在撰写学术论文时，作者常会借由定义关键词或词组，帮助读者理解文章陈述的论点。关键词对于文章的理解很重要，对于关键词含义的错误理解，可能导致对论点或文章部分内容的错误理解。实际上，对同一关键词的不同解释常常是造成研究者之间意见相左的主要原因。因此，在学术写作中，作者务必留意可能存在的重要专有名词的不同诠释方式。
介绍定义的句型
1.It is necessary here to clarify exactly what is meant by …
2.There is a degree of uncertainty around the terminology in …
3.This shows a need to be explicit about exactly what is meant by the word X.
4.X is a term frequently used in the literature, but to date there is no consensus about …
一般意义或应用上的意义
1.The term X refers to …
2.The term X encompasses A), B), and C).
3.X can be defined as … It encompasses …
4.X can be loosely described as a correlation.
5.The term X has come to be used to refer to …
6.The term X is generally understood to mean …
7.The term X has been applied to situations where students …
8.In the literature, the term tends to be used to refer to …
9.The broad use of the term X is sometimes equated with …
10.Whereas X refers to the operations of …, Y refers to the …
11.The term disease refers to a biological event characterized by …
12.The term X is a relatively new name for a Y, commonly referred to…
13.In broad biological terms, X can be defined as any stimulus that is …
14.Defined as XYZ, obesity is now considered a worldwide epidemic and is associated with
指出专有名词难以定义的原因
1.A generally accepted definition of X is lacking.
2.Unfortunately, X remains a poorly defined term.
3.The term X embodies a multitude of concepts which …
4.A further definition is given by Smith (1982) who describes …
5.In the field of language teaching, various definitions of X are found.
6.Smith (2001) identified four abilities that might be subsumed under the term X: a)…
7.Although differences of opinion still exist, there appears to be some agreement that X refers to …
8.X is a commonly-used notion in language learning and yet it is a concept difficult to define precisely.
指定专有名词在文章或论文中的使用方式
1.The term X will be used solely when referring to …
2.In the present report, X was therefore defined in terms of …
3.In this essay, the term X will be used in its broadest sense to refer to all …
4.In this paper, the term that will be used to describe this phenomenon is X.
5.In this dissertation, the terms X and Y are used interchangeably to mean …
6.Throughout this thesis, the term education is used to refer to informal systems as well as…
7.While a variety of definitions of the term X have been suggested, this paper will use the definition first suggested by Smith (1968) who saw it as …
用他人定义：著名作者
1.For Smith (2001), fluency means/refers to …
2.Smith (2001) uses the term ‘fluency’ to refer to …
3.Smith (1954) was apparently the first to use the term …
4.The term ‘fluency’ is used by Smith (2001) to refer to …
5.Macro-stabilization policy is defined by Smith (2003: 119) as ‘… …’
6.This definition is close to those of Smith (2012) and Jones (2013) who define X as…
7.In 1987, sports psychologist John Smith popularized the term ‘X’ to describe…
8.According to a definition provided by Smith (2001:23), fluency is ‘the maximally …
9.Aristotle defines the imagination as ‘the movement which results upon an actual sensation.’
10.One of the first people to define nursing was Florence Nightingale (1860), who wrote: ‘… …’
11.Chomsky writes that a grammar is a ‘device of some sort for producing the ….’ (1957, p.11).
12.mith, has shown that, as late as 1920, Jones was using the term ‘X’ to refer to particular …
13.The term ‘matter’ is used by Aristotle in four overlapping senses. First, it is the underlying … Secondly, it is the potential which …
14.Smith et al. (2002) have provided a new definition of health: ‘health is a state of being with physical, cultural, psychological …’
引用他人定义：一般作者
Validity is the degree to which an assessment process or device measures what it is intended to measure (Smith et al., 1986).
