Paper #1: Definition Piece

Definition Paper

For your first assignment, we’ll start with the basics. We have discussed how the study of English is really a study of the ways that we communicate. If we improve our communication—with others, and in our own thought processes—we can be more successful in whatever we attempt.

The first step towards improving our communication skills is developing our ability to define terms, ideas, and concepts. We have all experienced the problems that can occur when we are dealing with words that we are either not familiar with, or have a tough time really nailing down as far as meaning. Have you ever been in a relationship where you both claim to ‘love’ each other, but it soon becomes clear that you define ‘love’ in very different ways? When you were a kid, did you and your parents have very different definitions of what a clean room was? If so, then you know what it is like to struggle with defining things clearly. The more specific an idea you have about how you define something (which is not always the same as how other people define things) the more likely you will be able to act on your ideas. For example, how do you define ‘success’? Is it the same way that your parents do? Do you even know what being successful means to you? If not, you may have trouble making decisions that will lead you to being successful on your own terms.

All of that being said, your first job is to choose a word and define it. There are some rules that you need to keep in mind:

Feelings/Emotions—Words like joy, pride, anger, jealousy, hate, fear, embarrassment, etc. The only exception to this is that YOU CANNOT CHOOSE THE WORD ‘LOVE’

Abstract Concepts—Success, happiness, prejudice, fairness, friendship, family, loss, failure, and so forth

Specialized/Technical terminology—Words from the realm of computers and high technology (what exactly is HD anyway? What is Bluetooth?) automobiles/mechanics, science and medicine, or practically anything else that the average person does not know. You need to be careful if you choose one of these words however, as it is not enough to simply provide a dictionary definition of the word (see the guidelines listed below).

Something else—if you have another word you would like to do, and aren’t sure if it fits into an acceptable category, come see me, and we’ll hash it out.

That means that whatever word you choose needs to have enough material surrounding it to reach the page length. You will need to follow all the formatting guidelines in the style handout as well.

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• Denotations—the dictionary definitions of the word. If you use an actual definition from a dictionary (to agree with or to refute) you must tell us where the definition came from. For example, “According to Webster’s New American Standard , the word “love’ means ‘a strong feeling of affection towards another person’”. You do not have to provide a full MLA citation.
• Connotations—all the other, non-dictionary meanings that a word has; slang, specialized meanings from a particular job or group of people (a mouse is a different thing to a computer user than to a cat, for example).
• Positive definitions—what something is, what qualities something has.
• Negative definitions—what something is not, what it lacks (especially useful for some of the feelings—it can be tough to describe what being loved is like, but we all know what it feels like when someone does NOT love us…).
• Descriptions and examples—list things that your reader will be familiar with that illustrate your point.
• Anecdotes—short stories (usually about things that happened to you) that help explain what you mean. For example, “I remember the first time I realized what love really is…”

You are free to disagree with what other people, or the dictionary, says the word means. However, even if you do agree with another person’s definition, you can’t just say “the dictionary defines love as ‘blah blah blah’ and I agree”. You MUST have a sentence that explains how YOU define the word somewhere in the paper. “I define ‘love’ as -------.” You can start the paper off with this, you can end with it, you can put it wherever you want, but it must be in there somewhere.

Really? I hadn’t figured that out, especially seeing as I’m the one who gave you this assignment…

< Remember that you will need to have a rough draft ready for the rough draft conference, so don’t put this off for too long. We will cover all of this material in class, so please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.