some ways to do this:
- Point out something your own perspective doesn't fully address
- Concede a strength of an opposing perspective, then explain why your position still holds
- Acknowledge an unresolved tension between perspectives
See if you can spot the qualifications and complications in this excerpt:
Decreasing the speed with which we incorporate mechanical influence is important because of the potential dangers that lurk in blind acceptance. Not only does the preference of the mechanical over the natural interfere with the job market and the economy, but its use also has the potential to seriously degrade our culture as a whole. In combination with the uncertainty surrounding the increasing intelligence of machines, it is most assuredly better for the human species that technological progress be slowed so that we can, if necessary, prevent additional damage.
According to the official ACT page, "the final body paragraph complicates the argument by conceding both the benefits of machine power and the unprecedented sophistication of modern technologies, using these concessions to reinforce the call for moderation and deliberation—as we reach new technological heights, it is even more important that we 'figure out how to handle' potential unintended consequences."
The author doesn't pretend machines have zero benefits. Instead, they acknowledge the benefits and use that acknowledgment to make their call for caution even stronger. That's the kind of nuance that earns a 6.
Conclusion
Development and Support comes down to three things: give concrete evidence for your claims, maintain a clear logical thread from paragraph to paragraph, and show you understand the complexity of the issue. Do those three things with specific examples and thoughtful reasoning, and you'll put yourself in strong position on this rubric criterion.