Using Examples

Types of Examples: Brief, Extended, and Hypothetical

Brief, extended, and hypothetical examples can be used to help an audience better understand and relate to key points of a presentation.

Learning Objectives

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Examples include specific situations, problems or stories intended to help communicate a more general idea.
• Brief examples are used to further illustrate a point that may not be immediately obvious to all audience members but is not so complex that is requires a more lengthy example.
• Extended examples are used when a presenter is discussing a more complicated topic that they think their audience may be unfamiliar with.
• A hypothetical example is a fictional example that can be used when a speaker is explaining a complicated topic that makes the most sense when it is put into more realistic or relatable terms.

Key Terms

• Hypothetical: A fictional situation or proposition used to explain a complicated subject.

There are many types of examples that a presenter can use to help an audience better understand a topic and the key points of a presentation. These include specific situations, problems, or stories intended to help communicate a more general idea. There are three main types of examples: brief, extended, and hypothetical.

Brief Examples

Brief examples are used to further illustrate a point that may not be immediately obvious to all audience members but is not so complex that is requires a more lengthy example. Brief examples can be used by the presenter as an aside or on its own. A presenter may use a brief example in a presentation on politics in explaining the Electoral College. Since many people are familiar with how the Electoral College works, the presenter may just mention that the Electoral College is based on population and a brief example of how it is used to determine an election. In this situation it would not be necessary for a presented to go into a lengthy explanation of the process of the Electoral College since many people are familiar with the process.

Extended Examples

Extended examples are used when a presenter is discussing a more complicated topic that they think their audience may be unfamiliar with. In an extended example a speaker may want to use a chart, graph, or other visual aid to help the audience understand the example. An instance in which an extended example could be used includes a presentation in which a speaker is explaining how the "time value of money" principle works in finance. Since this is a concept that people unfamiliar with finance may not immediately understand, a speaker will want to use an equation and other visual aids to further help the audience understand this principle. An extended example will likely take more time to explain than a brief example and will be about a more complex topic.

$AFC = \dfrac{FC}{Q}$

Extended Example: An equation is an extended example that's used as a visual aid to help the audience understand a complicated topic.

Hypothetical Examples

Source: Lumen Learning, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-communications/chapter/using-examples/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.