Dissertations and other publications often contain a section for "Definitions of Terms" to define key vocabulary in the paper. However, I sometimes see the section title written as "Definition of Terms." To me that is a glaring grammatical error and not a matter of stylistic preference, as each term in the section has a separate definition, but it is common. Shooting each phrase through Google Scholar reveals that "Definition of Terms" is slightly more common. Any thoughts?
DefinitionS might imply that more than one definition will be given for each term. However you are going to pin things down by giving only your preferred definition_ for each term.
Reminds me a bit of the "Materials and Methods" section of scientific papers which I've sometimes seen written as "Material and Methods". I prefer the former, but whether the latter could be called "a glaring grammatical error" I'm not so sure. Cheers!
'Definitions of terms' is okay, though not 'definition of terms'!
All scientific communication depends on precision and explicitness.
Thank you very much. I believe that "Definitions of Terms" is more accurate than "Definition of Terms," but they are both commonly used. I determined in this case to use the department convention. I think that the issue is impacted by the open-source nature of English as the global language.
I also agree that the importance of having such a section, and executing I well, is extremely important.
Sorry that this is a very old discussion, but I just found it.
"Definition of terms" refers to the act of defining terms, i.e. it is a verb, not a noun. I believe that this is the preferred wording for academic English.
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