For Unit 1:3, we were asked to write 3 definitions of a term that are widely used in our discipline, in my case, my discipline is Psychology. For the assignment, I chose the word Systematic Desensitization because I often come across that word when I’m learning about therapy and I felt like it was a great way to share to my peers one of the more prominent therapies that we, Psychology students seem to always come across in different Psychology classes. Whilst doing the definition, I created three different types of definition which are: parenthetical, sentence and expanded. From my personal experience, I found the expanded version harder than the rest, perhaps because we needed to combine 3 methods of expansion. The methods I chose are history, operating principle and visual. The first thing I thought about when I first read that we had a definition assignment was why? Why are we ask to do something so simple. But then I learned there was more to “definitions” than I thought. Definitions are not just as clear cut as explaining a term but it can also be represented in through their history, through visual or compare and contrast, and that was something new I learned when I was making the definition assignment.
After making the definition, we had to peer review the definition of our fellow team member. Through the peer review process, I get to see how my fellow team, Meagan defined her chosen term. Because her discipline was Dental, the term she chose was unfamiliar to me, and as I read her definitions, I not only understand what that is, but I get to understand how it works, I learned a brief history of what it was as well as how it looks like. It made me realize that, for me, the most effective definition was the expansion definition because it considers different way of explaining that term rather than just a one sentence definition. I also learned the improvements I could make in my definition assignment. The peer review from Meagan was really helpful, because sometimes you don’t really realize the mistakes you make in your own writing that others can spot.
The last step was the self-editing. As I mentioned before, the peer review from my peer was really helpful to improve my self-editing. Re-reading the textbook also made me realize what I must have missed and what I should improve. I learned that self-editing your writing after letting your writing sit for a few days helps you read it in a different lens. I feel that when you write something and you re-read it, it’s less likely you detect a mistake because you already have this mindset and memory of what you said and therefore you are less aware. But when you let your writing sit for a day or two and you come back to it, you read it as if you want to refresh your memory again of what you wrote, and in a way puts you in the position as an outsider reading it for the very first time and it was easier to detect mistakes. So overall, this assignment taught me types of definition, the importance of peer review in improving your writing as well as self-editing.
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