12 Defining a Term
In talking with other people, we sometimes offer informal definitions to explain just what we mean by a particular term. Suppose, for example, we say to a friend, “Karen can be so clingy.” We might then expand on our idea of “clingy” by saying, “You know, a clingy person needs to be with someone every single minute. If Karen's best friend makes plans that don't include her, she becomes hurt. And when she dates someone, she calls him several times a day and gets upset if he even goes to the grocery store without her. She hangs on to people way too tightly.” In a written definition, we make clear in a more complete and formal way our own personal understanding of a term. Such a definition typically starts with one meaning of a term. The meaning is then illustrated with a series of examples or a story.
In this section, you will be asked to write a paragraph that begins with a one-sentence definition; that sentence will be the topic sentence. The three student papers below are all examples of definition paragraphs. Read them and then answer the questions that follow.
Paragraphs to Consider
Luck
1Luck is putting $1.75 into a vending machine and getting the money back with your snack. 2It is an instructor's decision to give a retest on a test on which you first scored thirty. 3Luck refers to moments of good fortune that happen in everyday life. 4It is not going to the dentist for two years and then going and finding out that you do not have any cavities. 5It is calling up a plumber to fix a leak on a day when the plumber has no other work to do. 6Luck is finding a used car for sale at a good price at exactly the time when your car rolls its last mile. 7It is driving into a traffic bottleneck and choosing the lane that winds up moving most rapidly. 8Luck is being late for work on a day when your boss arrives later than you do. 9It is having a new checkout aisle at the supermarket open up just as your cart arrives. 10The best kind of luck is winning a new wide-screen TV on a chance for which you paid only a quarter.
Disillusionment
1Disillusionment is the feeling we have when one of our most cherished beliefs is stolen from us. 2I learned about disillusionment firsthand the day Mr. Keller, our eighth-grade teacher, handed out the grades for our class biology projects. 3I had worked hard to assemble what I thought was the best insect collection any school had ever seen. 4For weeks, I had set up homemade traps around our house, in the woods, and in vacant lots. 5At night, I would stretch a white sheet between two trees, shine a lantern on it, and collect the night-flying insects that gathered there. 6With my own money, I had bought killing jars, insect pins, gummed labels, and display boxes. 7I carefully arranged related insects together, with labels listing each scientific name and the place and date of capture. 8Slowly and painfully, I wrote and typed the report that accompanied my project at the school science fair. 9In contrast, my friend Eddie did almost nothing for his project. 10He had his father, a doctor, build an impressive maze complete with live rats and a sign that read, “You are the trainer.” 11A person could lift a little plastic door, send a rat running through the maze, and then hit a button to release a pellet of rat food as a reward. 12This exhibit turned out to be the most popular one at the fair. 13I felt sure that our teacher would know that Eddie could not have built it, and I was certain that my hard work would be recognized and rewarded. 14Then the grades were finally handed out, and I was crushed. 15Eddie had gotten an A-plus, but my grade was a B. 16I suddenly realized that honesty and hard work don't always pay off in the end. 17The idea that life is not fair, that sometimes it pays to cheat, hit me with such force that I felt sick. 18I will never forget that moment.
A Mickey Mouse Course
1A Mickey Mouse course is any college course that is so easy that even Mickey Mouse could achieve an A. 2A student who is taking a heavy schedule, or who does not want four or five especially difficult courses, will try to sandwich in a Mickey Mouse course. 3A student can find out about such a course by consulting other students, since word of a genuine Mickey Mouse course spreads like wildfire. 4Or a student can study the college master schedule for telltale course titles like The Art of Pressing Wildflowers, History of the Comic Book, or Watching Television Creatively. 5In an advanced course such as microbiology, though, a student had better be prepared to spend a good deal of time during the semester on the course. 6Students in a Mickey Mouse course can attend classes while half-asleep, hungover, or wearing Walkman earphones or a blindfold; they will still pass. 7The course exams (if there are any) would not challenge a five-year-old. 8The course lectures usually consist of information that anyone with common sense knows anyway. 9Attendance may be required, but participation or involvement in the class is not. 10The main requirement for passing is that a student's body is there, warming a seat in the classroom. 11There are no difficult labs or special projects, and term papers are never mentioned. 12Once safely registered for such a course, all the students have to do is sit back and watch the credits accumulate on their transcripts.
Questions
About Unity
1. Which paragraph places its topic sentence within the paragraph rather than, more appropriately, at the beginning?
2. Which sentence in “A Mickey Mouse Course” should be omitted in the interest of paragraph unity? (Write the sentence number here.) ________
About Support
3. Which two paragraphs develop their definitions through a series of short examples?
4. Which paragraph develops its definition through a single extended example?
About Coherence
5. Which paragraph uses emphatic order, saving its best detail for last?
6. Which paragraph uses time order to organize its details?
Developing a Definition Paragraph
Development through Prewriting
When Harry, the author of “Disillusionment,” started working on his assignment, he did not know what he wanted to write about. He looked around the house for inspiration. His two-year-old twins racing around the room made him think about defining “energy.” The fat cat asleep on a sunny windowsill suggested that he might write about “laziness” or “relaxation.” Still not sure of a topic, he looked over his notes from that day's class. His instructor had jotted a list of terms on the blackboard, saying, “Maybe you could focus on what one of these words has meant in your own life.” Harry looked over the words he had copied down: honesty, willpower, faith, betrayal, disillusionment—“When I got to the word `disillusionment,' the eighth-grade science fair flashed into my mind,” Harry said. “That was a bitter experience that definitely taught me what disillusionment was all about.”
Because the science fair had occurred many years before, Harry had to work to remember it well. He decided to try the technique of questioning himself to come up with the details of what had happened. Here are the questions Harry asked himself and the answers he wrote:
When did I learn about disillusionment?
When I was in eighth grade
Where did it happen?
At the school science fair
Who was involved?
Me, Eddie Loomis and his father, and Mr. Keller
What happened?
I had worked very hard on my insect collection. Eddie had done almost nothing but he had a rat maze that his father had built. I got a B on my project while Eddie got an A+.
Why was the experience so disillusioning?
I thought my hard work would be rewarded. I was sure Mr. Keller would recognize that I had put far more effort into my project than Eddie had. When Eddie won, I learned that cheating can pay off and that honest work isn't always rewarded.
How did I react?
I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to confront Mr. Keller and Eddie and make them see how unfair the grades were. But I knew I'd just look like a poor loser, so I didn't do anything.
On the basis of this experience, how would I define disillusionment?
It's finding out that something you really believed in isn't true.
Drawing from the ideas generated by his self-questioning, Harry wrote the following draft of his paragraph:
Disillusionment is finding out that one of your most important beliefs isn't true. I learned about disillusionment at my eighth-grade science fair. I had worked very hard on my project, an insect collection. I was sure it would get an A. I had worked so hard on it, even spending nights outside making sure it was very good. My friend Eddie also did a project, but he barely worked on his at all. Instead, he had his father build a maze for a rat to run through. The trainer lifted a little plastic door to let the rat into the maze, and if he completed the maze, the trainer could release a pellet of food for it to eat. It was a nice project, but the point is that Eddie hadn't made it. He just made things like the banner that hung over it. Mr. Keller was our science teacher. He gave Eddie an A+ and me just a B. So that really taught me about disillusionment.
Development through Revising
The next day, Harry's teacher divided the class up into groups of three. The groups reviewed each member's paragraph. Harry was grouped with Curtis and Jocelyn. After reading through Harry's paper several times, the group had the following discussion:
“My first reaction is that I want to know more about your project,” said Jocelyn. “You give details about Eddie's, but not many about your own. What was so good about it? You need to show us, not just tell us. Also, you said that you worked very hard, but you didn't show us how hard.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “I remember my project clearly, but I guess the reader has to know what it was like and how much effort went into it.”
Curtis said, “I like your topic sentence, but when I finished the paragraph I wasn't sure what `important belief' you'd learned wasn't true. What would you say that belief was?”
Harry thought a minute. “I'd believed that honest hard work would always be rewarded. I found out that it doesn't always happen that way, and that cheating can actually win.”
Curtis nodded. “I think you need to include that in your paper.”
Jocelyn added, “I'd like to read how you felt or reacted after you saw your grade, too. If you don't explain that, the paragraph ends sort of abruptly.”
Harry agreed with his classmates' suggestions. After he had gone through several revisions, he produced the version that appears on page 222.
Writing a Definition Paragraph
Writing Assignment 1
Write a paragraph that defines the term TV addict. Base your paragraph on the topic sentence and three supporting points provided below.
Topic sentence: Television addicts are people who will watch all the programs they can, for as long as they can, without doing anything else.
(1) TV addicts, first of all, will watch anything on the tube, no matter how bad it is. . . .
(2) In addition, addicts watch more hours of TV than normal people do. . . .
(3) Finally, addicts feel that TV is more important than other people or any other activities that might be going on. . . .
Prewriting
a Generate as many examples as you can for each of the three qualities of a TV addict. You can do this by asking yourself the following questions:
• What are some truly awful shows that I (or TV addicts I know) watch just because the television is turned on?
• What are some examples of the large amounts of time that I (or TV addicts I know) watch television?
• What are some examples of ways that I (or TV addicts I know) neglect people or give up activities in order to watch TV?
Write down every answer you can think of for each question. at this point, don't worry about writing full sentences or even about grammar or spelling. Just get your thoughts down on paper.
b Look over the list of examples you have generated. Select the strongest examples you have thought of. You should have at least two or three for each quality. If not, ask yourself the questions in step a again.
c Write out the examples you will use, this time expressing them in full, grammatically correct sentences.
d Start with the topic sentence and three points provided in the assignment. Fill in the examples you've generated to support each point and write a first draft of your paragraph.
Revising
Put your first draft away for a day or so. When you come back to it, reread it critically, asking yourself these questions:
• Have I used the topic sentence and the three supporting points that were provided?
• Have I backed up each supporting point with at least two examples?
• Does each of my examples truly illustrate the point that it backs up?
• Have I used appropriate transitional language (another, in addition, for example) to tie my thoughts together?
• Have I proofread my paragraph and corrected any sentence-skills mistakes, including spelling?
Keep revising your paragraph until you can answer “yes” to each question.
Writing Assignment 2
Write a paragraph that defines one of the following terms. Each term refers to a certain kind of person.
Know-it-all
Charmer
Loser
Lazybones
Snob
Con artist
Fair-weather friend
Good sport
Clown
Jellyfish
Leader
Nerd
Good neighbor
Optimist
Pessimist
Pack rat
Workaholic
Showoff
Control freak
Mother hen
Toady
Fusspot
Prewriting
a Write a topic sentence for your definition paragraph. This is a two-part process:
• First, place the term in a class, or category. For example, if you are writing about a certain kind of person, the general category is person. If you are describing a type of friend, the general category is friend.
• Second, describe what you consider the special feature or features that set your term apart from other members of its class. For instance, say what kind of person you are writing about or what type of friend.
In the following topic sentence, try to identify three things: the term being defined, the class it belongs to, and the special feature that sets the term apart from other members of the class.
A chocoholic is a person who craves chocolate.
The term being defined is chocoholic. The category it belongs to is person. The words that set chocoholic apart from any other person are craves chocolate.
Below is another example of a topic sentence for this assignment. It is a definition of whiner. The class, or category, is underlined: A whiner is a type of person. The words that set the term whiner apart from other members of the class are double-underlined.
A whiner is a person who feels wronged by life.
In the following sample topic sentences, underline the class and double-underline the special features.
A clotheshorse is a person who needs new clothes to be happy.
The class clown is a student who gets attention through silly behavior.
A worrywart is a person who sees danger everywhere.
b Develop your definition by using one of the following methods:
Examples. Give several examples that support your topic sentence.
Extended example. Use one longer example to support your topic sentence.
Contrast. Support your topic sentence by contrasting what your term is with what it is not. For instance, you may want to define a fair-weather friend by contrasting his or her actions with those of a true friend.
c Once you have created a topic sentence and decided how to develop your paragraph, make a scratch outline. If you are using a contrast method of development, remember to present the details one side at a time or point by point (see page 207).
d Write a first draft of your paragraph.
Revising
As you revise your paragraph, keep these questions in mind:
• Does my topic sentence (1) place my term in a class and (2) name some special features that set it apart from its class?
• Have I made a clear choice to develop my topic sentence through either several examples, one extended example, or contrast?
• If I have chosen to illustrate my topic through contrast, have I consistently followed either a point-by-point or a one-side-at-a-time format?
• Have I used appropriate transitions (another, in addition, in contrast, for example) to tie my thoughts together?
• Is my paragraph free of sentence-skills and spelling errors?
Continue revising your work until you can answer “yes” to all these questions.
Writing Assignment 3
Write a paragraph that defines one of the abstract terms below.
Arrogance
Assertiveness
Class
Common sense
Conscience
Curiosity
Danger
Depression
Escape
Family
Fear
Freedom
Gentleness
Innocence
Insecurity
Jealousy
Nostalgia
Obsession
Persistence
Practicality
Rebellion
Responsibility
Self-control
Sense of humor
Shyness
Violence
As a guide in writing your paper, use the suggestions for prewriting and rewriting in Writing Assignment 2. Remember to place your term in a class or category and to describe what you feel are the distinguishing features of that term.
After writing your topic sentence, check that it is complete and correct by doing the following:
• Single-underline the category of the term you're defining.
• Double-underline the term's distinguishing characteristic or characteristics.
Here are three sample topic sentences:
Laziness is the trait of resisting all worthwhile work as much as possible.
Jealousy is the feeling of wanting a possession or quality that someone else has.
A family is a group whose members are related to one another in some way.
Writing Assignment 4
Since it affects all of us to some degree, stress is a useful word to explore. Write a paragraph defining that word. Organize your paragraph in one of the ways listed below:
• Use a series of examples (see page 171) of stress.
• Use narration (see page 257) to provide one longer example of stress: Create a hypothetical person (or use a real person) and show how this person's typical morning or day illustrates your definition of stress.
Using strategies described in the chapter on the library and the Internet (pages 311-328), research the topic of stress. Your reading will help you think about how to proceed with the paper.
Hints: Do not simply write a series of general, abstract sentences that repeat and reword your definition. If you concentrate on providing specific support, you will avoid the common trap of getting lost in a maze of generalities.
Make sure your paper is set firmly on the four bases: unity, support, coherence, and sentence skills. Edit the next-to-final draft of the paragraph carefully for sentence-skills errors, including spelling.
Writing Assignment 5
Option 1: Imagine that at the place where you work, one employee has just quit, creating a new job opening. Since you have been working there for a while, your boss has asked you to write a description of the position. That description, a detailed definition of the job, will be sent to employment agencies. These agencies will be responsible for interviewing candidates. Choose any position you know about, and write a paragraph defining it. First state the purpose of the job, and then list its duties and responsibilities. Finally, describe the qualifications for the position. Below is a sample topic sentence for this assignment.
Purchasing-department secretary is a position in which someone provides a variety of services to the purchasing-department managers.
In a paragraph with the topic sentence above, the writer would go on to list and explain the various services the secretary must provide.
Option 2: Alternatively, imagine that a new worker has been hired, and your boss has asked you to explain “team spirit” to him or her. The purpose of your explanation will be to give the newcomer an idea of the kind of teamwork that is expected in this workplace. Write a paragraph that defines in detail what your boss means by team spirit. Use examples or one extended example to illustrate each of your general points about team spirit.