Development and Support
Earning the claim
Development asks whether claims are earned. A developed essay moves from assertion to evidence to explanation: it states a point, supplies a concrete example, statistic, or scenario, and then explains why that material supports the point. Support should be specific - 'a survey of 400 students in the district' is better than 'many students' - and relevant to the exact claim. Explanation is the step candidates skip most often; evidence does not speak for itself.
Traps
- Bare assertion. 'Community service helps everyone' with no mechanism or example.
- Evidence dump. Three examples in a row with no analysis between them.
- Hypothetical only. Imagined scenarios can illustrate, but an essay built entirely on 'imagine if...' feels thin.
- Restatement. Repeating the thesis in different words is not development.
- Overbroad scope. A claim about 'all students everywhere' needs more support than one local example can give.
Worked example
Claim: 'Requiring service exposes students to people unlike themselves.' Evidence: 'A student who tutors at a shelter meets children whose schools, housing, and family schedules differ from her own.' Explanation: 'That contact is hard to manufacture in a classroom, and it makes abstract debates about poverty concrete.' The explanation names why the example matters, which is what earns the point.
Rule of thumb
For each body paragraph, underline the sentence that explains the evidence. If nothing is underlined, the paragraph is probably a list of assertions and needs an explanation sentence.