Examples are the illustrations that support a thesis or develop a paragraph, a definition, or an idea. Examples may include facts, testimony, descriptions, and anecdotes. They not only make your writing clearer and more interesting but also help to persuade your reader that what you say is true. In the following paragraph, the incident in the movie Shane is presented as an example of the thesis stated in the first sentence.
Working on Westerns has made me aware of the extent to which the genre exists in order to provide a justification for violence. Violence needs justification because our society puts it under interdict—morally and legally, at any rate. In Shane, for example, when Shane first appears at Grafton's store, he goes into the saloon section and buys a bottle of soda pop. One of the Riker gang (the villains in the movie) starts insulting him, first saying he smells pigs (Shane is working for a farmer), then ridiculing him for drinking soda pop, then splashing a shot of whiskey on his brand new shirt with the words "smell like a man," and finally ordering him out of the saloon. Shane goes quietly. But the next time, when he returns the empty soda bottle and the insults start again, he's had enough. When Shane is told he can't "drink with the men," he splashes whiskey in the other guy's face, hauls off and socks him one, and the fight is on. — Jane Tompkins, West of Everything
(See also defining terms.)
