I saw a candidate's 20 12 college entrance examination exercise in an essay selection in Gansu Province, and the topic was "Focus on Achievement". The main part of the article gives four examples: Li He's Poem on a Thin Horse, and Poem Bag on his shoulder, which focuses on writing poems and writing timeless good sentences; Wang Xizhi forgot to eat and sleep, practiced calligraphy in Linchi and became a famous calligrapher. When Madame Curie was young, she studied meticulously and devoted herself wholeheartedly before becoming a famous scientist. Du Fu understood people's sufferings, devoted himself to writing poems and became a great poet. At the end of the article, the commentary thinks that this article is "typical and gives people a rich feeling".

Multi-purpose examples ≠ rich in content

The understanding that "many examples = rich content" is deeply rooted in the minds of some teachers and students. In practical teaching, "multi-use examples" is indeed the most frequently emphasized by some teachers when guiding writing. When marking the college entrance examination, I found that such an example is really popular.

Of course, examples can also be used in writing. The choice and clever application of a good example will undoubtedly enrich and analyze the content of the exercise, thus getting an ideal score. A good choice and clever use should be based on a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the composition questions. "Facts speak louder than words" doesn't mean that you will be convinced by the other party as long as you present the examples. You must make a rational analysis of the examples, reveal the inherent logical inevitability of the examples, or help break through the key nodes in the understanding of the topics under discussion. In short, with high-quality thinking and analysis, a composition written only by "feeling" or "sensibility" may become a simple superposition of examples, or even a fake article that looks impressive but can't stand scrutiny.

The four "examples" in Focus on Success are basically the same in form. They all summarize the examples first, and then make a simple causal analysis of the examples. Dissect one of them, and you can get a panoramic view of the leopard at a glance.

Madame Curie was meticulous and absorbed in reading when she was a child. When she was studying, her friends put a bunch of stools behind her, and when she moved them, they would fall down. But after her friends came back from playing, she was still reading and didn't realize the stool next to her. It is because of her concentration that she extracted a few grams of radium from several tons of materials and became a famous scientist. She has made brilliant achievements on the road of life.

"Focus on success" is both a topic and a central argument. This truth is also a well-known axiom, and it doesn't need to spend too much ink to prove its correctness. The four examples cited in this paper are basically from the same dimension and level. With the simplified causal inference of "concentration makes success", it is proved that the irrefutable essence of "concentration makes success" seems to be rich and rich, but in fact it is an overlapping bedstead and a monotonous list. Whether these four examples are "typical" and accurate, whether the order of these four examples is reasonable, and whether Li He and Du Fu both focus on writing poems, these four paragraphs are basically at the same level in analysis and reasoning. Such "examples" are no different from ten in the effectiveness of reasoning. To put it bluntly, such "examples" are mostly nonsense and useless. Of course, they are not "rich", but completely wordy.

There must be an internal connection between Madame Curie's burying herself in reading when she was a child and her later major scientific discoveries. The crux of the matter is, why can she be meticulous and conscientious? A clear understanding of this problem can only give beneficial inspiration to those who struggle to "concentrate" in their study, work and work, and thus miss their success, and to those who are sad and helpless because the objects of education (such as students and children) cannot "concentrate". Generally speaking, when talking about "focusing on success", the focus should be "how to focus". It's also very simple to say. First, you must be interested, and second, you must have endurance. With interest, you can have endurance and really sink. If you enjoy it, you will naturally persist for a long time without getting tired. As for how to generate interest, it is a topic that needs to be discussed in depth, and it will not be expanded here.

Excavate the internal connection between cases and arguments.

In actual writing, some candidates may think of specific examples after determining the central argument. What do we do? The only way out is to learn to process factual materials and extract abstract key information from them, which is actually the analysis method of "from concrete to abstract" that people often say.

There is an exercise called "Believe in yourself". After the author puts forward the viewpoint of "believing that they can achieve a brilliant life", he gives three examples (Lisi, Beethoven and tiger woods), but the treatment of these three materials only stays at the point of "they all believe in themselves and succeed", and the analysis is superficial, giving people a feeling of being piled up with materials. This is a typical way of writing "ideas+examples". We might as well explain and analyze the key words in the basic viewpoint and the relationship between the key words, or decompose the central argument into several aspects with internal logical relations, and then dig out the inevitable connection between "believing in yourself" and "achieving a brilliant life" from these examples, and pay attention to making each example have different emphasis when explaining the truth, so that the article written can be in-depth, profound and "three-dimensional".

Give a concrete example. In the first step, after determining the basic view that "believe in yourself to achieve a brilliant life", we should also consider the following questions: ① In what aspects should we "believe in ourselves"? What do you believe in yourself? ② What is the connection point between "believing in yourself" and "achieving a brilliant life"? That is, what positive role will "believe in yourself" have, and then "achieve a brilliant life"; What is the practical significance of writing this article? That is, where is the final foothold of the article.

The choice of three examples, Lisi, Beethoven and tiger woods, is more appropriate and novel. If handled properly, you can write excellent works with rich materials, concrete analysis and strong sense of hierarchy. The next step is how to deal with these three materials. Reese was originally a small jailer in Shangcai, and later became the prime minister of Qin. There are many reasons for the sudden change of his life trajectory, such as personal talent, unremitting efforts and god-given opportunities. These are also closely related to his "believe in yourself" mentality. Beethoven wrote a large number of immortal music works after hearing loss, for many reasons, such as superb musical attainments, tenacity in grasping the fate throat and so on. This also has a lot to do with the spirit of "believing in yourself"; Tiger woods became the king of golf because of his own talent, scientific training, excellent calculation ability and psychological quality of "believing in yourself". What should be considered when writing is, what is the difference between the "emphasis" of the sentence "believe in yourself" in the success of three people? Believe in Yourself made Rhys set a lofty goal in life, made Beethoven stand the test of fate, and made tiger woods devote himself to scientific training. In this way, the three materials explain the center of "believe in yourself to achieve the glory of life" from different angles, and the article is three-dimensional.

Do not generalize.

Speaking of examples, we can't help but mention a common method of analyzing problems-induction, that is, from individual to general, through many individual examples, summarize their characteristics and draw a general conclusion. In general, induction should give examples before drawing conclusions, but if the logical relationship between the connotation and extension of concepts is not clear, this example-based inductive analysis may make one-sided or absolute mistakes.

For example. In 2009, the composition of Tianjin college entrance examination required the topic "I said post-90s", and there was an article entitled "Post-90s soaring", which cited three examples of post-90s generation and concluded that post-90s generation was a "soaring generation". Three examples are: Lin Hao, a fearless little hero who saved lives bravely in the "5. 12" earthquake, Zi You, a young writer born after 90 who wrote "Whose youth is crazy for me", and Long Qingquan, a weightlifting champion in the 2008 Olympic Games.

The author didn't grasp the basic characteristics of the post-90s generation, so the characters he chose were biased. This is also related to the composition question itself. The materials provided in the essay title mentioned three attitudes towards the post-90s generation in society, but they were vague about the society's praise or disapproval of the post-90s generation and what their "own way" was. The clarity and clarity of these questions determine the clarity of the writing direction and the richness and concreteness of the content. There is also a basic problem that needs to be clarified, that is, the "post-90s generation" mentioned in the composition title should refer to the vast majority of post-90s teenagers (especially excellent, those who achieve their goals are not counted, especially unworthy, and those who chew corn in prison are not counted), and praise, encouragement, criticism, denial, excuse and so on should be directed at these people. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to judge the post-90s generation by the performance of "very few" (that is, "the best" and "the worst"). For example, Lin Hao, Zi You and Long Qingquan, all of them are outstanding among the post-90s generation, but we can't say how they are. Just as there are suicides, drug addicts, criminals and perverts after 90, we can't say what they are like. The two endpoints of an age group are actually "special molecules" in this group and cannot be used as "samples" to dissect the basic characteristics of this group as a whole.

In short, to prove the characteristics of a set, we should refer to most elements of this set, which is beyond doubt. To prove that "we China people have backbone", we should follow the example of most people in China from ancient times to the present, and show that they are pursuing truth and are not afraid of difficulties. If we only use the examples of Wen Tianxiang, the diner who didn't eat anything and Wen Yiduo, we can only prove that "some China people have backbone", because I can also cite the examples of Qin Gui, Wu Sangui and Wang Jingwei to prove China people. In fact, the function of these three examples in Wu Han's Talking about Bone is to explain the connotation or demonstrate the image of bone. Explaining or demonstrating the composition topic (or the key words in the topic) is another function of "examples".

To say the least, the above three examples are not absolutely impossible to use when writing "I said after 90", but to achieve the standard of "clever use", we still need to work hard to improve the quality of thinking. Be sure to tell the reasons why Lin Hao, Zi You and Long Qingquan have "excellent performances", that is, what role family education, social environment, personal perseverance and will have played in their growth. With these analyses, readers, especially other post-90s generation, will be enlightened by life, and then take a good road in the future.