Definition, vocabulary
and academic clarity
The Clarity Principle
States that the text should be
• Clear
• Organized
Importance of definitions
Definitions are basic tool for ensuring clarity in referring to concepts
about the text.
• Structure of definition
Concept Class Special feature
……………. is a ……… which ………………
• Examples
Concept ‘be’ verb a/an/the Class/category wh-word+ defining
information
A doctor Is a person who is qualified to
treat medical problems
Patients are people Who are receiving
medical treatment
Writing definitions
• Fitness
• Cholesterol
What can be the definition of these words according
to the definition structure?
Definition
• Fitness
The condition of a person being physically fit and
healthy.
• Cholesterol
Cholesterol is a type of fat found in your blood.
Complex definitions
• Many concepts and ideas are much harder to define in
a simple way
• For example
Health includes
• Fitness
• Proper diet
• Exercise
Example
• Health
A complex or proper definition of health can be given as:
“ Health can be defined as physical, mental, and social
wellbeing, and as a resource for living a full life. It refers
not only to the absence of disease, but the ability to recover
and bounce back from illness and other problems.”
Extracting definition from text
Concept:
Memory
Category:
Person
Defining Information:
Help them retain information.
Memory
Memory is our ability to encode, store, retain and
subsequently recall information and post
experiences in the human brain.
Placebo
Placebo is a fake treatment, an inactive substance like
sugar or saline solution can sometimes improve a
patient’s condition.
Structure for Formal definition
Items Verb forms Information
is, means, a state of complete
Good Health describes, physical, mental and
defined as. social well being
For example
A disease is defined as illness that has a set of
characteristics symptoms doctors can recognize.
Restrictive and non-restrictive clauses
Restrictive clause
• A restrictive clause defines the meaning of a noun or noun phrase and
provides necessary information about the noun in the sentence.
• It is not separated from the rest of the sentence by commas.
• Example
• The journalist whose story I read yesterday has won prizes for her
work
Non-restrictive clause
• A non-restrictive clause adds additional information to a sentence.
• It is usually a proper noun or a common noun that refers to a
unique person, thing or event.
• It uses commas to show that the information is additional.
• Example
• The hypothesis, which I tested throughout the research, was
rejected
Reduced relative clauses
• In academic writing it is common to use reduced relative clauses.
• Example
• E; A dentist is a person who is qualified to treat people’s teeth.
• F; A dentist is a person qualified to treat people’s teeth.
• Sentence F is as clear as sentence E and it is shorter, more
economical with words.
Extended definitions
• An extended definition is longer than a shorter formal
definitions and it provides a fuller explanation of the concept.
• It might describes the concept from different perspective;
• Historical, political, sociological or scientific perspective
Compare and contrast
Definitions
• Compare means 'to represent things or objects in
respect of similarity.
• Contrast means 'to represent things in respect of
differences.
How we can differentiate compare and
contrast in a text?
Contrast Compare
Acute diseases are the Acute and chornic
diseases that affect an illnesses are similar in
individual for short that coping with any
span of time on the health problem,
other hand, chornic depending upon the
diseases that persist severity of the
for long period of time condition.
Writing definition of more
abstract ideas
1. Measuring Children's Dental Health
Good dental health for children's prevent cavities
and youth decay. Parents should teach how to care
of their teeth and help them remain cavity free .
2 . Explain why periodontal (gum) disease is
not included in most definition of good dental
Health?
Extended definition
• Environmental Science
• Reading
• Good Vocabulary
Understanding Academic
Vocabulary
• Pre-writing Techniques help writer to develop ideas
and process information.
• Specially important for the new academic writers.
• Reading is a good pre writing technique particularly
helps to understand the vocabulary.
Establishing meaning then
writing a definition
• While working with others, form a pair or small group.
• First find out the meaning of the word e.g. stress.
• Together write a clear definition either brief or extended
definition.
• Do some discussion or reading to find some other kinds of
stress.
Reading Relevant information
and clustering it
• Read the text focuses on the one kind of stress i.e. test
anxiety.
• Visit different website to collect more about stress.
• Access other information about solution of test anxiety.
• Make notes of collected information.
• It is good to cluster the information on page.
• Clustering the information is useful to pre organized the
material which would be used.
• Look at the clustering you have done and consider weather
you used
Classes and categories
Comparisons and contrast
• That will help to build sensible clusters to classify defining
features.
• Make necessary changes to make pre writing more useful.
Self Assessment
• Put your pre-writing on an organized text of almost 500
words.
• It should contain definition of test anxiety
• Explain why it is a problem
• Describe the solution that have been recommended.
• Include your own suggestions.
