Organizing Your Ideas

The three reasons that you have selected from your brainstorming list will be the subjects of the body paragraphs in your ACT essay. You will need to transform each of the reasons into a topic sentence to introduce the paragraph, and you will need to support each reason with different types of evidence or details which represent the development of each paragraph. So first let’s look at a simple outline of what your ACT essay should look like.

1. Introduction:
   a) Salutation (Dear….)
   b) Situation, proposals and criterion for judgment
   c) Take a position
   d) At least one reason to support position
   
   
2. First Body Paragraph: Reason #1
   a) Topic sentence about first reason
   b) Supporting Details (Examples, facts, statistics, descriptive images, definitions, cause and effect relationships)
   c) Closing sentence that relates the reason to the criterion for judgment
   
   
3. Second Body Paragraph: Reason #2
   a) Topic sentence about second reason
   b) Supporting Details (Examples, facts, statistics, descriptive images, definitions, cause and effect relationships)
   c) Closing sentence that relates the reason to the criterion for judgment
   
   
4. Third Body Paragraph: Reason #3
   a) Topic sentence about third reason
   b) Supporting Details (Examples, facts, statistics, descriptive images, definitions, cause and effect relationships)
   c) Closing sentence that relates the reason to the criterion for judgment
   
   
5. Conclusion:
   a) Restate your position
   b) Summarize each reason in relation to the criterion for judgment
   c) Request that the person receiving the letter support your position
   d) Thank the reader