CHAPTER
14
Defining
“Writers, most of all, need to define their tasks…their themes, their objectives.”
—HENRY SEIDAL CANBY
All communication depends on our understanding of a common set of definitions. If we did
not work from shared definitions, we would not be able to carry on coherent conversations, write
clear letters and reports, or understand any form of media.
It’s no surprise, then, that we regularly use definitions in writing—in our personal lives, in
college courses, and in the workplace:

You email a friend to rave about the equipment at the fitness center you just joined.

A student has to define melody, harmony, and rhythm on a music appreciation quiz.

For a criminal justice course, a student begins a report with definitions of criminal law and
civil law.

A financial planner prepares a summary sheet defining the basic financial terms a client
needs to know.

The manager of a sporting goods shop writes a classified ad for an opening on the staff.
Definition is the process of explaining what a word, an object, or an idea is. A good defini-
tion focuses on what is special about a word or an idea and what sets it apart from similar words
or concepts. Definitions help us understand basic concrete terms (cell phone, large fries, midterm
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exams), discuss important events in our lives (baseball game, graduation, dentist appointment),
and grasp complex ideas (friendship, courage, success). Definitions are the building blocks that
help us make sure both writer and reader (or speaker and listener) are working from the same
basic understanding of terms and ideas.
Definitions vary greatly. They can be as short as one word (a ―hog‖ is a motorcycle) or as
long as an essay or even a book. Words or ideas that require such extended definitions are usually abstract, complex, and controversial. Think, for example, how difficult it might be to define an
abstract idea like equality compared to concrete words such as dog or cat.
Understanding Definition
How well do you understand defining? Test your knowledge by going to MyWritingLab.com. Click on Defining, and watch the video(s). When you feel you have mastered this
method of thinking, check your level of understanding by completing the Recall, Apply, and
Write activities in MyWritingLab. The Recall activity asks you to answer some general questions about what you just learned in the video(s); the Apply exercise requires you to read a definition essay and answer questions about it; and for the Write task, you will choose a writing exercise and practice defining in your own words. Writing a good definition essay shows your genuine understanding of this pattern of thought.
PREPARING TO WRITE A DEFINITION ESSAY
As in previous chapters, preparing to write begins with reading. To learn how to write a good
definition essay, you need to read a good definition essay and understand how it is put together—logically and structurally. Reading definition essays in depth will help you write effective
definition essays. You will find that the two processes of reading and writing work together to
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help you process information on a very high level. So after you read the following definition essay, you will be asked some questions that will help you discover how the essay communicates
its message.
Reading a Definition Essay
In the following essay, Lars Eighner writes an extended definition of the fine art of ―Dumpster diving‖ or living out of Dumpsters, the large trash containers designed to be raised and emptied into a garbage truck. Have you ever witnessed someone Dumpster diving? Have you yourself ever found something in the trash that you took home? What causes people to live out of
Dumpsters? How would you survive if you lost your home?
Using a reading strategy is an effective way to learn how to read analytically. Understanding
your reading analytically will lead to analytical writing. Reading critically or analytically will
help you understand not only what the essay is saying but also how the author is saying it. The
strategy you will apply to all reading tasks in this chapter involves reacting critically to your
reading material.
READING CRITICALLY: REACTING CRITICALLY TO A PROFESSIONAL ESSAY
Forming your own opinions and coming up with meaningful ideas in response to your reading
are very important parts of the reading process that you need to learn how to produce. As you
read the following essay, record your notes on a separate piece of paper. First, draw a vertical
line down the center of your paper. Then, as you read, write the author’s main ideas on the left
and your reactions to those ideas on the right side of the paper. Be prepared to explain the connection between your notes and the material in the essay.
DUMPSTER DIVING
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by Lars Eighner
1
I began Dumpster diving about a year before I became homeless. I prefer the term scavenging. I have heard people, evidently meaning to be polite, use the word foraging, but I prefer to
reserve that word for gathering nuts and berries and such, which I also do, according to the season and opportunity.
2
I like the frankness of the word scavenging. I live from the refuse of others. I am a scavenger.
I think it a sound and honorable niche, although if I could I would naturally prefer to live the
comfortable consumer life, perhaps—and only perhaps—as a slightly less wasteful consumer
owing to what I have learned as a scavenger.
3
Except for jeans, all my clothes come from Dumpsters. Boom boxes, candles, bedding, toilet
paper, medicine, books, a typewriter, a virgin male love doll, coins sometimes amounting to
many dollars—all came from Dumpsters. And, yes, I eat from Dumpsters, too.
4
There is a predictable series of stages that a person goes through in learning to scavenge. At
first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing. He is ashamed of being seen.
5
This stage passes with experience. The scavenger finds a pair of running shoes that fit and
look and smell brand-new. He finds a pocket calculator in perfect working order. He finds pris-
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tine ice cream, still frozen, more than he can eat or keep. He begins to understand: People do
throw away perfectly good stuff, a lot of perfectly good stuff.
6
At this stage he may become lost and never recover. All the Dumpster divers I have known
come to the point of trying to acquire everything they touch. Why not take it, they reason; it is all
free. This is, of course, hopeless, and most divers come to realize that they must restrict themselves to items of relatively immediate utility.
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The finding of objects is becoming something of an urban art. Even respectable, employed
people will sometimes find something tempting sticking out of a Dumpster or standing beside
one. Quite a number of people, not all of them of the bohemian type, are willing to brag that they
found this or that piece in the trash.
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But eating from Dumpsters is the thing that separates the dilettanti from the professionals.
Eating safely involves three principles: using the senses and common sense to evaluate the condition of the found materials; knowing the Dumpsters of a given area and checking them regularly; and seeking always to answer the question Why was this discarded?
9
Yet perfectly good food can be found in Dumpsters. Canned goods, for example, turn up fairly often in the Dumpsters I frequent. I also have few qualms about dry foods such as crackers,
cookies, cereal, chips, and pasta if they are free of visible contaminants and still dry and crisp.
Raw fruits and vegetables with intact skins seem perfectly safe to me, excluding, of course, the
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obviously rotten. Many are discarded for minor imperfections that can be pared away.
10
A typical discard is a half jar of peanut butter—though non-organic peanut butter does not
require refrigeration and is unlikely to spoil in any reasonable time. One of my favorite finds is
yogurt—often discarded, still sealed, when the expiration date has passed—because it will keep
for several days, even in warm weather.
11
No matter how careful I am, I still get dysentery at least once a month, oftener in warm
weather. I do not want to paint too romantic a picture. Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as
a way of life.
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I find from the experience of scavenging two rather deep lessons. The first is to take what I
can use and let the rest go. I have come to think that there is no value in the abstract. A thing I
cannot use or make useful, perhaps by trading, has no value, however fine or rare it may be.
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The second lesson is the transience of material being. I do not suppose that ideas are immortal, but certainly they are longer-lived than material objects.
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The things I find in Dumpsters, the love letters and rag dolls of so many lives, remind me of
this lesson. Now I hardly pick up a thing without envisioning the time I will cast it away. This, I
think, is a healthy state of mind. Almost everything I have now has already been cast out at least
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once, proving that what I own is valueless to someone.
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I find that my desire to grab for the gaudy bauble has been largely sated. I think this is an attitude I share with the very wealthy—we both know there is plenty more where whatever we
have came from. Between us are the rat-race millions who have confounded their selves with the
objects they grasp and who nightly scavenge the cable channels for they know not what.
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I am sorry for them.
Discovering How This Essay Works
To help you recognize the elements that make this an effective definition essay so you can
use them in your own writing, answer the following questions in as much detail as possible.
1. What does this essay define?
_________________________
2. How does the author explain his definition: (1) by making comparisons or finding synonyms,
(2) by stating what the term is not, or (3) by putting the term into a category for us to understand?
______
__________
3. What three specific examples from the essay helped you understand what Dumpster diving
is?
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4. What other rhetorical modes that you have already studied (describing, narrating, illustrating,
etc.) does Eighner use to develop his definition?
____________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
5. How does Eighner organize the examples in his essay? See pages xxx–xxx in Chapter 6 if
you need help with this question.
WRITING A DEFINITION ESSAY
Now that you have read and studied the model essay, you will be writing one of your own.
This section will help you generate a draft that you will then revise and edit in the third section
of this chapter. It will teach you how to read a writing assignment carefully, how to generate
ideas and choose a topic, and finally how to write a draft of the essay by following the chapter
guidelines. We encourage you to take notes and make lists throughout this process so you can
use them when you write a draft of your essay at the end of this section.
Reading the Prompt
When you set out to write any essay, you first need to understand the writing assignment or
―prompt.‖ An essay assignment attempts to ―prompt‖ you to react and respond to a specific issue
or question. The more clearly you understand the prompt, the better essay you will create. So you
want to learn how to interact with the essay assignment as thoroughly as possible. Applying the
chapter reading strategy to your writing assignment is a good way to read your assignment actively rather than passively.
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READING CRITICALLY: REACTING CRITICALLY TO THE PROMPT
After you read the following prompt, draw a vertical line down the center of a sheet of paper.
Record the tasks of the assignment on the left and your ideas about those tasks on the right.
Write as many notes as you can about each task. Then, underline the key words in the left column for completing this assignment.
Writing Prompt
Everyone has a clear idea of what a sense of security is. What does this term mean to
you? Write an essay defining security. Use the following guidelines to help you develop a draft.
Thinking about the Prompt
Before you focus on a specific topic, you should generate as many ideas as you can so you
have several to choose from. What do you think of when you hear the word security? What associations do you make with this word? What examples does it bring to mind? Use one or more of
the prewriting strategies you learned in Chapter 5 to generate ideas for writing an extended definition of this term.
Guidelines for Writing a Definition Essay
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Clear definitions give writers and readers a mutual starting point on the road to successful
communication. Sometimes a short summary and an example are all that’s needed. But in the
case of abstract and complex words or ideas, a writer may use several approaches to a definition.
Use the following guidelines to help you write an extended definition essay. As you think about
the topic you have chosen, read the following guidelines and continue to make lists and notes
that you will use when you write your draft on this prompt. After each guideline is an explanation of how it functions in the reading selection at the beginning of this chapter so you can actually see how each element works in an essay.
1. Choose your word or idea carefully, and give a working definition of it in your thesis
statement. First, you need to choose a word or idea that can be defined and explained from
several angles, or you will end up with a short, lifeless essay. At the same time, you need to
give your readers a working definition right at the start. Put that brief, basic definition in your
thesis statement so readers have a mental hook on which to hang the definitions and explanations in the rest of your essay. Also include the purpose of your essay in your thesis statement.
In the Reading: At the start of his essay, Eighner defines Dumpster diving as ―scavenging,‖ explaining ―I live from the refuse of others.‖ This simple, direct definition—given at
the beginning—guides readers through the rest of the essay.
In Your Writing: In the essay you are going to write, what will be your purpose? Write
yourself some notes that might develop into a clear thesis statement. Draft a tentative thesis
if you are ready to do so.
2. Decide how you want to define your term: by synonym, by negation, or by category.
These are the three common ways to develop a definition.
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When you define by using a synonym, you furnish readers with a similar word or a short
explanation with synonyms.
In the Reading: Eighner uses a synonym right at the beginning of his essay. ―Dumpster
diving‖ is an informal term that is used by city people to refer to taking garbage out of trash
bins. Apartment houses and office buildings often use Dumpsters to hold garbage until it is
taken to the dump. Because Dumpster is not a term that everyone knows and because the
meaning of the expression ―Dumpster diving‖ is not immediately obvious, Eighner provides
the synonym ―scavenging,‖ which most people will understand.
When you define a word by negation, you say what the term is not. That is, you define a
term by contrasting it with something else.
In the Reading: Eighner uses definition by negation twice in his essay. First, he states
that ―scavenging‖ is not ―foraging,‖ meaning that it is not gathering nuts and berries. He also
says that life as a scavenger is not a comfortable consumer life. The rest of his essay explains
his life as a scavenger.
Defining a term by category is a more formal type of definition, as in a dictionary. Defining by category has two parts: the class or general category that the word belongs to and the
way the word is different from other words in that group. For example, heart might be defined as ―the organ that pumps blood through the body.‖ The general category is organ, and
it is different from other organs (brain, lungs, stomach, liver, and so on) because it pumps
blood.
In the Reading: Eighner doesn’t use this type of definition directly. He does, however,
suggest that scavenging falls into the category of lifestyle in paragraph 2 when he compares
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his life as a scavenger to the life of a consumer.
In Your Writing: List all the ideas related to the word security that will help you make
your point. With this list in front of you, which approach outlined above would be the best
with each idea? Are these the best methods to achieve your purpose? Would another strategy
be more effective with a certain idea?
3. Develop your definition with examples. Nearly every definition can be improved by adding
examples. Well-chosen examples show your definition in action. Definitions can be objective
(strictly factual, as in a dictionary definition) or subjective (combined with personal opinions). A definition essay is usually more subjective than objective because you are providing your personal opinions about a word or concept. You are explaining to your readers your
own meaning, which is what makes your essay interesting. If your readers wanted an objective definition, they could go to a dictionary.
In the Reading: Eighner uses examples throughout his essay to expand on his definition.
Paragraph 3 consists entirely of examples of items he has found in Dumpsters. Later he gives
examples of the kinds of food he finds, including canned goods, cookies and crackers, raw
fruits and vegetables, peanut butter, and yogurt. These examples help Eighner strike a balance in his definition between objective (factual) and subjective (personal) references. From
these and Eighner’s other examples, we get a very clear idea of how a person could live by
Dumpster diving.
In Your Writing: Do you have enough examples on your prewriting list for your definition essay? Take some time to brainstorm and record a few more details that come to mind.
Think of your topic from as many different perspectives as possible.
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4. Use other rhetorical strategies, such as description, comparison, or process analysis, to
support your definition. When you write a definition essay, you should look at your word
or idea in many different ways. The other techniques you have learned for developing body
paragraphs can help you expand your definition even further. Perhaps a description, a short
narrative, or a comparison will make your definition come alive.
In the Reading: In addition to examples, Eighner uses process analysis, classification,
and cause and effect to expand his definition. He uses one type of process analysis (how
something happens) to explain the four stages that new Dumpster divers go through. His
three rules for eating safely are also process analysis (how to do something). He draws on
classification to name the types of foods he finds and then gives examples of each category.
At the end of his essay, he uses cause and effect when he explains that Dumpster diving (the
cause) has taught him two lessons (the effects): that only items you can use are valuable and
that material objects don’t last.
In Your Writing: Now that you have a well-developed list of ideas and examples, think
about the rhetorical strategies that will best support your specific ideas. Where could you use
description? Narration? Comparison/Contrast? Make some notes on your prewriting list
about the rhetorical modes that will be most effective in your definition.
5. Organize your essay in a logical way. Because a definition essay can be developed through
several strategies and techniques, there is no set pattern of organization. So you need to figure out the most logical way to explain your word or idea. You might move from particular
to general or from general to particular. Or you might arrange your ideas from one extreme to
the other, such as from most important to least important, least dramatic to most dramatic, or
most familiar to least familiar. In some cases, you might organize your definition chronologi-
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cally or spatially. Or you might organize part of your essay one way and the rest another
way. What’s important is that you move in some logical way from one point to another so
your readers can follow your train of thought.
In the Reading: Eighner organizes his essay chronologically. He says he started Dumpster diving about a year before he became homeless. Now he is homeless and lives by Dumpster diving. He defines the term in two ways (synonym and negation) and gives examples of
the items he finds. Then he switches to a general-to-particular organization in paragraphs 7–
11, explaining how someone learns to dive in general and then how to dive for food in particular. The last five paragraphs conclude the essay.
In Your Writing: How will you organize the details in your essay? What order would be
most effective to get your main point across to your readers? Choose a method of organization from those listed in this guideline.
Writing a Draft of Your Essay
Now is the time to collect all your reactions, your notes, your prewriting exercises, and your
lists as you generate the first draft of your essay. You might want to review the professional essay, the writing assignment, and the chapter guidelines for writing definition essays along with
your notes and lists to help you write a draft of your essay. At this point, don’t think about revising or editing; just get your thoughts about the writing assignment down on paper.
Helpful Hints
Are you struggling with creating an interesting title? A good title can jumpstart your essay. The title of an essay grabs the readers’ attention so they can understand your message clear-
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ly. If you need help with this feature, go to Essay Introductions, Conclusions, and Titles in
MyWritingLab.
Want to make sure everyone will understand what you mean? Try using several approaches to your topic. Through examples, for instance, you can create a clear picture for your
reader. See Illustrating Essays in MyWritingLab for more help.
Are you having problems getting started? The introduction of your essay is what your
readers see first; it is the place for you to catch their attention. Essay Introductions, Conclusions, and Titles in MyWritingLab will give you some ideas for getting started.
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