Giving Examples
An example—the word comes from the Latin exemplum, “one thing chosen from among many”—is a typical instance that illustrates a whole type or kind. Giving examples to support a generalization is probably the most often used means of development. This example, from In Search of Excellence (Harper and Row, 1982) by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr., explains the success of America’s top corporations:
Although he’s not a company, our favorite illustration of closeness to the customer is car salesman Joe Girard. He sold more new cars and trucks, each year, for eleven years running, than any other human being. In fact, in a typical year, Joe sold more than twice as many units as whoever was in second place. In explaining his secret of success, Joe said: “I sent out over thirteen thousand cards every month.”
Why start with Joe? Because his magic is the magic of IBM and many of the rest of the excellent companies. It is simply service, overpowering service, especially after-sales service. Joe noted, “There’s one thing that I do that a lot of salesmen don’t, and that’s believe the sale really begins after the sale—not before. . . . The customer ain’t out the door, and my son has made up a thank-you note.” Joe would intercede personally, a year later, with the service manager on behalf of his customer. Meanwhile he would keep the communications flowing.
Notice how Peters and Waterman focus on the specific, Joe Girard. They don’t write corporation employees or even car salespeople. Instead, they zero in on one particular man to make the point come alive.
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This ladder of abstraction moves from the general—America’s top corporations—to a specific person—Joe Girard. The specific example of Joe Girard makes closeness to the customer concrete to readers: he is someone readers can relate to. To check the level of specificity in a paragraph or an outline, draw a ladder of abstraction for it. Do the same to restrict a broad subject to a topic for a short essay. If you haven’t climbed to the fourth or fifth level, you are probably too general and need to add specifics.
An example doesn’t have to be a specific individual. Sometimes you can create a picture of something unfamiliar or give an abstraction a personality. In this paragraph from Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change (Scribner, 2014), the authors clarify the effects of drug abuse on the brain, after referring to the fried-egg image from the old “This is your brain on drugs” advertisements:
Our colleague John Mariani, M.D., an addiction psychiatrist, teacher, clinician, and researcher at Columbia University, suggests we think of a broken leg instead of a fried egg. A bone breaks, and with help—a cast and crutches to prevent reinjury while the person returns to a normal routine, physical therapy to regain strength and flexibility, and family and friends to help and to keep up morale—the bone heals and the person can work, play, run, and jump again. The leg may be more vulnerable to breaking after all that, and the person will need to take care to protect it, but the person can adapt and, for the most part, the body heals. The brain is no exception. Given help and time, therapy and sometimes medication, concerted effort, and measures to safeguard against returning to substance use, brains do heal from the effects of drugs—perhaps not without a trace, but with enough resilience to justify optimism.
For ways to generate ideas, see Ch. 19.
An example isn’t a trivial doodad you add to a paragraph for decoration; it is what holds your readers’ attention and makes an idea concrete and tangible. To give plenty of examples is one of the writer’s chief tasks, and you can generate more at any point in the writing process. Begin with your experience, even with an unfamiliar topic, or try conversing with others, reading, digging in the library, or browsing on the Web.
DISCOVERY CHECKLIST
Are your examples relevant to your main idea or thesis?
Are your examples the best ones you can think of? Will readers find them strong and appropriate?
Are your examples truly specific? Or do they just repeat generalities?
From each paragraph, can you draw a ladder of abstraction to at least the fourth level?
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Learning by Doing Giving Examples
Learning by Doing
Giving Examples
To help you get in the habit of thinking specifically, fill in a ladder of abstraction for five of the following general subjects. Then share your ladders with classmates, and compare and contrast your specifics with theirs.
Examples:
| art | favorite foods | sports |
| books | movies | television |
| clothes | music | vacations |
| college courses | pets or wild animals | videos |