Definition

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Definition

• Connotation
• Denotation
• Whats the difference between the two?
• Thin, frail, skinny, lean, wiry, trim

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Examples

• Discipline to parents, to school officials, to
  military, to ones self
• Pedagogue old meaning a teacher or leader of
  children
• More modern meaning a dogmatic, pedantic
  teacher
• New words byte, nanosecond, cult, hazing,
  blackballing

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Definition Essay

• An extended definition
• Allows an application of a personal
  interpretation to a word
• Can make a case for a revisionist view of a
  commonly accepted meaning
• Can analyze words representing complex or
  controversial issues

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Definition Essay

• Examples of possible topics
• Pornography, gun control, secular humanism,
  right-to-life, junk food, anger, leadership,
  anxiety

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Suggestions for Writing

• 1. Stay focused on the essays purpose, audience,
  and tone.

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Purpose

• Your objective for writing an extended definition
  shapes the entire paper
• Example Jazz (inform) origins of jazz,
  characteristic tonal patterns, some of the great
  jazz musicians of the past
• Jazz (persuade) an argument that jazz is the
  only contemporary form of music worth considering
  seriously

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Suggestions for Writing

• 2. Formulate an effective definition.
• Sometimes these essays begin with a formal essay
  (from a dictionary, textbook, or expert)

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Formal Definition

• Traditionally worded in three-part statements
  which consist of
• 1. The term
• 2. The class to which the term belongs
• 3. The characteristics that distinguish the
  term from other members of its class

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Example of formal definition

• TERM
• peregrine falcon
• a bodice ripper
• back to basics

CLASS an endangered bird a paperback book A
trend in education
CHARACTERISTICS Is the worlds fastest
flyer Usually read by women, deals with highly
charged romance in exotic places and faraway
times That emphasizes skill mastery through rote
learning
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Definition guidelines

• Will clarify what your subject is and is not
• Establish boundaries of your definition, removing
  unlike items from consideration

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AVOID

• Tired openers like the dictionary says or
  according to Webster
• Including very technical dictionary meanings
• Stay clear of ungrammatical is when
  definitions Blind ambition is when you want to
  get ahead, no matter how much other people are
  hurt. should be Blind ambition is wanting to
  get ahead, no matter how much other people are
  hurt.

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AVOID

• Circularity (a common pitfall of politicians)
• Saying the same thing twice and therefore
  defining nothing
• Example A campus tribunal is a tribunal
  composed of various members of the university
  community.

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Suggestions for Writing

• 3. Develop the extended definition.

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Develop the extended definition

• You can also include a variety of other patterns
  of writing (description, narration, process
  analysis, and comparison-contrast)
• Example robotics topic
• Provide examples of robots used in research
• Compare and contrast robots and human
  capabilities
• Classify robots (most basic to most advanced or
  futuristic)

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Patterns of Development

• Question
• How does X look, taste, smell, feel, and sound?
• What does X do? When? Where?
• What are some typical instances of X?
• How does X work?
• What is X like or unlike?
• What leads to X? What are Xs consequences?

• Pattern of Development
• Description
• Narration
• Exemplification
• process analysis
• Compare-contrast
• Cause-effect

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Suggestions for Writing

• 4. Organize the material that develops the
  definition.

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Organize the material

• Organize the material within each pattern
• Example
• fad -- process analysis
• Organization of paragraphs might be according to
  the steps in the process

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Organize the material

• Example
• relaxation -- using different patterns of
  development
• Devote separate paragraphs to each pattern
• Narration narrate a particularly relaxing day
• Then, next paragraph describe several examples of
  people who find it difficult to unwind
• End with a paragraph that explains a process for
  relaxing the mind and body

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Suggestions for Writing

• 5. Write an effective introduction.

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Effective Introduction

• A brief formal definition of the term youre
  going to develop in the rest of the paper
• May include a number of other features
• Might explain the origin of the term being
  defined
• Acid rock is a term first coined in the 1960s
  to describe music that was written or listened to
  under the influence of the drug LSD.

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Effective Introduction

• Could explain the etymology, or linguistic
  origin, of the key word that focuses the paper
• The term vigilantism is derived from the Latin
  word meaning to watch and be awake.

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Effective Introduction

• May clarify what the subject is not (called
  definition by negation)
• The gorilla, far from being the vicious killer
  of jungle movies and popular imagination is a
  sedentary, gentle creature living in a closely
  knit family group.

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Effective Introduction

• May include a stipulative definition, one that
  puts special restrictions on a term
• Strictly defined, a mall refers to a one- or
  two-story enclosed building containing a variety
  of retail shops and at least two large anchor
  stores. Highway-strip shopping centers or
  downtown centers cannot be considered true
  malls.

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Effective Introduction

• Intro. May end with a plan of development that
  indicates how the definition essay will unfold.
• A student who returned to school after having
  raised a family decided to write a paper defining
  the midlife crisis that led to her enrollment in
  college. After providing a brief formal
  definition of midlife crisis, the student
  rounded off her introduction with this sentence
  Such a midlife crisis starts with vague
  misgivings, turns into depression, and ends with
  a significant change in lifestyle.

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Assignment 1

• Read student essay on pp. 506 - 508
• Do a rhetorical analysis of this definition essay
  using the requirements of the definition essay as
  a checklist or criteria for evaluation. Do not
  look at the commentary on pp. 508 - 512.

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Assignment 2

• Read Entropy pp. 514 - 517
• Type complete answers to the questions on pp. 517
  - 518
• (Questions for Close Reading - p. 517
• and Questions About the Writers Craft - pp.
  517-518)