Writing a Definition Essay

What is a Definition Essay?

Usually, I assign writing a definition essay after students have done an Interview Question Essay. See the instructions for that essay for the step-by-step process of interviewing. In this essay, you will be analyzing the way people define something. Of course, you will want to choose something that people have different opinions about. For sources, you will use dictionary definitions, interviews and perhaps also some online sources or book essays. Generally, writing a definition essay will be more interesting if there are some very different ideas about what the definition of that thing is. 

What you Need to Do for Writing a Definition Essay:

• Choose a word that you want to discuss in your essay.
• Look at several dictionary definitions and write them out.
• Look online to see if there are any articles or websites which define and describe your topic.
• Next, do several interviews about this topic. (see Interview Question Essay)
• Interview a variety of types of people, looking especially for people who would define this topic differently. Think about people of different ages, social backgrounds and experiences.
• After you have gathered all of your sources, you will read them all through and analyze them for your writing a definition essay.

How to Analyze Your Sources

For a writing a definition essay you will need to take all of your source data from interviews and dictionaries and analyze it for patterns.You will be looking for some contrasts and/or similarities in the definitions you have gathered that you can use to organize your data into an interesting essay.You will use this contrast or pattern in order to form a thesis for your essay about the information in your interviews.Start your analysis by doing the following (save all your analysis to be turned in with your essay):

1. Prepare for your essay by analyzing your data. Begin by reading the first interview and writing a number for each meaning the person gives. Then read the second interview and if they repeat a meaning, give it the same number you gave it in the first interview.If that person gives new meanings, then give these new numbers. Continue doing this through all of your interviews.

2. Make a numbered list (or a chart) of all the meanings you got from your interviews and write the names of the people who gave you each meaning.

3.Analyze your list of meanings.Write down your observations.

Some things to look for:

• which meaning was given by the most people?
• which meanings are favorable?
• which meanings are unfavorable?
• how are some meanings related to others?
• how are the meanings different?
• can you trace a pattern or relationship between the meanings?
• how do the interview meanings compare to the dictionary definition?
• is there a pattern in the responses of different groups you interviewed?Older vs. younger people?Men vs. women

4.Prepare your writing a definition essay outline. You will need to look for a contrast to organize your paper around. Here are some possible ways to do this:

Best and Worst

• Intro:most common meaning of the word
• Body:3 or more paragraphs which talk about other meanings of the word.You can organize this by talking about favorable and unfavorable perhaps.You should be sure to try to trace the relationships and common contexts of the different meanings.Be sure to use examples from your interviews to illustrate.
• Conclusion: explain what the best and worst connotations of the word have in common.

Dictionary Definition vs. Common Use

• Intro:what the dictionary definition of the word is, or what the past meaning of the word is of a word which has changed meaning through time (example).End with a thesis about how the people you interviewed saw the word differently
• Body:Trace the different definitions given by your interviews (see above).
• Conclusion:Suggest why your interviews defined the word differently than the dictionary.

Changing Meaning of Dictionary Definition

• Intro:In the OED entries, you can sometimes see how the meaning of a word has changed over time (example:success used to mean “the result” and could be either “good success” or “ill success”).If this is true for your word, you can begin your essay by talking about how the meaning of your word has changed over time. End with a thesis which talks about the common modern meaning of the word according to your interviews
• Body: Trace the different definitions given by your interviews (see above).
• Conclusion:Suggest how an understanding of the past meaning of a word can help understand the concept better or suggest why the meaning of the word may have changed.

Two Different Definitions

• Intro:give an example from your interviews of how two different sorts of people (perhaps old vs. young, or men vs. women) defined your word very differently.
• Thesis:what is the two main different ways your word was defined by these two groups?
• Body:Analyze the definitions given by the two groups and give examples.You can also include any definitions which don’t fit the two main ones and suggest how they relate to your main examples.
• Conclusion:Why do you think the two groups defined the word so differently?

Peer Editing Questions for a Writing a Definition Essay

You can use the following questions to edit your own essay; however, it is often better to get someone else to edit your essay too.

1.Definition: Analyze how well the definitions are presented. Do you understand which was the most common? Are the other meanings presented clearly? Is the relationship between the different definitions clear?

2.Organization: Is the thesis clear? Do the topic sentences present the argument clearly? Are they in the right order? Are there good transitions?

3. Use of Sources :Does the paper use the interviews and dictionary definition appropriately? Is the source material integrated into the paper well? Are the quotations well chosen? Are there places the student needs to add more from the sources?

4. Evidence and Argument (Body of Paper):Is the evidence and argument convincing? Do you see points where it is weak? Where the author needs to add more information or argument?Points where the argument is confusing? Does the author move from the least to most convincing evidence/argument? Is the paper written climactically?

5. Title, Beginning and End: Does the title fit the paper? Does the beginning interest the reader? Does the conclusion make a final point rather than just repeating?

6.Sum up: What is best about this essay? What most needs improvement?

Tips for Editing the Final Draft of Writing a Definition Essay

Take all of the suggestions you got in the peer editing and carefully go through your paper, using these suggestions to re-write. For your final edit, print out a copy of the paper and read it aloud to yourself. That is an excellent way to catch small errors, especially in spelling and missed words. You will also notice sentences that don't quite sound right, or are hard to read. If you stumble over reading a sentence, it probably means you should re-word it to make it read more smoothly. Watch out for:

1. Not starting sentences in a paragraph with the same word.
2. Using a variety of sentence lengths and types. (Writing Better Essays Faster).
3. Adding in transition words (see Easy Ways to Start Sentences).

Writing a definition essay can be a challenge, especially if you've not written an essay using a lot of sources before, but if you follow these tips you shoud have a solid essay you can be proud of!