How to Write a Definition Essay on the Biocultural Approach to the Climate Change

If you are tasked with writing a definition essay on the biocultural approach to the climate change, your goal is to use the aforementioned topic and its contents in support of a unique definition of one word of your choosing (don’t forget to look at the suggested topics on the biocultural approach to the climate change). The word can be an abstract, broadly sweeping concept which you define based on the writings or book you have studied in class.

For example: you might want to define “sustainability”. This word is one which you are likely to come across in your readings multiple times, but is something tangentially related to the topic of climate change. When studying the climate change and its impact, you might reflect upon sustainable options for improvement in different biocultural areas, or how people can incorporate sustainable growth which mitigates the negative impact of climate change. But with that, your goal is to focus your entire essay on defining that single word in a unique fashion.

The Pre-Writing Phase

When defining your word, you should:

1) Think creatively, think about all possible explanations or definitions of the word. Reflect upon how you saw it used in your reading, or how multiple authors have used it in their publications.

2) Review different authors who have covered that topic so as to glean a better, more comprehensive idea or understanding about the word (you can also check out our facts on the biocultural approach to the climate change to have a better grasp on the definition).

3) Reflect upon what it means to you personally. Remember that your goal here is not to present a dictionary definition of the word but rather, to create your own definition supported by evidence.

For example: if you have selected “sustainability”, take a moment to reflect upon what that means to you. Does sustainability mean that an action or set of actions can be repeated by many people across a village, and therefore has to be something simple and teachable? Does sustainability mean something that mitigates negative impacts wrought on certain environments, such as crop rotation to bring back into the soil elements which were taken out during the last harvest? Does sustainability mean something that coincides with Mother Nature as she has been since before mankind, and therefore translate directly into farming or dietary practices that coincide with the natural cycles of the Earth?

The Writing Phase

Once you have reflected and done your research, it is time to sit down and draft your outline. The outline can take any form you choose. You might consider a bullet point list with short phrases to guide your writing or a Roman numeral list that has comprehensive sentences, topics, and transitions. Figure out what organizational method works best for you and use this as a time to play around with the organization of your piece until you find what best suits your subject matter. Once that is done, you just have to write out the draft based on your outline.

The Post-Writing Phase

With the draft ready, it is time to edit the content, organization, and flow. This is a big picture type of review which should be followed by a red-pen style proofread for sentence level errors.