At times a writer may need to go further than a brief sentence definition and provide readers with a fuller, extended definition, as in the following example:
Compares TV addiction with drug and alcohol addiction
People often refer to being “hooked on TV.” Does this, too, fall into the light-
Let us consider television viewing in the light of the conditions that define serious addictions.
Not unlike drugs or alcohol, the television experience allows the participant to blot out the real world and enter into a pleasurable and passive mental state. The worries and anxieties of reality are as effectively deferred by becoming absorbed in a television program as by going on a “trip” induced by drugs or alcohol. And just as alcoholics are only inchoately aware of their addiction, feeling that they control their drinking more than they really do (“I can cut it out any time I want—
The self-
Finally, it is the adverse effect of television viewing on the lives of so many people that defines it as a serious addiction. The television habit distorts the sense of time. It renders other experiences vague and curiously unreal while taking on a greater reality for itself. It weakens relationships by reducing and sometimes eliminating normal opportunities for talking, for communicating.
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And yet television does not satisfy, else why would the viewer continue to watch hour after hour, day after day? “The measure of health,” writes Lawrence Kubie, “is flexibility . . . and especially the freedom to cease when sated.” But the television viewer can never be sated with his television experiences—
— MARIE WINN, “TV Addiction”
In this example, Marie Winn offers an extended definition of television addiction that begins with a comparison. Comparison or contrast is often the most effective way to present an unfamiliar term or concept to readers. The key is to know your readers well enough to find a term nearly all of them will know to compare to the unfamiliar term.
Extended definitions may also include negative definitions—explanations of what the thing being defined is not:
Defines by saying what dinosaurs are not
It’s important to be clear about the reverse definition, as well: what dinosaurs are not. Dinosaurs are not lizards, and vice versa. Lizards are scaly reptiles of an ancient bloodline. The oldest lizards antedate the earliest dinosaurs by a full thirty million years. A few large lizards, such as the man-
— ROBERT T. BAKKER, The Dinosaur Heresies
Choose one term that names some concept or feature of central importance in an activity or a subject you know well. For example, if you are studying biology, you have probably encountered terms like morphogenesis and ecosystem. Choose a word with a well-
In his essay in Chapter 4, “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?,” John Tierney presents an extended definition. After reading his essay, how would you define decision fatigue? Reread the essay to see which strategies he uses to define the term.