Category or class

extended defi nition.
With an 
extended defi nition,
you seek to analyze 
a concept so that the reader will have a more complete understanding of it. For 
instance, you might include a historical perspective. When or how did the concept 
begin? How did the term change or evolve over the years, or how do different 
cultures understand the term? When you ask these questions, you become involved 
in the term’s 
connotations.
An extended defi nition, or 
analysis
as it is also called, 
draws on more than one method to arrive at an understanding of a term.
An 
extended defi nition
is an expanded defi nition or 
analysis
of a concept 
or term, giving additional information that conveys a fuller meaning.
The following paragraph, taken from 
Sociology: An Introduction
by John E. Conklin, 
is the beginning of a chapter on the family. The author’s starting point is very similar 
to the dictionary entry seen above.
In every society, social norms defi ne a variety of relationships among 
people, and some of these relationships are socially recognized as family 
or kinship ties. A 
family
is a socially defi ned set of relationships between 
at least two people who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption. We 
can think of a family as including several possible relationships, the most 
common being between husband and wife, between parents and children, 
and between people who are related to each other by birth (siblings, for 
example) or by marriage (a woman and her mother-in-law, perhaps). Family 
relationships are often defi ned by custom, such as the relationship between 
an infant and godparents, or by law, such as the adoption of a child.
The author begins this defi nition by putting the term into a larger class. 
Family
is 
one type of social relationship among people. The writer then identifi es the people 
who are members of this group. Family relationships can be formed by marriage, 
birth, adoption, or custom. The author does not stop here. In the pages that follow 
this paragraph the writer explores the functions of the family, confl icts in the family, 
the structure of the family, and the special characteristics of the family.