Examples that show the thinking.
534 examples and lessons to explore. Find an approach, follow the thinking, and try it in your own writing.
Why Clear Recycling Instructions Matter
An evidence-based explanation of how recycling instructions affect contamination, why collection options differ, and how households and recycling systems share responsibility.
GRE Issue Essay on Beginners’ Contributions Versus Expertise
This essay argues that beginners are not generally more likely than experts to make important contributions: their fresh perspectives can expose assumptions, while expertise often helps test ideas and turn them into consequential work. Whether either group is more likely depends on the field’s needs and how it evaluates challenges.
Travel and Community Roots as Paths to Understanding Others
A nuanced argument that travel can challenge assumptions, while sustained involvement in one community gives people the time and accountability needed to understand others deeply.
Preserving Wilderness Despite Economic Development
An evidence-based argument for making wilderness preservation the legal default, while allowing carefully justified exceptions for significant public needs.
Hamlet’s Rebellion Against Claudius’s Court
A literary-analysis essay arguing that Hamlet’s resistance to Claudius is driven by grief, moral uncertainty, and a need to test appearances, while also showing how his rebellion contributes to the tragedy’s wider disorder.
Should Schools Prepare Students for Specific Jobs or Adaptable Skills?
An argument that schools should build adaptable skills as a foundation while offering meaningful, focused career preparation.
Mughal India: Hindu-Muslim Cultural Interaction, c. 1450–1750
Under the Mughals, interaction between Hindu and Muslim communities contributed to artistic innovation, shared mystical traditions, and social connections across religious boundaries. The excerpt supports these cultural claims directly; the political reasons rulers might have encouraged such interaction are interpretations, not motives it explicitly attributes to them.
What Electricity Statistics Reveal About the Energy Transition
An explanatory essay on how to interpret U.S. electricity statistics, distinguishing capacity from generation and assessing the progress and limits of the energy transition.
GRE Argument: Should Students Always Question What They Are Taught?
An argumentative essay that defends persistent critical inquiry while distinguishing it from reflexive doubt: students should test claims and authority, but also build foundational knowledge and rely provisionally on well-supported expertise.
Teen Well-Being Requires More Than Restricting a Phone
An evidence-based essay argues that phone limits can help address specific harms but should be part of a broader approach that supports sleep, meaningful relationships, and teens’ ability to make informed choices.
How Should Organizations Evaluate an AI Tool Before Using It?
A developed explanatory essay argues that organizations should evaluate AI tools against defined purposes and affected users, test them in realistic conditions, and manage risk throughout deployment rather than treating a successful demonstration as proof of safety.
Jay Gatsby’s Rebellion Against Class Boundaries
A literary analysis of how Gatsby’s self-fashioning and pursuit of Daisy challenge class boundaries while revealing the limits of wealth as a route to acceptance.