Journal #34: ACT Writing

The writing portion of the ACT is when you have to write an argumentative essay. Not only are you trying to convince your audience that the point of view you picked is the correct one, you are secretly trying to convince the judges that you are a writing god and deserve to get a 12 for your score. The first step to writing the essay, is to have a basic understanding of the English language. Amazingly, if your essay is not written in English, it is an automatic zero. So you can't write it in Latin, no matter how impressive that would be or how beautiful the language is. The next step is to pick a side of the question presented. Or you can pick a mixture of the two sides, but that is apparently not a good idea. The next step is to present your arguments in some sort of cohesive order, then give detailed support for your points that you brought up. Sarcasm is not advised because apparently the judges don't like that. After you present all the arguments for your side, you should address the counterarguments as well. You can state what they are and then discredit them by reiterating that your side is the right one. If you have distracting grammatical errors, not only will the judges think that you are stupid, but they will give you a low score. Best to avoid that. You also want to make sure that you have good transitions, because no matter how bad your writing is, it is always important to have good transitions. Also, you want to make sure that you have everything required for a 6, otherwise you won't get a six. It's on a holistic rubric, so that means if you leave one thing out, you automatically can't get the grade of the one that you left something out of. Apparently this is supposed to make you work harder for your score.