Terms : Hide Images
| 160255363 | Ad Hominem | An argument based of the failings of an adversary rather than on the merits of the case | |
| 160255364 | Adjective | Part of speech that modifies a noun or pronoun | |
| 160255365 | Adverb | Part of speech that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb | |
| 160255366 | Allegory | Extending a metaphor so that objects, persons, and actions in a text are equated with meaning that lie outside the text | |
| 160255367 | Alliteration | Repetition of the initial consonant sound | |
| 160255368 | Allusion | The brief, usually indirect, reference to a person, place, or event | |
| 160255369 | Ambiguity | The presence of two or more possible meanings in any passage | |
| 160255370 | Analogy | Reasoning or arguing from parallel cases | |
| 160255371 | Anaphora | The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses. | |
| 160255372 | Antecedent | The noun or noun phrase referred to by a pronoun. | |
| 160255373 | Antithesis | The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas in balanced phrases | |
| 160255374 | Aphorism | 1. A tersely phrased statement of truth or opinion. 2. A brief statement of a principle | |
| 160255375 | Apostrophe | A rhetorical term for breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing | |
| 160255376 | Appeal to Authority | A fallacy in which a speaker or writer seeks to persuade not y giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution | |
| 160255377 | Appeal to Ignorance | A fallacy that uses an opponent's inability to disprove a conclusion as proof of the conclusion's correctness | |
| 160255378 | Argument | A course of reasoning aimed at demonstrating truth or falsehood | |
| 160255379 | Assonance | The identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words | |
| 160255380 | Asyndeton | The omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses | |
| 160255381 | Character | An individual (usually in a person) in a work or narrative | |
| 160255382 | Chiasmus | A verbal expression in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first but with the parts reversed | |
| 160255383 | Circular Argument | An argument that commits the fallacy of assuming true what it is trying to prove | |
| 160255384 | Claim | An arguable statement which may be a claim of fact, value, or policy | |
| 160255385 | Clause | A group of words which contains a subject and a predicate | |
| 160255386 | Climax | High point or culmination in a series of events | |
| 160255387 | Colloquial | Characteristic which seeks to use the effect of informal spoken English as compared to formal English | |
| 160255388 | Comparison | Examination of differences between to people, places, or things | |
| 160255389 | Complement | A word or word group which completes the predicate in a sentence | |
| 160255390 | Concession | An argumentative strategy by which a speaker or writer acknowledges the validity of the opponent's point | |
| 160255391 | Confirmation | The main part of a text in which logical arguments in support of a position are elaborated | |
| 160255392 | Conjunction | Part of speech that connects words or clauses in a sentence | |
| 160255393 | Connotation | The emotional implications and associations that a word may carry | |
| 160255394 | Coordination | The grammatical connection of two or more ideas to give them equal emphasis and importance | |
| 160255395 | Deduction | A method of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated premises | |
| 160255396 | Denotation | The direct or dictionary meaning of a words compared to its figurative or associated uses | |
| 160255397 | Dialect | A form of a language specific to a region or group of people | |
| 160255398 | Diction | The choice and use of words in speech or writing | |
| 160255399 | Didactic | Intended or inclined to teach or instruct | |
| 160255400 | Encomium | A tribute or eulogy in prose or verse intended to glorify a person, place, or event | |
| 160255401 | Epiphora/Epistrophe | The repetition of a word or phrase at the end of several clauses | |
| 160255402 | Epitaph | 1. A short inscription in prose or verse on a tombstone or monument. 2. A statement or speech commemorating someone who has died: a funeral oration | |
| 160255403 | Ethos | A persuasive appeal based on the projected character of the speaker or narrator | |
| 160255404 | Eulogy | A formal expression of praise for a person who has recently died | |
| 160255405 | Euphemism | The substitution of an inoffensive term for one that is considered offensively explicit | |
| 160255406 | Exposition | A statement or type of composition intended to give information about an issue, subject, method, or idea | |
| 160255407 | Extended Metaphor | A comparison between two unlike things that continues through a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem | |
| 160255408 | Fallacy | An error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid | |
| 160255409 | False Dilemma | A fallacy of oversimplification that offers a limited number of options (usually two) when in fact more options are available | |
| 160255410 | Figurative Language | Language in which figures of speech frequently occur | |
| 160255411 | Flashback | A shift in a narrative to an earlier event that interrupts the normal chronological development in a story | |
| 160255412 | Genre | A category of an artistic work based on style or subject. | |
| 160255413 | Hasty Generalization | a fallacy in which a conclusion is not logically justified by sufficient or unbiased evidence | |
| 160255414 | Hyperbole | A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement. | |
| 160255415 | Imagery | Vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses. | |
| 160348013 | Induction | A method of reasoning by which a rhetor collects a number of instances and forms a generalization that is meant to apply to all instances. | |
| 160348014 | Invective | Denunciatory or abusive language; discourse that casts blame on somebody or something. | |
| 160348015 | Irony | The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning. A statement or situation where the meaning is directly contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea. | |
| 160348016 | Isocolon | A succession of phrases of approximately equal length and corresponding structure. | |
| 160348017 | Jargon | The specialized language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders. | |
| 160348018 | Litotes | A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite. | |
| 160348019 | Loose Sentence | A sentence structure in which a main clause is followed by subordinate phrases and clauses. Contrast with periodic sentence. | |
| 160348020 | Metaphor | A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common. | |
| 160348021 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated (such as "crown" for "royalty"). | |
| 160348022 | Mode of Discourse | The way in which information is presented in a text. The four traditional modes are narration, description, exposition, and argument. | |
| 160348023 | Mood | 1. The quality of a verb that conveys the writer's attitude toward a subject. 2. The emotion evoked by a text. | |
| 160348024 | Narrative | A rhetorical strategy that recounts a sequence of events, usually in chronological order. | |
| 160348025 | Noun | The part of speech (or word class) that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action. | |
| 160348026 | Onomatopoeia | The formation or use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to. | |
| 160348027 | Oxymoron | A figure of speech in which incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side. | |
| 160348028 | Paradox | A statement that appears to contradict itself. | |
| 160348029 | Parallelism | The similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. | |
| 160348030 | Parody | A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule. | |
| 160348031 | Pathos | The means of persuasion that appeals to the audience's emotions. | |
| 160348032 | Periodic Sentence | A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended syntax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic climax. | |
| 160348033 | Personification | A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities. | |
| 160348034 | Point of View | The perspective from which a speaker or writer tells a story or presents information. | |
| 160348035 | Predicate | One of the two main parts of a sentence or clause, modifying the subject and including the verb, objects, or phrases governed by the verb. | |
| 160348036 | Pronoun | A word (a part of speech or word class) that takes the place of a noun. | |
| 160348037 | Prose | Ordinary writing (both fiction and nonfiction) as distinguished from verse. | |
| 160348038 | Refutation | The part of an argument wherein a speaker or writer anticipates and counters opposing points of view. | |
| 160348039 | Repetition | An instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage--dwelling on a point. | |
| 160348040 | Rhetoric | The study and practice of effective communication. | |
| 160348041 | Rhetorical Question | A question asked merely for effect with no answer expected. | |
| 160348042 | Running Style | Sentence style that appears to follow the mind as it worries a problem through, mimicking the "rambling, associative syntax of conversation"--the opposite of periodic sentence style. | |
| 160348043 | Sarcasm | A mocking, often ironic or satirical remark. | |
| 160348044 | Satire | A text or performance that uses irony, derision, or wit to expose or attack human vice, foolishness, or stupidity. | |
| 160348045 | Simile | A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by "like" or "as." | |
| 160348046 | Style | Narrowly interpreted as those figures that ornament speech or writing; broadly, as representing a manifestation of the person speaking or writing. | |
| 160348047 | Subject | The part of a sentence or clause that indicates what it is about. | |
| 160348048 | Syllogism | A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. | |
| 160348049 | Subordination | Words, phrases, and clauses that make one element of a sentence dependent on (or subordinate to) another. Contrast with coordination. | |
| 160348050 | Symbol | A person, place, action, or thing that (by association, resemblance, or convention) represents something other than itself. | |
| 160348051 | Synechdoche | A figure of speech in which a part is used to represent the whole or the whole for a part. | |
| 160348052 | Syntax | 1. The study of the rules that govern the way words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. 2. The arrangement of words in a sentence. | |
| 160348053 | Thesis | The main idea of an essay or report, often written as a single declarative sentence. | |
| 160348054 | Tone | A writer's attitude toward the subject and audience. Tone is primarily conveyed through diction, point of view, syntax, and level of formality. | |
| 160348055 | Transition | The connection between two parts of a piece of writing, contributing to coherence. | |
| 160348056 | Understatement | A figure of speech in which a writer deliberately makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is. | |
| 160348057 | Verb | The part of speech (or word class) that describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state of being. | |
| 160348058 | Voice | 1. The quality of a verb that indicates whether its subject acts (active voice) or is acted upon (passive voice). 2. The distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or narrator. | |
| 160348059 | Zeugma | The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words although its use may be grammatically or logically correct with only one. |
