Exercise: Exposition
List of additional examples
1. The value of public speaking.
2. How Lincoln became a great speaker.
3. Studies in a good school course.
4. Purposes of studying geometry.
5. Explain the reasons for studying some subject.
6. An ideal school.
7. Foreign language study.
8. Forming habits.
9. Sailing against the wind.
10. How to play some game. Give merely the rules or imagine the game being played.
11. Difference between football in America and in England.
12. Exercise or athletics?
13. Results of military training.
14. The gambling instinct.
15. Parliamentary practice.
16. How to increase one's vocabulary.
17. Is the story of The Vicar of Wakefield too good to be true?
18. The defects of some book.
19. Reading fiction.
20. Magazines in America.
21. Explain fully what a novel is, or a farce, or an allegory, or a satire.
22. Why slang is sometimes justifiable.
23. A modern newspaper.
24. Select two foreign magazines. Compare and contrast them.
25. Essential features of a good short story.
26. Why evening papers offer so many editions.
27. How to find a book in a public library.
28. The difference between public speaking and oratory.
29. Public speaking for the lawyer, the clergyman, the business man.
30. Qualities of a book worth reading.
31. Some queer uses of English.
32. History in the plays of Shakespeare.
33. How to read a play.
34. Mistakes in books or plays.
35. Defects of translations.
36. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
37. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
38. "You never miss the water till the well runs dry."
39. "Penny wise, pound foolish."
40. Select any proverb. Explain it.
41. Choose a short quotation from some poem. Explain it.
42. Explain some technical operation.
43. Explain some mechanical process.
44. A range factory.
45. Making electric bulbs.
46. How moving pictures are made and reproduced.
47. Explain some simple machine.
48. A new application of electricity.
49. Weather forecasting.
50. Scientific or practical value of polar expeditions.
51. Changes of the tide.
52. An eclipse.
53. The principle of some such appliance as the thermometer, the barometer, the microscope, the air-brake, the block signal.
54. Developing a negative.
55. How the player piano is operated.
56. How the cash register prevents dishonesty.
57. How a new fruit is produced—as seedless orange.
58. Mimeographing.
59. The value of Latin for scientific terms.
60. The value of certain birds, worms, insects.
61. The life history of some queer animal, or insect, or plant.
62. How accuracy is secured.
63. The human eye and the camera.
64. The fireless cooker.
65. Choose some half dozen terms from any trade or business and explain them. To sell short, margin, bull, bear, lamb. Proscenium, apron, flies, baby spot, strike. Fold in eggs, bring to a boil, simmer, percolate, to French. File, post, carry forward, remit, credit, receivership. Baste, hem, rip, overcast, box pleat, batik, Valenciennes.
66. Building a musical program.
67. Commercial art.
68. Catch phrases in advertising.
69. Principles of successful advertising.
70. The Linotype machine.
71. How I made my first appearance as a public speaker.
72. Real conversation.
73. Mere talk.
74. The business woman.
75. A slump in a certain business or industry.
76. The Red Cross in war.
77. The Red Cross in peace.
78. Compare the principles of two political parties.
79. A fire alarm.
80. Why automobiles are licensed.
81. The powers and duties of some city or county official.
82. The advantages that this locality offers for certain industries or kinds of agriculture.
83. Society fads.
84. The ideal office holder.
85. New systems of government.
86. Various forms of socialism.
87. Collecting a debt by law.
88. Explain some legal procedure as suggested by some term, as mandamus, injunction, demurrer, habeas corpus, nolle prosequi.
89. Explain the composition and work of the Grand Jury.
90. The efficiency expert.
91. A new profession.
92. The advantages of a trolley car with both entrance and exit at the front end.
93. Labor-saving devices.
94. A supercargo.
95. Scientific shop management.
96. Hiring and discharging employees.
97. Applying for a business position.
98. Causes of some recent labor strike.
99. A labor union operates as a trust.
100. Efficiency in the kitchen.
101. Speeding up the work.
102. Planning a factory.
103. Making cheap automobiles.
104. Uses of paper.
105. New methods of furnishing houses.
106. Making the home beautiful.
107. New building materials.
108. Designing and building a boat.
109. The lay-out of a shipyard.
110. Rules for planting.
111. City government.
112. Better methods of city government.
113. How a trial is conducted.
114. The juvenile court.
115. Post office savings banks.
116. Geographic advantages of this locality.
117. Results of irrigation.
118. How the farmer controls world prices.
119. Relation between some distant event and the price of some article in the corner store.
120. New businesses in America with their reasons for existence.
121. The latest improvement in this locality.
122. Why certain cities are destined to increase in population.
123. Model homes.
124. Housing the inhabitants of large cities.
125. The operation of a subway.
126. Automobile trucks instead of freight trains.
127. How Lincoln became President.
128. Why Webster did not become President.
129. The dead-letter office.
130. The Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Great Britain.
131. How the United States secured Porto Rico.
132. A free trade policy.
133. Commercial reciprocity.
134. The protective tariff.
135. Explain the application of some tax, as income, single, inheritance.
136. How the constitutionality of a law is determined.
137. How laws are made by Congress.
138. The Congressional Record.
139. The Monroe Doctrine.
140. The attitude of foreign nations toward the Monroe Doctrine.
141. Differences between the Chinese and the Japanese.
142. The failure of the Hague Tribunal
143. The part of the United States in a league of nations.
144. Reasons for the conditions in Mexico.
145. Our country's duty toward Mexico.
146. The so-called Yellow Peril.
147. Trans-oceanic air travel.
148. Evolution of the airship.
149. The geodetic survey.
150. The census bureau.