<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<Paper uid="P92-1049">
  <Title>ELABORATION IN OBJECT DESCRIFFIONS THROUGH EXAMPLES</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="315" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
INTRODUCTION
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> There is little doubt that people find examples very beneficial in descriptions of new or complex objects, relations,orprocesses. Various studies have shown that the inclusion of examples in instructional material significantly increases user comprehension (for e.g., (Houtz, Moore &amp; Davis, 1973; MacLachlan, 1986; Pirolfi, 1991; Reder, Charney &amp; Morgan, 1986; Tennyson &amp; Park, 1980)). Users like examples because exampies tend to put abstract, theoretical information into concrete terms they can understand. Few generation systems have attempted to make significant use of examples, however. In particular, most systems have not integrated examples in the textual descriptions, but have used them mostly on their own, independently of the explanation that may also have been provided at that point. However, examples cannot be generated in isolation, but must form an integral part of the description, supporting the text they help to illustrate.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Most previous work (especially in the context of tutoring systems) focused on the issue offinding useful examples (for e.g., Rissland's CEG system (1981) and Ashley's HYPO system (Ashley, 1991; Rissland &amp; Ashley, 1986; Rissland, 1983)). Work by Woolf and her colleagues considered issues in the generation of tutorial discourse, including the use of examples (Woolf &amp; McDonald, 1984; Woolf &amp; Murray, 1987), but their  analysis did not address specific issues of integrated example and language generation.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> In this paper, we build upon some of these studies and describe the issues in generating descriptions which include examples in a coordinated, coherent fashion, such that they complement and support each other.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>