Fiveable's ACT Writing: Essay Tips and Tricks

What is the ACT Essay Section?

The ACT Essay section is an optional 40-minute writing task. You're given a topic along with three perspectives on it, and your job is to develop your own perspective and write a persuasive essay. It's scored on a scale of 2-12 across four criteria:

• Ideas and Analysis: Establish relevant ideas and engage with multiple perspectives on the issue.
• Development and Support: Explain your ideas with examples and reasoning that help the reader understand your position.
• Organization: Structure your ideas logically, use transitions between points, and write with clarity.
• Language Use: Adjust your tone and style appropriately; use proper grammar, word choice, and mechanics.

Here's a link to the official ACT rubric. Writing a full essay in 40 minutes sounds intense, but with the right approach, it's very doable.

Don't Stress Over Grammar

The ACT graders aren't as strict on grammar as you might expect. The official rubric says minor grammatical errors are acceptable as long as they don't hurt the clarity of your essay. That said, this isn't a free pass to ignore grammar entirely. Do your best with spelling, punctuation, and using words correctly in context. But if a small spelling mistake slips through, it won't tank your score. Spend the bulk of your mental energy on the content and structure of your argument.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The single best way to improve your ACT essay score is to practice writing under timed conditions as often as you can. You don't always need official ACT prompts either. AP History FRQs (free-response questions) are great practice because they require you to build an argument and support it with evidence. Generic argumentative essay prompts work too.

The real value of practice comes from review. After you write, have a friend or teacher read it and give honest feedback. Identify your weaknesses so you can target them next time. For example, if your reader can't figure out what your position is, you know to focus on writing a clearer thesis. Repeated practice also builds your time management skills, which matters a lot when you only have 40 minutes.

Plan Ahead

Some test-takers start writing the moment the clock begins, thinking it saves time. In reality, spending 5-8 minutes planning before you write tends to produce a better, more organized essay and actually saves time overall. Organization is one of the four scoring criteria, and if you figure out your structure as you go, your essay will likely feel scattered.

Here are two planning strategies:

• Write your thesis first. If you don't have a solid thesis, the rest of your essay won't hold together no matter how well you write. Your thesis establishes your perspective on the topic and gives the reader a clear sense of your argument. A strong thesis directly states your position and hints at your reasoning.
• Plan your reasons and counterargument before writing. Come up with three supporting reasons and one counterargument. Jot them down quickly so you have a roadmap for the whole essay. This makes transitions between paragraphs much easier.

A strong essay structure places the counterargument before your final body paragraph, not right before the conclusion. This way, you end on your strongest point, which reinforces your perspective. Here's an outline:

1. Introduction: hook, thesis, transition
2. Body 1: reason 1, evidence, explanation, transition
3. Body 2: reason 2, evidence, explanation, transition
4. Counterargument: acknowledge the other side, explain it fairly, refute it with evidence and reasoning, transition
5. Body 3: your strongest reason, evidence, explanation, transition
6. Conclusion: restate thesis in a fresh way, call to action or final takeaway

Understand and Use Literary Devices

Engaging the reader matters for your Language Use score. Two specific things to focus on: sentence variation and word choice. Literary devices can help with both.

Techniques like alliteration, similes, metaphors, rhetorical questions, and allusions can make your writing more compelling. You don't need to force them in everywhere, but using them naturally adds variety and helps set the tone. For instance, a well-placed rhetorical question in your introduction can hook the reader, and a strong metaphor can make an abstract argument feel concrete.

The goal isn't to write poetry. It's to avoid flat, repetitive sentence patterns. Mix short, punchy sentences with longer ones. Vary your sentence openings. These small moves make your essay more readable and show the graders you have control over your writing.

Read

Strong vocabulary and a feel for good sentence structure come from reading. The best way to build your writing skills over time is to read widely. Published writing of any kind, whether it's novels, news articles, or essays, exposes you to grammar patterns, argument structures, and new words in context.

One caution: only use advanced vocabulary when it genuinely fits. Dropping in big words to sound impressive can backfire if it makes your writing unclear or awkward. Use a word because it's the right word, not because it's the biggest word.

Reading Recommendations:

• Classics (To Kill a Mockingbird, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby): These build your sense of structure, tone, and literary technique.
• Political news: This site covers controversial issues from multiple political perspectives. It's great for seeing how different sides use evidence to argue persuasively.
• Scientific articles: Shows how evidence supports claims in a structured way. You'll also pick up useful vocabulary.

Good Luck

Your score doesn't define your worth. What matters is that you prepared, practiced, and gave it your best effort. Keep writing, keep reading, and you'll see improvement.