Anecdotes (brief stories) and examples can be especially effective as evidence because they appeal to readers’ values and feelings. Jessica Statsky, for instance, relates an anecdote about a seven-year-old Peewee Football player who made himself vomit to avoid playing. This anecdote delivers the message powerfully, but it also runs the risk of being perceived by readers as exaggerated or emotionally manipulative. Examples can also bring home the writer’s claims, making them more concrete, graphic, and convincing, as Statsky does when she reports “a brawl among seventy-five parents following a Peewee Football game” (par. 8). Because examples are isolated instances, however, they do not necessarily prove the general rule. To get around this, Statsky introduces this example as one of many “horror stories” to suggest that it is not all that unusual, but a fairly typical incident that should be taken seriously as evidence to support her position.