EXEMPLIFICATION ESSAY

What is an exemplification essay and how to write it?

The definition of an exemplification essay is simple: it’s an essay where you explain a
controversial subject by exploring two opposing perspectives on same issues. When
examining the question, you need to demonstrate a broad outlook on subjects while
maintaining a rational and objective approach.

Most of the published material you see online or offline on media and newspapers
include certain elements on an exemplification essay. This is easy to explain actually
because exploring a controversial topic is pretty much one of the main journalist
tasks. Thus, let’s determine the necessary elements that will easily guide you on how
to write an exemplification essay.

1. Author cares about topics

In order to explore subjects from both sides in an interesting tone and with in-depth
research, you need to be curious about subjects matter. Things with controversial
issues is that it’s always easy to spot an indifferent author. If you just present
superficial conventional thoughts you read on Wikipedia, you won’t get far. Don’t let
the word ‘essay’ fool you: it’s not an emotionless scientific work but an objective but
yet fascinating representation of a well-known controversy.

Read also: How to use plagiarism checker and instantly remove plagiarized content?

2. No strings attached, no hard feelings involved

The main thing that differs an exemplification essay from any other kind is that it’s
exploring subjects, not solving problems or judging. Your task is literally to explain,
not to pick sides and call names. However, it doesn’t mean you should stay detached
from the subject completely. Being objective doesn’t mean being dull, it just means
presenting both options and possible outcomes. You can come across good
exemplification essay example of such style in New Yorker’s long-reads.

3. Don’t go too personal

Although a good essay does carry an author’s personality, it doesn’t exactly explore
topics in regards to personal experiences. Your task is not to present your opinion
purely but to define and back your thoughts up by facts, experiments, and literature.
This also matters when you pick subjects - stay away from overly personalized
questions like: ‘What is my best school year?’ or ‘Why my university experience
wasn’t the best?’

4. Sometimes students pick one-sided topics and write biased material

For example, question ‘Is cancer bad?’ is clearly one-sided. Even if you strive to find
some positive stuff about such serious problems, you will just be misunderstood - and
honestly, rightly so. If topics is clearly designed to support one position, change it
right away.
5. Don’t be too original

A unique perspective is always valuable as long as it’s backed up and generally sane.
Coming back to the previous example, let’s just say that finding positive aspects about
cancers although is certainly possible, is really not enough to overweight all the
negative ones.

The structure of the exemplification essay

It’s the same as this of any other essay. In your first paragraph, explain issues. In your
main part, explore two contradicting thoughts in the following order: idea, arguments,
and examples. After you are done with the main part, wrap it up with a conclusion.

Now, some students, instead of just abandoning topics, just go all ways out of their
creative minds to figure something out. Short advice is: just don’t do it. Picking
serious subjects, you should understand that making stuff up is not professional and
can even walk the line between deception and offensive.

Conclusions
As you’ve seen, it really all depends on subjects. In fact, the successfully picked
funny speech topics determine at the very least 50% of your success. Hence, it’s really
worth putting some deep consideration and pick topics you are really invested in.

A good exemplification essay will examine problems from both sides, meaning
presenting arguments that say that Instagram is good, and then the ones that say
otherwise. These are not, however, emotional arguments or touchy-feely stories about
how Instagram has impacted your own life. These are rational thoughts based on
particular social phenomena and experimentally-proven data.