Developing Ideas Through Definition and Description: Study Guide (English Language 4.5)

Two methods that make an idea visible

Topic 4.4 looked at comparison. This topic looks at two other common methods of development: definition and description. The framework puts them together: when developing ideas through a definition or description, writers relate the characteristics, features or sensory details of an object or idea, sometimes using examples or illustrations.

The point is to make a reader understand what you mean by something, or to make them experience it. Both are ways of giving an audience the means to trace the writer’s reasoning, which is what a method of development is for.

• Definition answers “What is it, exactly?” It sets boundaries: what counts and what does not.
• Description answers “What is it like?” It supplies the features, particulars and sensory details that let a reader see or feel the thing.

Definition

Formal definition

A formal definition places a term in a class and says what distinguishes it from the rest of that class. For example, a drought might be defined as “a period of weather (the class) in which rainfall is so far below normal that water supplies fall short of need (what distinguishes it)”. A formal definition is compact and precise.

Extended definition

An extended definition takes a paragraph or more. It may use:

• Examples: “Generosity is giving what you could keep: the neighbour who mows a lawn without being asked.”
• Negation: “Courage is not the absence of fear…”
• Comparison: “Patience is to waiting what a pilot is to a storm.”
• Features and requirements: “A fair test changes one variable at a time, uses the same conditions and can be repeated.”
• Origin or history of the word, when it illuminates the idea.

Definition as strategy

In an argument, a writer may define a key term so that the audience agrees on what the argument is about. This is also a point to read critically: a definition can make a claim easy to win. “Success means a high salary” is a definition that decides the argument about whether college is worthwhile before it starts. As a writer, state a definition you can defend. As a reader, ask whether it is fair, and whether the writer is relying on it to carry the claim.

A satirical dictionary shows how pointed a definition can be. Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary (first published as The Cynic’s Word Book in 1906), defines:

Positive, adj. Mistaken at the top of one’s voice.

The definition makes a claim about people who are certain, and the joke carries a criticism: loudness is not knowledge.

Description

Description presents features and sensory details so the reader can imagine what the writer saw. In an argument, description is not decoration. It gives the reader a concrete image that supports a claim or sets a tone.

Three habits make description effective:

• Choose specific nouns and verbs. “A dented blue van stalls at the junction” beats “a vehicle has problems”.
• Use sensory detail. Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste let a reader be present in the scene.
• Select, do not pile up. Choose details that point the reader toward the writer’s purpose.

In Charles Dickens’s Bleak House (1853), the opening description of London in November sets a mood for an attack on a slow legal system:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.

The details work: the verbs “flows” and “rolls defiled” suggest the fog is taking on the filth it passes, and the parenthesis “(and dirty)” adds the narrator’s judgment in a whisper.

Using examples and illustrations

Both methods use examples and illustrations to ground ideas. An example is a particular case of a general idea. An illustration (verbal or visual) shows it in action. The difference between a weak and a strong paragraph on definition is often the example.

Weak	Strong
“Loyalty means being faithful.”	“Loyalty is sitting through a friend’s third retelling of a story and laughing where you laughed the first time.”
“The market was busy.”	“Crates scraped on stone, a vendor shouted the price of figs, and the air smelled of fish and wet cardboard.”

The strong versions do not just assert; they let the reader see an instance.

Worked example 1: writing an extended definition for an argument

Task. A student will argue that a school should allow open-book tests. The key term is cheating, and the student needs a definition that does not decide the argument unfairly.

Step 1: Start with a formal definition. “Cheating is gaining an advantage on an assessment by methods the rules forbid.” This is a class (gaining an advantage) with a distinction (forbidden by the rules).

Step 2: Notice the hidden problem. The definition depends on the rules. If the rules allow notes, the same act is not cheating. That observation is useful: it will become the heart of the argument.

Step 3: Extend the definition with an example and a contrast.

Cheating is gaining an advantage by means the rules forbid, which is why the same sheet of notes is cheating in one exam hall and a legitimate tool in another. Copying a neighbour’s answer is cheating under any rules, because the answer is no longer the student’s own. Consulting a formula sheet the school has allowed is not, because everyone has it and the test is designed around it.

Step 4: Link the definition to the claim.

Because cheating depends on the rules, a school that fears cheating from open-book tests should write open-book tests whose questions cannot be copied from the book: the cure for cheating is a better question, not a locked drawer.

Step 5: Check that the definition is fair. It does not decide the argument by itself; it sets terms on which a reader who disagrees can still engage.

Worked example 2: analysing a description

Return to the Dickens passage:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.

Step 1: Identify the method. Description, developed by sensory detail and spatial movement along the river.

Step 2: List the features. The short sentence “Fog everywhere.” opens with one stark word. Then the parallel structure, “fog up the river… fog down the river”, moves in two directions. The first location has “green aits and meadows”, a clean setting; the second has “tiers of shipping” and “waterside pollutions”. The verb changes from “flows” to “rolls defiled”.

Step 3: Say what the features do. The repetition and the two directions suggest the fog is everywhere and inescapable. The contrast between green meadows and a polluted city lets the reader see the fog’s effect from upstream to downstream. The parenthetical “(and dirty)” is a quiet comment on the city.

Step 4: Link to purpose. The description sets the atmosphere in which a slow court case will later be shown. The fog becomes a figure for confusion and corruption.

Step 5: Write the analysis sentence. Dickens develops the idea of confusion by describing fog in parallel clauses that run in every direction, so the reader feels that nothing in the city escapes it, and the dirt carried by the verbs “rolls defiled” prepares us to see the legal system as equally polluted.

Common misconceptions

• “A definition should start with the dictionary.” A dictionary definition is usually a weak opener. Define the term as the argument needs it.
• “Description is only for stories.” Description supports arguments by letting readers see the problem or the solution.
• “More adjectives make better description.” Specific nouns and verbs usually do more than stacked adjectives.
• “A definition cannot be debated.” In an argument, definitions are often contested, and a fair argument says why its definition is reasonable.
• “Examples make the writing childish.” Examples make a general claim concrete and credible.
• “Description and definition are the same.” Definition draws boundaries; description makes features vivid.

Self-assessment: rate your own definition or description

Criterion	Not yet	Getting there	Secure
Fairness	The definition decides the argument in advance	The definition is reasonable but undefended	The definition is defensible and the writer says why
Examples	None, or only abstract statements	One example that is general	At least one specific example or illustration
Sensory or concrete detail	Vague adjectives (nice, bad, very)	Some specific detail, mixed with vague words	Exact nouns and verbs that the reader can picture
Link to claim	The passage stands apart from the argument	A link is implied	The last sentence ties the definition or description to the claim

Try it yourself

Define courage in three sentences for an argument that schools should praise students who admit mistakes. Use one example and one negation.

Suggested answer

Courage is not the absence of fear; it is acting on what you believe is right while the fear is still there. A student who puts a hand up and says, “I got this wrong, and here is why,” shows more courage than one who stays silent with the correct answer. Schools that praise that moment are praising courage, which is why they should celebrate admitted mistakes.

The negation (“not the absence of fear”), the example (the student who admits an error) and the final link to the claim are all present.

Where this leads

Unit 5 turns from methods of development to how paragraphs hold together. Topic 5.1 looks at body paragraphs and the line of reasoning. To revisit the previous method of development, see Topic 4.4. Check your learning with the practice questions, the revision notes and the checklist.