| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Ad Hominem Argument | Attacks the opposing speaker or another person rather than addressing the issues at hand |
| Allegory | Fictional work in which the characters represent ideas or concepts |
| Alliteration | The repetition of consonant sounds, usually at the beginning of words |
| Allusion | A reference, usually oblique or faint, to another thing, idea, or person |
| Analogy | The correspondence or resemblance between two things that are essentially different |
| Anecdote | A short story used to illustrate a point the author is making |
| Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which an absent person or personified object is addressed by a speaker |
| Assonance | A type of internal rhyming in which vowel souds are repeated |
| Asyndeton | When the conjunctions (such as "and" or "but") that would normally connect a string of words, phrases, or clauses are omitted from a sentence |
| Atmosphere | The emotional feeling -or mood- of a place, scene, or event |
| Colloquial Language | Slang or common language that is informal |
| Connotative | The interpretive level of a word based on associated images rather than the literal meaning |
| Deductive Argument | The process of moving from a general rule to a specific example |
| Diction | An author's choice of words |
| Didactic | Writing which has the purpose of teaching or instructing |
| Ethos | Refers to generally ethics, or values |
| Euphemism | A mild or pleasant sounding expression that substitutes for a harsh, indelicate, or simply less pleasant idea |
| Hyperbole | A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used to achieve emphasis |
| Imagery | A mental picture that is conjured by specific words and associations |
| Inductive Argument | Creating a case by providing specific examples and drawing a conclusion based on the evidence they provide |
| Irony | When a situation produces and outcome that is the opposite of what is expected |
| Juxtaposition | When two contrasting things are placed next to each other for comparison |
| Logos | The use of reason as a controlling principle in an argument |
| Metaphor | A figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared directly |
| Paradox | A seeming contradiction that in fact reveals some truth |
| Parallelism | A literary technique that relies on the use of the same syntactical structures |
| Parody | An effort to ridicule or make fun of a literary work or an author by writing a comic imitation of the work |
| Pathos | A sympathetic feeling of pity or compassion evoked by an artistic work |
| Periodic Sentence | Presents the main clause at the end of the sentence, for emphasis |
| Persona | The character created by the voice and narration of the speaker of a text |
| Personification | A figure of speech in which ideas or objects are described as having human qualities or personalities |
| Point of View | The particular perspective from which a story is told |
| Pun | A play on words |
| Repetition | The reiteration of a word or phrase for emphasis |
| Simile | A commonly used figure of speech that compares one thing with another using the words "like" or "as" |
| Symbol | Something that stands for something else |
| Synonym | A word that has the same, or nearly the same, meaning as another word |
| Syntax | The way words are arranged in a sentence |
| Tone | Attitude |
| Understatement | When an author assigns less significance to an event or thing than it deserves |
Combine with other sets
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