Citing the Dictionary

For some reason people like to start papers with by citing a dictionary. Maybe writers think it kills 2 birds with 1 stone in that a) it's an in-text reference and demonstrates a quote and b) gets something on paper.

I hate seeing quotes pulled from a dictionary. Call it a pet peeve; call it a fetish; call me an irascible curmudgeon and pedant, but it makes me cringe. I'd rather chew aluminum foil than read a dictionary quote of common word.

To make it worse, most dictionary quotes I see from students include several meanings of the word, in various parts of speech, and fail to identify what particular meaning will be focused on. It looks like filler - a great ploy to break writer's block and get started on a rough draft - but not something that should survive to a final draft.

I generally hate seeing dictionary quotes because its tried so often and almost never works - not that it can't be done. Maybe it's like cutting your own hair. I've known just one person who can pull it off, but I've know dozens who failed miserably. I strongly recommend against it. I can simply turn my head from looking at a bad haircut, but I'm required to read what students write, so for now I reserve the right to dock points for style.

I do encourage writers to define their terms as they use them, but be specific to the context and usage of your term, and define it in a way personally meaningful: preferably in your own words. All dictionary definitions of common words are going to be similar, so most such definitions are common knowledge and would be trite.

Mike Shapiro at UW- Madison writes

Three quick usage rules:

1. Incorporate a definition into your essay only when that definition is unusual and interesting—as a general rule, give definitions only for meanings that are uncommon (example: the theological sense of disgrace) or that have gone out of use since Shakespeare’s time.
2. Use the definition to further your argument. If you take the space to spell out an unusual meaning of disgrace but don’t explain how that unusual definition betters our understanding of the sonnet, that space will be wasted.
3. Don’t begin an essay with a definition. Although this might give you a way to break the blank page, your reader is more interested in the argument of your essay than in the OED definition of “love.”

A thread started on a public discussion board has a student asking if it's ok to quote the dictionary because her teacher said it was a rule she couldn't. There's a great discussion and only a little teacher-bashing.


Oh, and if one were to quote a dictionary, it'd better be the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), or a specialized dictionary like the Urban Dictionary or the Devil's Dictionary.