10-1 Writing Definitions

What is a social movement? What is an eccentricity? What is success? These are questions that have been discussed in class over recent weeks. One of the aims of this unit is for students to be able to clearly express the answers to such questions in writing. The ability to clearly define a term is an important skill. Students may need to define specific words in their own writing assignments to make their ideas clear for the reader. Also, students need to be able to define abstract concepts in longer compositions, or "extended definitions". These subjective definitions, questions like "what is happiness?" or "what does success mean to you?", are very commonly asked on exams and applications.

There are four basic steps to writing a definition:

First, simply try to place the word or concept into a broader category.