Learning to write a well-formed non-technical definition was very helpful. In the past, I have had to define complicated policy terms or ideas to a lay audience as part of previous jobs, but I never looked at formal strategies to do this.
Being able to see the formal strategies for defining terms and the different components that can go into a definition was helpful to more systematically create one.
This assignment’s requirement to use four different strategies for defining our term helped me go through the different ways I can use to define a term. When I first started writing, I was writing down what I knew of the term I chose, Theory of Change. But as I went back through the course materials and thought about the different strategies for defining, I was able to fill in gaps left by my initial attempt at defining the term.
That said, I did struggle at keeping the definition short when including all four definition strategies. When defining terms in the future outside of class, it will be helpful to write the definition using different strategies and then choose the strategies that work best for my particular purpose. For this assignment, I felt I was adding unnecessary or repetitive information in the hopes of completing the assignment’s requirements.
Getting my definition reviewed by another person was also helpful in two ways. First, and the more obvious way, was in getting another person to look through my definition with a fresh pair of eyes to look for grammar mistakes and improvements to my structure. Having that extra pair of eyes helped identify some flaws I had not seen when writing my definition.
More specifically, I appreciated how Evan pointed out how my sections were blending into each other. When writing, it can be easy to forget that some readers skip from section to section, so it is important for each section to be self-contained.
The second way this review process was helpful was in forcing me to sit on the definition for a few days and get back to it with a new perspective. I was able to catch other flaws in my definition and make improvements that were identified by the peer reviewer and myself.
When it came to reviewing someone else’s definition, that also helped me revisit the definition strategies and review the formal writing tips I read about in the textbook. I was able to refer back to the textbook and Dr. Paterson’s blog to see how Mitchell could improve his definition.
I have done peer reviews in the past, but the difference this time is that I was able to do it more systematically by having the textbook and the blog as resources.
Both the definition and the peer review process will surely come in handy in the future.
Evan’s peer review of my definition can be found here.
My revised definition is here – Eng301 Rodrigo Samayoa definitions
And my review of Mitchell Prost’s definition is here.