Last week, I wrote a technical definition for non-technical audiences. The term that I chose to define is machine learning. Machine learning is a significant and comprehensive topic in computer science. Even experts in computer science spend years studying and analyzing machine learning concepts. It is hard to define it precisely, but avoid getting too much detail to understand. Defining machine learning in a technical context is an invaluable lesson for me and improves my writing. I learned a lot in defining a term, peering review others’ work, and re-edit the definitions.
In the textbook, we learnt the procedure to write a formal sentence definition and extended definition. A sentence definition is an informative sentence to indicate the broader class to which this item belongs, followed by the features that distinguish it from other things in that general class. Sentence definition is powerful in my mind, and it gives all the essential information to know a term without losing conciseness. Sentence definition is helpful to begin a definition, followed by an extended definition. It is pretty like an appetizer before the entree. In the extended definition, I chose to inform the etymology, history, operation principle of machine learning, analyze its parts and visualize it using images.
In the peer-review process, I reviewed Samantha Lee’s work about the definition of a cache. The change in perspective from an author to a reader teach me a lot in writing. In her work, she used many simple ideas to overview the functionality of a cache. She provided many examples to let her readers understand the effectiveness that a cache provides in computing. She also told the drawback of using a cache. I feel that providing enough examples is an excellent strategy to make a technical term less obscure. Also, pointing out both advantages and disadvantages is responsive.
When I re-edited my definitions of machine learning, I took Samantha’s advice about including parenthetical definitions to explain any technical-related words in my extended definition. I learnt that I need to carefully choose the word. As a technical student in university, I can easily assume some knowledge is common sense, but actually, they are not.
Revised Definition: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/09/30/definitions-of-machine-learning/
Peer Review: https://blogs.ubc.ca/engl301-99a-2021wa/2021/10/03/peer-review-of-definitions-on-machine-learning/