Process: Exemplification Essay

Ideas for Exemplification Essays

Which part of the process are you working on?

• Pre-writing (getting started)
• While-writing
• Post-writing

PRE-WRITING (GETTING STARTED)
Journal Ideas (from Moves Writers Make by James C. Raymond.)

1. Regardless of your race or gender, you are a member of a minority: you might be left-handed, or blonde, or an athlete, or a musician, or a member of a particular religious denomination, or gifted in some way, or challenged. Whatever minority you are a part of is almost certain to be stereotyped by people who do not know it well.
Choose one of the many minority groups to which you belong and explain how it feels when people treat you in a certain way because of your minority status. Use examples—instances or anecdotes—to illustrate your ideas. (195)

2. Try your hand at a "what-if" essay—an essay that speculates about what would happen if we were invaded by space aliens, or if a woman were elected president, or if medical science made it possible for us to live forever. Paint a picture of this speculative future by telling one or more likely stories, either true or fictitious. (203)

3. Something unusual happens where you live, and it happens often. Something unusual happens where everyone lives. What is it in your case? What sort of behavior or event makes you think, "Only here—only in this residence—does this sort of thing happen with such frequency"? (207)

4. What is your favorite spectator activity? Make a list of memorable instances and examples that will persuade other people that this activity is worth watching. Think of your audience as people who, for specific reasons, do not enjoy watching this activity, and try to frame your essay in a way that will address their concerns. (212)

Other Ideas (from The Macmillan Reader by Judith Nadell et al.)

• Many of today's drivers have dangerous habits.
• One rule of restaurant dining is, "Management often seems oblivious to problems that are perfectly obvious to customers."
• Children today are not encouraged to use their imaginations.
• The worst kind of hypocrite is a religious hypocrite.
• he best things in life are definitely not free.
• _______ (name someone you know well) is a _______ (use a quality: open-minded, dishonest, compulsive, reliable, gentle, and so on) person.
• TV commercials stereotype the elderly (or some other group).
• Pettiness, jealousy, and selfishness abound in our daily interactions with each other.
• You can tell a lot about people by observing what they wear and eat.
• Too may Americans are overly concerned with being physically fit.
• Some teachers seem to enjoy turning tests into ordeals.
• What is life like in a small town (or big city)?
• It's a wonder that college students survive with all the stresses that they have to put up with.
• What are the three best consumer products of the past twenty-five years? (268-69)

WHILE-WRITING (DRAFTING)
A Recipe for Writing Exemplification (from Moves Writers Make by James C. Raymond)

1. Exemplification is the use of stories or analogies to explain or to prove a point. For example, it is often used politics.

2. People arguing for or against any proposed law or policy are bound to give examples or precedents to indicate how the rule makes sense (or fails to make sense) because of the way it affects individuals or groups whose cases are represented by the examples.
Here is a recipe for writing an exemplification essay:

• Pick an issue of current interest about which you have a firm opinion based on personal experience.
• Tell one extended story or several brief stories illustrating why you feel the way you do about the issue at hand.
• Do not hesitate to add fictional stories, but make sure not to present these stories as if they were true.
• Arrange your stories in the sequence that will best maintain the interest of your reader.
  After you've written the body of the paper, add an introduction and an ending. (Holt Handbook, Chapter 6f).
• Show a draft to fellow students in a formal or informal workshop, and see if your strategies are having the effects you want them to have. Use the checklist [below] to focus your discussion. (217)

POST-WRITING (REVISING)
So What and the Seven Common Moves (from Moves Writers Make by James C. Raymond)

1. The So-What Factor.

• What does the writer want you to know, understand, feel, or believe after reading the essay? Does the writer's interpretation of the subject earn your interest?
• Beginning. What moves does the writer make to create interest at the beginning?
• Ending. What moves does the writer make to give the essay a sense of an ending?
• Detail. Look for examples of the writer's eye and the writer's ear at work. Look for examples of showing and telling. Look for generalizations that are not supported by specific evidence. Would the essay be improved by adding details, stories, examples, or explanations at those points?
• Organization/Plot. Are the various parts of the essay arranged in a sequence that makes sense? Does the writer sustain a sense of unfinished business until the end?
  Style. Name or describe the writer's best moves.
• Voice/Attitude. How would you characterize the writer's attitude (angry, serious, detached, playful)?What sort of person do you imagine the writer to be? Is the voice too formal or not formal enough for the purposes of this particular essay?
• Economy. Test for economy by looking for words, phrases, or details that could be omitted without being missed.