Assignment -
Write a 500-750 word essay using exemplification as the chief method of development. Using examples, exemplify ONE of the following ideas:
- Exemplify a problem that exists in your workplace
- Exemplify a problem that exists in your local government
- Exemplify bad (or good) driving habits
- Exemplify bad (or good) health habits
- Exemplify the dangers (or benefits) of social media use
(If you would like to write about a different topic, send me a message describing this other topic. I must approve the topic before you write about it because some topics might not be good for this type of essay.)
To write an exemplification essay, do the following:
- Analyze your subject from various viewpoints, coming to a better understanding of it.
- Come to some conclusion about your topic (how something works, for example, or why a particular course of action is good or bad). Determine exactly what point you are going to make and write it down in precise terms. Think about why you want to make this point.
- Construct a thesis that includes your main idea and perhaps some elements of it that will appear in your body paragraphs.
- Find examples that support your points.
- Choose examples and details that count for something, those that move the reader toward some goal.
- Make sure that your examples display all the chief features of whatever you are illustrating.
- Choose the best examples that honestly reflect the group or class they represent.
- Do not pick examples that do not support your thesis.
- Create body paragraphs that both demonstrate and explain your subject from the standpoint of your thesis. Begin body paragraphs with a topic sentence summarizing the main idea of the paragraph (what are the examples of?). Then fill up the paragraph with examples. Then end the paragraph with a summary of advice or your conclusion based on the examples provided in that paragraph.
- Organize body paragraphs in the best possible order. Do not give your examples and their details in a haphazard manner. You may use order of familiarity, climax, importance, or some other order.
If an essay develops a single example, try to have at least three important things to say about it - three areas of discussion. Each area of discussion will be one body paragraph.