SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 3, Lesson 18: Section 3

Exposition: Defining Objects, People, and Ideas

Objective: Discover ways to use definitions to inform readers and help persuade them to agree with a viewpoint using questions.

Have you ever gotten a paper back from an instructor with a comment in the margins that says something like "what do you mean here?" or "I don't understand this?" Well, what you are probably being asked about is a definition of the words you are using.

English is a language filled with homonyms, synonyms, and idiomatic terms that often confuse both writers and readers. Some writers believe that writing a definition means to rely on dictionary information to straighten this out, but this is seldom true because words have degrees of meaning that the dictionary can't show. The dictionary is a great place to get a basic idea of word meaning, but you need to add your personal viewpoint as you write. In school, writers are often asked to write expanded definitions, either as a stand-alone paper or as a paragraph in a longer assignment. In the workplace, people are sometimes asked to write about (define) a situation or a problem and the dictionary can't help there! In these cases, careful definitions that tell the readers how the words are used can be important. Using personalized definitions to tie down meaning in your writing will reduce confusion and also make your writing more persuasive.

There are three kinds of definitions that you will probably use most often in your writing. The first is a word-level definition: simply a modifier that narrows the kind of thing you are writing about. The second is a sentence- level definition that quickly explains a term as you make some other point. The third is an expanded definition that can be paragraphs or sometimes pages long.

Definitions: Answering Who, What, Where, When, Why, and Sometimes How

Word- and sentence-level definitions can be a few words or even one or two sentences, and they are seldom copied from a dictionary. Writers use dictionaries to understand words, but when they need to explain a word in their own writing they make it a little more unique and user friendly because they know that readers can look up words in dictionaries themselves. Here are some different kinds of sentence-level definitions:

• Alex Sanders, a local tax consultant, points out that many people don't understand how to prepare their own tax forms.

  This sentence-level definition explains who Alex is for readers; "tax consultant" shows that Alex should know what he is talking about, and using an authority makes your writing more persuasive.

• Alex Sanders, a local tax consultant, points out that many people don't understand how to prepare their federal tax forms.

  This word-level modifier defines what kind of tax form people are confused about.

• Alex Sanders, St. Louis tax consultant, points out that many people don't understand how to prepare their Missouri tax forms.

  This sentence has a sentence-level definition, St. Louis, and a word- level definition, Missouri, that tells readers where. These kinds of restrictive definitions would tell readers that Alex might be a good tax consultant in Missouri, but maybe he wouldn't know very much about other places.

• In April of 1993, Alex Sanders, a local tax consultant, pointed out that many people don't understand how to prepare their federal tax forms.

  The "when" introduction to this sentence might be a bad thing because it shows that the information is old. Do you think that tax forms have changed in the last ten years? Is old information persuasive?

• Alex Sanders, a local tax consultant, points out that many people don't understand how to prepare their federal tax forms so they should seek expert help.

  The why part of this sentence-level definition tells people the reason they should care what Alex says. Without this part of the sentence, they might wonder why it is important to know about Alex at all.

Here are two examples you can work with to practice putting definitions into sentences.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has offices in most cities. A virus closed the schools.

Your practice space:

You can click here to see some ideas that we had about putting definitions in these sentences.

Extended Definitions

Extended definitions can be paragraphs or even whole papers, depending on your purpose. Sometimes instructors assign definition papers, but in the workplace a definition is often part of a problem description or a technical document, which is often based on defining terms or explaining products.

Like word- and sentence-level definitions, the purpose of an extended definition is to explain exactly what you mean and reduce confusion. Extended definitions are almost never based on the dictionary definition alone because they define unique situations instead of general situations. The paragraphs or ideas in an extended definition can be organized according to time or space or from most important idea to least important idea, depending on what you are defining.

Again, you can use questions to help you decide what your sentences or paragraphs should explore:

This defines what kind of information you will provide. For instance, if you want to describe alternative rock music, you need to decide what readers need to know. If you are writing to rock listeners, you won't have to define as many terms as you would if you were writing to someone who only listens to classical music. Indicate in a sentence or two early in your paper who your audience is. You might write something like this:

As most alternative rock fans know....

This clause tells readers who are not rock fans that this paper might be more complicated than they will understand. That is fine, if your purpose is to write only to fans and you define your audience early. If you would like to know more about audience, you can click here.

This sounds like descriptive writing, doesn't it? Well, it is! Descriptions in definitions often tell what things are not or how they are different from other things. Here is an example of description for definitions:

Like being caught in a bad dream, terror is paralyzing; however, unlike a bad dream, there is no waking up in a warm comfy bed.

Often, the "what" part of a definition uses the kinds of compare/contrast techniques that you see in the sentence above. It can tell what something is and even what it is not.

Again, this requires a little descriptive writing. For instance, if you want to define snow, you can describe places where it snows. The introduction of an extended definition is usually a good place to include location information.

Snow in Chicago is not the same as the white fluffy dust that falls on Atlanta once every five years.

The "where" part of a definition is usually short, but often leads into a longer description.

Writers answer the "when" question if they are writing about something that only occurs at a specific time. For instance, if you are defining your computer, the when question won't be very informative because the machine is always sitting on your desk. However, if you are describing pancakes, you will probably include something about them normally being breakfast food. Sometimes you will want to describe one specific kind of something and then the "when" can be important. Here is an example:

For some people, riding in an elevator brings on a special kind of fear called claustrophobia, or fear of enclosed spaces.

By using a common experience, a good descriptive tool, you can give readers an exact situation they will relate to. Readers like this!

Again, this question is situational, but it can be used as a persuasive element in your definition. If you are describing a Play Station 2, for instance, people might want to know why it is better than Play Station 1. To do this, you might use some compare/contrast techniques in your paper. On the other hand, if you were describing a hair dryer, you might want to include some kind of warning about not using it while sitting in the bath tub. Warnings and safety ideas fall into the "why" category of extended definition writing and you can use cause/effect techniques to help you out here.

Defining how something fits into the scheme of the world often requires a little classification writing, so you will divide your topic into subject, principle, class, and characteristics. Again, the idea of classification appears early in your paper. Say that you want to define your computer's optical mouse -- you might use a sentence like this:

Computer input devices come in many forms, and mine is an optical mouse that uses a digital infrared sensor instead of a small weighted ball to detect movement.

In this sentence, computer is the subject; input device is the principle; optical mouse is the class; and infrared light is a characteristic. This sentence would lead to a discussion of the infrared light and how it works:

Essentially, this small sensor works like a digital camera and watches the movement on a desk surface and sends signals to a specialized processor chip in the computer.

Using the "how" part of an extended definition is a balancing act because you don't want to turn your definition into a process paper, which tells how to do something. [Link] Usually, though, a few sentences or one paragraph can be used effectively.

As you can see, writing definitions uses many different kinds of writing techniques that go beyond dictionary definitions. In fact, the best definition papers are the ones that have your viewpoint, as well as the viewpoints of "experts" to help your audience understand. Extended definitions help readers understand how you perceive things in the world, while sentence- level definitions often add the expert "voice" to your writing.

Summary

Definitions explain new ideas and reduce confusion about common ideas, but they also have another purpose. When readers find these kinds of definitions in writing they are persuaded that the writer is careful, and that makes everything in the document more believable and persuasive.

Definitions appear in every kind of writing that you do. Sometimes the definitions merely describe an object, idea, or person in a short word- or sentence-level modification. In school and the workplace, they often are extended to paragraphs or even pages. All of them rely on answering the questions who, what, where, when, why, and sometimes how. Why don't you use the space below to practice answering these questions to define a credit card, patriotism, or your favorite music?

In this sentence, the writer could define the abbreviation to use later in her paper, and also tell readers what this organization does and where members live:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), an organization that provides information about drinking and driving, has members in most American cities.

In this sentence, the writer could define a word that means more than one thing. The way that virus is used in this sentence could mean either a computer virus or a biological virus so he is telling the readers exactly what he means. This information is "extra" so it is set off by commas. The why information here is that the virus is contagious.

The virus, a type of respiratory influenza, was so contagious that many schools had to close.