• 2. A rainforest is a forest in a tropic area which receives a lot of rain.
Organizational Structure
• sentence 1: • Term: tornado/ rain forest • Class: wind/ forest • Characteristic: upside-down, spinning cone,
the table.
• 1. A tornado may be identified as a strong dangerous wind which forms itself into an upside down spinning cone and is able to destroy buildings as it moves across the ground.
complicated point in an argument, to make ourselves better understood in everyday
affairs, etc.
Organizational Structure
• Sample 1 • Read the following two sentences and then complete
• Though the definitions in Sample 1 are quite brief, they contain three basic elements: the term to be defined, the general group or class the term belongs to and the distinguishing characteristics of the term.
• Definition serves a number of purposes in our writing:
to introduce a new term, to explain a jargon in some academic discipline, to make clear some abstract, controversial or
• Similarly, in establishing the meaning of rain forest, the writer puts limits on the term by specifying such features as “in a tropical area, a lot of rain” in order to differentiate it from other entities.
Unit 6 Definition
• Definition often appears at the beginning of an expository or persuasive essay to explain unfamiliar concepts, to restrict or make clear the terms of the argument.
English Writing II
Part I Warm-up Activities
• Group Work • Discuss with your classmates the definition of the
word “couch surfing”. • Questions: • What's the definition of the word in a dictionary? • What do you think of the concept of “couch
surfing”? • Can you cite some examples? • What can you conclude about “couching surfing”?

• Then based on your discussion and your work, write one paragraph or two defining or explaining “couch surfing”.
• 2. to avoid some pitfalls in constructing paragraphs of definition
Part II Definition
• Definition is a method we use to distinguish one thing from all other things.
• It answers the questions: ✓What is it? ✓What are its limits or boundaries?
• Study Objectives
• 1. some principles and methods of developing definition in paragraph writing
highly destructive/ tropical area, lots of rain
• Sentence 2 • • Term: rain forest • Class: forest • Characteristic: tropical area, lots of rain
• Now can you summarize the features of the above two definitions?
• Tornado, as defined in the example, belongs to the general class of “wind,” as opposed to all the other classes such as thunder, lightning. It is characterized as being “upside-down, spinning, destructive,” which distinguishes it from other members of the same class like typhoon, hurricane, etc.