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Definition Assignment

Essay Three: Definition

Description

• For your second essay, you will write a definition of your topic OR of a specific, small part of your topic. For example, you could continue with your topic of “football,” but you could also pinpoint “linebacker,” “open up a seam,” or “defensive coordinator.”
  • How do YOU experience your theme? What does this theme mean to you? In this essay, you have a chance to convert other people to your way of thinking. We come to the heart of rhetoric: persuasion.
• A definition isn�t an expanded version of what Webster has to say; rather, a genuine definition essay significantly alters the general conception of the term.
  • You can use Webster’s as a point from which to begin, but your essay must travel far beyond Webster’s.
• Your job is to find where this word begins and ends, to find its boundaries and map out the territory it covers. You will do so in order to revise the public’s (read: outsider’s) understanding of the term.
  • What aspect of your term do you think the public has the most misconceptions about?
  • What would you change about people’s opinions about your theme?
• Your audience: the audience of The New Yorker, mostly educated persons looking for enlightenment… but usually assuming that they’ve got plenty of it already anyway.
  • They want new ideas, sparkling wit, and penetrating social critique.
  • They want you to respect their intelligence and point of view.
  • Think of this audience: they feel loads of self-respect and think they know everything about your topic. What are you gonna do about it?
• This essay should cultivate a sophisticated and knowledgeable tone, not a friendly or approachable tone.
  • Your audience needs to feel that they are in the presence of a true expert.
  • To trust your judgment, they also need to trust your writing skills.

Goals

• 1) Reveal a previously unknown or ignored perspective toward your term, and justify this new perspective with enough force so that this aspect(s) now seems quite indispensable to understanding the term properly.
• 2) Isolate a general principle of the term�s existence (in other words, you must find the essential properties of the term, what it absolutely must be and have to be itself, without anything non-essential attached (this study of what-ness is called ontology).
  • The more paradoxical and unexpected, the better.
  • Find contractions and strangeness in the heart of your term!
• 3) Give your audience advice about how they should think, feel, or behave differently, given the marvels you�ve just uncovered and explained (in other words, you must tell them the consequences of the definition you just made).

Cautionary Notes

• ? Use morally or emotionally loaded terms sparingly. Don�t bully your audience into accepting your argument by using heavy-handed terminology.
  • You cannot call abortion �murder� or �slaughter� without needing to justify your definition, and if you use terms like �feminazi� or �man hater,� you will alienate a portion of your audience. Be cautious using words like �atrocious,� �horrible,� �travesty,� etc.
• ? Pay special attention to structure.
  • Definitional arguments are notoriously difficult to organize.
  • Consequently, make sure to describe the typical use of the word before you tell them how you define the word. You would want to tell us how the word was used in 1750 before you tell us how it was used in 1950.
  • More generally, you need to organize your essay according to specificity � save us the finicky details until you�ve given us the broad strokes and basic principles of the word.
  • Overall, if you move from basic to complex, and if you use your thesis, transition sentences and topic sentences properly, the audience will believe that the essay is structured logically.

Tips

• Remember to use narration, description, classification, and exemplification.
• Keep Pushing on Your Ideas. Keep asking yourself, “How?” and “Why?” and “Why does it matter?” after you have dreamed up some brilliant idea.
  • Until you’ve reached concepts better left for the philosophers, you’re not done thinking!
  • If you ask your friends how they would define your topic, they shouldn’t be able to guess your thesis after just a few moments of thinking. Keep pushing on your idea if your friends have the same definition that you have.
• If you have trouble brainstorming, conceive of a “case study.” In essence, a cast study is a narrative about your topic that you will use to help yourself brainstorm and help yourself write the essay.
  • You would summarize the case study in the first introductory paragraph, then in the second introductory paragraph use it to illuminate the principles and problems of your topic and therefore more to the thesis.
  • You would then refer to this case study throughout your essay as your principle (but not only) example.