Styles of Writing – Specific:
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DEFINITION:
Definitions may be given in any part of an essay, although they are often most useful towards the beginning. You need to make clear to the reader exactly what your focus is.
When describing things we may need to define them so as to avoid ambiguity. We may also need to give examples of what we define and to classify.
Example 1
A sole proprietorship is a business which is owned and operated by one individual for personal profit.
We could ask:
- to what class does this belong? (= a business)
- how does it differ from other types of businesses?
How would you define a partnership, for example?
(Example above taken from Swales & Feak 1994, Academic Writing for Graduate Students, University of Michigan.)
The usual structure of a definition is a single-sentence, followed by an expansion of one or more points, as shown:
Which type of expansion you choose will depend on the purpose for which you are writing the definition.
Example 2
A food additive is a chemical which is deliberately added to food for a specific purpose. The purpose might be to retard spoilage, to enhance flavour, to increase nutrition, or to improve texture. For example, food dyes are added to soft drinks, butter and sausages to increase sales appeal. Vitamins and essential amino acids are added to bread and flour to replace nutrients lost in processing. The basic definition has a structure which looks like this:
