| Term | Definition |
|---|
| hyperbole | an exaggeration for effect |
| litotes | understatement |
| irony | writing or speaking that implies the contrary of what is actually written of spoken |
| oxymoron | juxtaposed words with seemingly contradictory meanings |
| rhetorical question | a question posed by the speaker or writer not to seek an answer but instead to affirm or deny a point simply by asking a question about it |
| synecdoche | a part of something used to refer to the whole |
| metonymy | an entity referred to by one of its attributes or associations |
| personification | the giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects |
| simile | a type of comparison that used the word like or as |
| metaphor | an implied comparison that does not use the word like or as |
| periphrasis | the substitute of an attributive word or phrase for a proper name, or the use of a proper name to suggest a personality characteristic |
| anthimeria | one part of speech, usually a verb, substitutes for another, usually a noun |
| onomatopoeia | sounds of the words used are related to their meaning |
| alliteration | the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning or in the middle of two or more adjacent words |
| assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more adjacent words |
| consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more adjacent words |
| anaphora | the repetition of a group of words at the beginning of successive clauses |
| epistrophe | the repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses |
| anadiplosis | the repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause |
| climax | the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing number or importance |
| cliche | a trite overused expression |
| jargon | the specialized vocabulary of a particular group |
| contractions | the combination of two words into one by elimination one or more sounds and indicating the omission with an apostrophe |
| passive voice | the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb |
| pathos | emotional appeal with intent to persuade |
| sibilance | the repetition of the s sound |
| inductive reasoning | drawing a conclusion based on specific evidence (scientific evidence) |
| deductive reasoning | the argument lies on fundamental truths, rights or values rather than available evidence |
| syllogism | major premise, minor premise, conclusion |
| enthymeme | a syllogism where the major premise is not stated |
| ethos | designed to persuade through the author's expierence or credibility |
| logos | logical appeal with intent to persuade, the effectiveness of logical argument depends in large part on weather or not the main assumption or premise is valid or acceptable |
| allusion | a reference to a piece of literature historical icon,person place thing or event that suggests a wider frame of reference or greater depth of meaning |
| tone | what the author feels about what he/she is writing |
| persona | the mask the author puts on for this piece of writing, the person the author is trying to be percieved as |
| SOAPSTone | an acronym for analyzing texts;S-subject, O-occasion, A-Audience, P-Purpose, S-speaker, Tone |
| simple sentence | a sentence with one independent clause and no dependent clause |
| compound sentence | a sentence with two or more independent clauses |
| complex sentence | a sentence with one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses |
| compound-complex sentence | a sentence with two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses |
| loose sentence | a sentence that adds modifying elements after the subject, verb, and complement |
| periodic sentence | a sentence with modifying elements included before the verb and/or complement |
| diction | the author's choice of words, how the culture perseives words |
| connotation | the cultural definitation of a word |
| rhetorical situation | the convergence in a situation of exigency(the need to write), audience, and purpose |
| aphoristic statement | a short pithy statement |
| apocryphal story | stories that are passed down without any regard for their truth or orgin |
| rhetoric | the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a given situation |
| rhetor | a writer or speaker who uses rhetoric |
| rhetorical choices | tools you can use to make rhetoric |
| rhetorical purpose | what you are trying to achieve using rhetoric |
| antithesis | the juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas |
| paradox | a seming contradiction that on further explanation appears to be true |
| allegory | a story or situation in which all things represent both themselves and something bigger |
| euphemism | a nicer way of putting something |
| apostrophes | when a character or auther speaks directly to something that are not present |
| parallel construction | a set of similarly structured words, phrases, or clauses that appears in a sentence or paragraph |
| appeal to authority | appeal based on professionals perspective |
| begging the question | you assume to be true the thing you are trying to prove, circular reasoning |
| appeal to pity | only using pathos to form an argument |
| presenting a false dilemma | a speaker who poses a choice between two alternatives while looking over the other possibilities |
| stacked evidence | representing only one side of an issue that clearly has two sides, which gives a distorted impression of the issue |
| either/or (false dilemma) | some arguments are over simplified by the arguer and presented as black-or white, either/or choices when there are actually other alternatives |
| posthoc, ergo propter hoc | the fallacy of false cause, Literally "after this (in time) therefore because of this." a common error made in thinking about causation: If Event A happens before Event B, it is not necessarily true that A caused B. |
| red herring | any diversion intended to distract attention from the main issue |
| non sequitur | (logic) a conclusion that does not follow from the premises |
| straw man | attributing an argument to an opponent that the opponent never made and then refuting it in a devastating way |
| hasty generalization | "jumping to conclusions" by basing a conclusion of too few examples |
| ad hominem | "to the man" attacks a person's character rather than a person's ideas |
| guilt by association | suggests that people's character can be judged by examining the character of their associates |
| using authority instead of evidence | the arguer relies on personal authority to prove a point rather than on evidence |
| bandwagon appeal | the argument is that everyone is doing something, so you should too |
| slippery slope | a scare tactic that suggests that if we allow one thing to happen, we will immediately be sliding down the sloppery slope to disaster |
| creating false needs | appeal to what people value and think they need |
| equivocation | when a word is used in two different senses in an argument |
| composition | an argument may claim that what is true of the parts is also true of the whole |
| division | that is true of the whole is true of the parts |
| appeal to tradition | an argument that something must be true because it is part of an established tradition |
| appeal to ignorance | using an opponent's inability to disprove a conclusion as proof of the conclusion's correctness or incorrectness |
| appeal to fear | to use the threat of harm to advance one's position |
| faulty analogy | claims that things that resemble one another in certain repects resemble one another in further respects |
| zuegma | a trope in which one word, usually a noun or the main verb, governs two other words not related in meaning (he maintained a business and his innocence) |
| antimetabole | the repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order (you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy) |
| parenthesis | an insertion of material that interrupts the typical flow of a sentence |
| appositive | a noun or noun phrase that follows another noun immediately or defines or amplifies its meaning |
| ellipses | the omission of words, the meaning or which is provided by the overall context of a passage |
| asyndeton | the omission of conjunctions between related clauses (i came, i saw, i conquered) |
Combine with other sets
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