If I were to say to you, “Don’t use a comma before a dependent clause that begins with the word because,” would you know what I meant? Probably you would not (if so, congratulations, you brainiac). Perhaps it would be clearer if I were to say that no comma is needed in the following sentence: “I went to the store, because I was hungry.” If the second attempt to teach you how to use commas was more successful, it is because we best acquire knowledge not through rules and abstractions but through concrete examples.

Students sometimes begin their papers in the most abstract and general way possible: “Since the dawn of time, crime has been a problem for society”; “Shakespeare’s drama is timeless.” Both statements are true, but they don’t get us anywhere. To open a paper in this way is to use what can be called “hourglass organization”: start general in the introduction, then focus in on your topic and stay focused for the body of your paper, then in your conclusion branch back out into the general. The hourglass organization of a paper is not entirely devoid of virtue, and many writing instructors teach some version of it, but I find it a little rudimentary.

Instead of the hyper-general, I like to begin my papers with the hyper-specific. Because we most quickly come to understand things through examples, not rules and abstractions, I like to begin my papers with an example, or what I call an exemplar.

An exemplar is an example, but it is the example, the example that proves the rule, the rule being the argument you are making in the paper that follows the exemplar. An exemplar is an example that – by virtue of its power, clarity, and brevity – is an effective way to lead your readers into your argument, or at least into the problem you’re addressing in a paper.

In other words, the analysis in your exemplar and the argument in your paper should be congruent, if we can speak geometrically: they should have the same number of sides and angles, as it were, but be different sizes. The evidence presented in an exemplar should encapsulate a larger issue, that larger issue being the focus of your paper. The analysis in your exemplar is a tiny version of the argument in your paper because the exemplar gives a small but representative example of the evidence presented throughout your paper. Thus, the evidence and analysis you present in your exemplar might serve as a microcosm of your text and argument.

As such, an exemplar is an exercise in synecdoche, or taking a part for the whole, the part being the very specific evidence and very local analysis you present in the exemplar, the whole being all of the evidence offered throughout the paper and your argument about it. The logic behind starting a paper with an exemplar is that, if your reader can understand the very specific evidence and very focused analysis you present in your exemplar, then he or she will be well on his or her way to understanding all of the evidence and the overall argument you have to make throughout the paper.

Your exemplar should be your single best piece of evidence, whether that evidence requires quantitative or qualitative analysis. That is, your evidence for your exemplar might be a particularly stunning statistic that you can quickly introduce and analyze, or it might be an exceptionally evocative example that you can briefly narrate and unpack.

Since an exemplar is a tiny version of your argument, it goes without saying that you must know what your argument is in order to write the exemplar that leads into it. In other words, if you begin your paper with an exemplar, it should be one of the last things that you write because it should reflect your most complete understanding of the information addressed in the paper and your argument about it.

If I had to give it a number (which I hate to do), I'd say you're exemplar should be about 10% of your paper. If you're writing a five-page paper, you might have an exemplar that's about half a page; if you're writing a 25-page paper, you might use a one- to two-page exemplar.

When I write an exemplar, I spend the first two or three sentences laying out the facts (the data or the story I'm working with in my exemplar). Then I start interpreting those facts, bringing in more information as I go, alternating between information and interpretation. As I go, I try to build my exemplar up from the hyper-specific information I am working with to a general statement of the problem or tension that exists in the text I'm addressing (that is, in the document[s] or topic[s] at hand); then I end my exemplar with a provocation that forcefully yet carefully gestures forward to my argument (this final move can be a little tricky to pull off, but consider using a sentence such as, "It could be that ...," or, "It is tempting to think that ... "). Having ended my exemplar, I start a new paragraph and clearly state my text (i.e., the thing I shall be interpreting in the paper that follows), after which comes the rest of my introductory material, which may include some combination of my occasion (i.e., my literature review), my method (i.e., my theoretical perspective), and my argument (i.e., my thesis statement).

Thus, in terms of specificity and generality, an exemplar looks like a triangle, with the most specific information at the top, working down to the most general information at the bottom of the exemplar, in contrast to the upside-down triangle of introductions in the "hourglass organization" of a paper.

One way to make the analogy or leap between the evidence of the exemplar and the entire text is to take a literary technique that operates on one level – the grammatical level or the narratological level – and suggest that the same logic governs another level – the thematic level.

The more concise your passage the better. The passage used in an exemplar should not be more than a few lines, but the most useful exemplar is the one that can epitomize the logic governing a text in the short turn of a phrase.

Not every paper needs to have an exemplar. Sometimes it just doesn't work, and you shouldn't try to force it. A forced exemplar can be obnoxious and self-indulgent. Sometimes it's best just to begin directly with a nuanced statement of your text and then move into the rest of your introductory material.

It is perfectly acceptable to introduce a piece of evidence in your exemplar, then step back to cover your introductory material, and then return to that evidence from your exemplar in the body of your paper, maybe because that evidence requires further discussion, maybe because it is part of a larger set of evidence that you'd like to discuss in full.