1. Exemplification: Writing Essays With Vivid Examples and Illustrations

2. Why We Use Examples
To persuade skeptical readers who are reluctant to accept your viewpoint
To show a causal relationship
To be more interesting and take the reader beyond a telling statement
Help to explain or clarify an abstraction
To avoid unintended ambiguity

3. Forms of Examples Specific names (people, places, products) Anecdotes
Personal observations
Expert opinions (from outside sources, interviews)
Facts
Statistics
Case studies via research

4. Example Types Personal-case examples Typical-case examples
Hypothetical examples
Generalized examples
Extended examples

5. 1. Personal-experience Examples
From your own life
Lend personal authority
Create drama

6. 2. Typical-case Examples
Objective in nature: can be especially convincing
About an actual event/situation, but you didn’t directly experience it.
Source could be newspapers, magazines, television

7. 3. Hypothetical Examples
Speculative, but be sure it’s conceivable
Might ask the reader to imagine a scenario
Be sure to acknowledge that your example is invented
Ex: “suppose that…” or “let’s for a moment assume that…”

8. 4. Generalized Examples Composite of the typical and usual
Ex: “all of us, at one time or another, have been driven to distraction by a trivial annoyance like the buzzing of a fly or the sting of a paper cut.”
Ex: “when most people get a compliment, they perk up, preen, and think the praise-giver is blessed with astute power of observation.”

9. 5. Extended Examples Employ many details and specifics
Last an entire paragraph
Sometimes can encompass the entire essay, but must be significant to stand alone as the only example

10. Effective Examples Should:
Be relevant; Have direct bearing on the subject
Be dramatic
Be accurate (esp. When using facts, figures, statistics)
Be non-contradictory
Avoid sweeping generalizations at all costs, for they do not convince readers

11. Effective Examples Should:
Be representative: avoid oddball or one-in-a-million types of examples; They distort and are not honest
Ex: if writing a paper on the difficulties of getting through college and you use the example of a student who works 35 hours a week and still gets straight A’s, that’s not typical or representative. It does not exemplify what MOST students experience.

12. Effective Examples Should:
Use an organizational approach:
Chronological
Spatial
Simple to complex
Emphatic sequence

13. Recognize & Use Key Words
For example,
For instance,
First, second, third
Next, in addition