Local to Global examples
Local to Global widens one issue from a personal experience to the people around you, then to the wider world.
These are fictional teaching examples, not accounts of real events.
Example 1
Why does keeping a non-digital contact option matter to you?
I once helped a relative who could read an appointment letter but could not use the online response form. The letter said replying would take a minute, but without help she would have had to call and wait for someone to explain another way.
Volunteering at our community center’s help desk, I now meet several people each week with the same trouble. People come in with all kinds of questions, and someone can point them towards a next step without assuming they have a phone or an account.
More widely, our council’s own survey found that about one household in eight has no internet at home, so when services move online, some other route has to remain.
How the answer works
- Personal
- Start with a specific personal experience, good or bad.
- Community
- Show the same issue among people around you, or what a local group does about it.
- Wider world
- Say what the issue means more widely, in proportion to your evidence.
Why it works: The same issue widens from one relative to people at the local help desk, then to a wider claim that rests on a survey rather than on one family’s story.
Example 2
Why do flexible start times matter to you?
When my manager let me start at ten, I could walk my son to school without rushing, and I arrived at work calm instead of flustered.
Since then, three colleagues with caring duties have told me the fixed nine o’clock start nearly made them quit, and our team rota now has early and late starts.
More widely, fixed hours can quietly push carers out of jobs they do well. Our team shows the pressure is real and that it can be eased; how common it is across the country would need wider evidence.
How the answer works
- Personal
- Start with a specific personal experience, good or bad.
- Community
- Show the same issue among people around you, or what a local group does about it.
- Wider world
- Say what the issue means more widely, in proportion to your evidence.
Why it works: A good experience starts the thread. Colleagues with the same need, and the team’s response, carry it into the community step, and the wider claim stays within what one team can show.
What makes the difference?
The same kind of answer can sound complete while leaving an important part unclear.
Why does the bus stop issue matter more widely?
Not quite
I could not read the timetable at my stop. Therefore, nobody in the world can use public transport properly.
A single experience is expanded into an unsupported universal claim, skipping the community step. Wider significance needs a connection, not an inflated claim about how common something is.
Make it clearer
I could not read the small timetable at my stop in the evening light.
Two neighbors who use the same stop told me they photograph it in daylight so they can read it later.
More broadly, transport information needs to work in the conditions in which people actually use it; our stop shows the problem exists, not how common it is.