Sample Definition Paragraph

Wikipedia on "Definition"

I'm going to break it up to show what elements were used here:

Definition/Topic Sentence.

A definition is a passage that explains the meaning of a term (a word, phrase or other set of symbols), or a type of thing.

Elaboration -- going into detail about the parts

The term to be defined is the definiendum (plural definienda). A term may have many different senses or meanings. For each such specific sense, a definiens (plural definientia) is a cluster of words that defines it.

Method
Caution about some difficulties

A chief difficulty in managing definition is the need to use other terms that are already understood or whose definitions are easily obtainable. The use of the term in a simple example may suffice.

Solving the difficulty

By contrast, a dictionary definition has additional details, typically including an etymology showing snapshots of the earlier meanings and the parent language.

Comparisons

Like other words, the term definition has subtly different meanings in different contexts. A definition may be descriptive of the general use meaning, or stipulative of the speaker's immediate intentional meaning.

Examples

For example, in formal languages like mathematics, a 'stipulative' definition guides a specific discussion. A descriptive definition can be shown to be "right" or "wrong" by comparison to general usage, but a stipulative definition can only be disproved by showing a logical contradiction [3].

Sources Cited

(given by the numbers in the text, like the [3] above)

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