Writing a strong and supported essay takes more than just advanced vocabulary and a plethora of facts . A strong example of this is the article "The Challenge of Exploring Venus". The author did not support his topic very well, because he didn't support his main idea enough, he strayed away from the topic many times, and his information is an abundance of opinions and assumptions.

First, the author brings up his topic of " Studying Venus is a worhty pursuit despite the dangers it presents". Despite this, the author only gave one full paragraph, out of the eight he wrote, on why humans would want to explore the planet ; he then preceeded to go onto the dangers of Venus, rather than why it is worth exploring. Secondly, the author ,many times, rambled on about other points that had nothing to do with his main idea. The author gave an entire paragraph about the new technologies that NASA is working on to explore Venus, even though his main idea is about why we should send shuttles to Venus. In the article it states " Another project is looking back to an old technology called mechanical computers. These devices were first envisioned in the 1800s and played an important role in the 1940s during World War II". This entire quote has nothing to do with the topic whatsoever, which shows that the author was gettting side tracked. One reading just this quote from the article would most likely think this article is about computers,and not why humans should explore Venus. Finally, the supporting evidence that the author did bring up, weren't very factual or even well thought out. One of the points brought up was "Venus was probably covered largely with oceans and could have supported various forms of life,just like Earth". The author uses the word "probably" which means that he doesn't know this to be a fact or not. The author also wrote "Astronomers are fascinated by Venus" ; this is an opinion, seeing as some astronomers might heavily dislike venus. A good informative or arguementative essay provides facts to supports its ideas, rather than just guessing or presuming.

The author does not suport his ideas well, because he draws the reader away from the topic many times, he doesn't support his thesis very well, and the evidence he does bring up are opinions or assumptions. The author provides to much on the "danger" aspect of it, and he should focus more on the "why" aspect of his idea . So, it would be best if he looked over his essay and ,with his thesis in mind, start over from scratch.