Terms you need to know!
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| 9902747777 | Abstract | refers to language that describes concepts rather than concrete images. | 0 | |
| 9902747778 | Ad Hominem | In an argument, this is an attack on the person rathe rthan on the opponent's ideas. It comes from the Latin meaning "against the man." | 1 | |
| 9902747779 | Allegory | an extended narrative in prose or verse in which characters, events, and settings represent qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be read beneath the surface of the story. | 2 | |
| 9902747780 | Alliteration | repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close to one another. | 3 | |
| 9902747781 | Allusion | a reference to a well-known person, place or thing from literature, history etc. | 4 | |
| 9902747782 | Analogy | comparision of two but similar but different things, usually to clarify an action or relationship. | 5 | |
| 9902747783 | Anaphora | repetition of a word, phrase or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. | 6 | |
| 9902747784 | Anecdote | a short, simple narrative of an incident; often used for humorous effect or to make a point. | 7 | |
| 9902747785 | Annotation | explanatory notes added to a text to explain, cite sources or give bibliographical data. | 8 | |
| 9902747786 | Antithesis | the presentation of 2 contrasting images. The ideas are balanced by word, phrase, clause or paragraphs. | 9 | |
| 9902747787 | Aphorism | a short, often witty statement of a principle or a truth about life. | 10 | |
| 9902747788 | Argumentation | writing that attempts to prove the validity of a point of view or an idea by presenting reasoned arguments. | 11 | |
| 9902747789 | Asyndeton | comas used (with no conjunction) to seperate a series of words. The parts are emphasized equally when the conjunction is omitted; in addition, the use of commas with no intervening conjunction speeds up the flow of the sentence. | 12 | |
| 9902747790 | Caricature | descriptive writing that greatly exaggerates a specific feature of a person's appearance or a face of a personality. | 13 | |
| 9902747791 | Colloquialiam | a word or phrase (including slang) used in everyday conversation and informal writing but that is often inappropiate in formal writing, such as y'all or ain't. | 14 | |
| 9902747792 | Coherence | quality of a piece of writing in which all the parts contribute to the development of the central idea, theme or organizing principle. | 15 | |
| 9902747793 | Concrete Language | language that describes specific, observable things, people or places, rathe rthan ideas or qualities. | 16 | |
| 9902747794 | Connotation | the emotional implications and associations that a word may carry. | 17 | |
| 9902747795 | Conundrum | a riddle whose answer is or involves a pun; it may also be a paradox or difficult problem. | 18 | |
| 9902747796 | Deduction | the process of moving from a general rule to a specific example. | 19 | |
| 9902747797 | Denotation | literal meaning of a word as defined. | 20 | |
| 9902747798 | Description | the picturing in words of something or someone through detailed observation of color, motion, sound, taste, smell, and touch; one of the four modes of discourse. | 21 | |
| 9902747799 | Diction | word choice, an element of style; Diction creates tone, attitude, and style, as well as meaning. Different types and arrangements of words have significant effects on meaning. | 22 | |
| 9902747800 | Didactic | writing whose purpose is to instruct or to teach. A didactic work is usually formal and focuses on moral or ethical concerns. Didactic writing may be fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking. | 23 | |
| 9902747801 | Dramatic Irony | when the reader is aware of an inconsistency between a fictional or nonfictional chracter's perception of a situation and the truth of that situation. | 24 | |
| 9902747802 | Emotional Appeal | When a writer appeals to readers' emotions (often through pathos) to excite and involve them in the argument.. | 25 | |
| 9902747803 | Epigraph | the use of a quotation at the beginning of a work that hints at its theme. | 26 | |
| 9902747804 | Ethical Appeal | When a writer tries to persuade the audience to respect and believe him or her based on a presentation of image of self through the text. Reputation is sometimes a factor in ethical appeal, but in all cases the aim is to gain the audience's confidence. | 27 | |
| 9902747805 | Euphemism | a more acceptable and usually more pleasant way of saying something that might be inappropriate or uncomfortable. | 28 | |
| 9902747806 | Example | An individual instance taken to be representative of a general pattern. | 29 | |
| 9902747807 | Explication | The art of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text. | 30 | |
| 9902747808 | Expostion | the immediate revelation to the audience of the setting and other background information necessary for understanding the plot; also, explanation; one of the four modes of discourse. | 31 | |
| 9902747809 | Extended Metaphor | a sustained comparision, often referred to as conceit. | 32 | |
| 9902747810 | False Analogy | when 2 cases are not sufficiently paraell to lead readers to accept a claim of a connection between them. | 33 | |
| 9902747811 | Figurative Language | langauge that contains figures of speech, such as similes and metaphors, in order to create associations that are imaginative rather than literal. | 34 | |
| 9902747812 | Figures of Speech | expressions, such as similes, metaphors or personifications, that make imaginative, rather than lieral comparisions or associations. | 35 | |
| 9902747813 | Generalization | When a writer bases a claim upon an isolated example or asserts that a claim is certain rather than probable. | 36 | |
| 9902747814 | Genre | a type of literary work, such as a novel or poem. | 37 | |
| 9902747815 | Hyperbole | deliberate exaggeration in order to create humor or emphasis. | 38 | |
| 9902747816 | Imagery | words or phrases that use a collection of images to appeal to one or more of the five senses in order to create a mental picture. | 39 | |
| 9902747817 | Induction | the process that moves from a given series of specifics to a generalization. | 40 | |
| 9902747818 | Inference | a conclusion one can draw from the presented details. | 41 | |
| 9902747819 | Interior Monologue | writing that records the conversation that occurs inside a character's head. | 42 | |
| 9902747820 | Invective | a verbally abusive attack. | 43 | |
| 9902747821 | Irony | a situation or statement in which the actual outcome or meaning is opposite to what was expected. | 44 | |
| 9902747822 | Jargon | The special language of a profession or group. | 45 | |
| 9902747823 | Logic | the process of reasoning. | 46 | |
| 9902747824 | Logical Fallacy | a mistake in reasoning. | 47 | |
| 9902747825 | Lyrical | Songlike; characterized by emotions, subjectivity, and imagination. | 48 | |
| 9902747826 | Inversion | reversing the customary (subject first, then verb, then complement) order of elements in a sentence or phrase. | 49 | |
| 9902747827 | Metaphor | a figure of speech in which one thing is referred to another. | 50 | |
| 9902747828 | Mood | similar to tone, ____is the primary emotional attitude of a work (the feeling of the work; the atmosphere). | 51 | |
| 9902747829 | Motif | main theme or subject of a work that is elaborated on in the development of the peieve; a repeated pattern or idea. | 52 | |
| 9902747830 | Narration | the telling of a story in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama; one of the four modes of discourse. | 53 | |
| 9902747831 | Negative-Positive | sentence that beings by stating what is not true, then by ending by stating what is true. | 54 | |
| 9902747832 | Non-sequitur | latin for "it does not follow." when one statement isn't logically connected to another. | 55 | |
| 9902747833 | Objectivity | an impersonal presentation of events and characters. It is a writer's attempt to remove himself or herself from any subjective, personal involvement in a story. | 56 | |
| 9902747834 | Oversimplification | When a writer obscures or denies the complexity of the issues in an argument. | 57 | |
| 9902747835 | Oxymoron | a figure of speech composed of contradictory words or phrases. | 58 | |
| 9902747836 | Pacing | the movement of a literary piece from one point or one section to another. | 59 | |
| 9902747837 | Parable | a short tale that teaches a moral; similar to but shorter than an allegory. | 60 | |
| 9902747838 | Paradox | a statement that seems to contradict itself but that turns out to have a rational meaning. | 61 | |
| 9902747839 | Paraellism | the technique of arranging words, phrases, clauses, or larger structures by placing them side by side and making them similar in form. | 62 | |
| 9902747840 | Parody | a work that ridicules the style of another work by imitating and exaggerating its elements. It can be utterly mocking or gently humorous. It depends on allusion and exaggerates and distorts the original style and content. | 63 | |
| 9902747841 | Pathos | The aspects of a literary work that elicit sorrow or pity from the audience. | 64 | |
| 9902747842 | Pedantic | a term used to describe writing that borders on lecturing. It is scholarly and academic and often overly difficult and distant. | 65 | |
| 9902747843 | Persuasion | form of argumentation, one of the four modes of discourse; language intended to convince through appeals to reason or emotion. | 66 | |
| 9902747844 | Stream of Consciousness | making the reader privy to the continuous, chaotic flow of disconnected, half-formed thoughts and impressions in the character's mind. | 67 | |
| 9902747845 | Objective | a third person narrator who only reports what would be visible to a camera; thoughts and feelings are only revealed if a character speaks of them. | 68 | |
| 9902747846 | Polysyndeton | sentence which uses and or another conjunction (with no commas) to seperate the items in a series. | 69 | |
| 9902747847 | Red Herring (Reductio ad Absurdum) | when a writer raises an irrelevant issue to draw attention away from the real issue; the latin for "to redue to the absurd." This technique is useful in creating a comic effect and is also an argumentative technique. It is considered a rhetorical fallacy because it reduces an argument to an either/or choice. | 70 | |
| 9902747848 | Repetition | Word or phrase used two or more times in close proximity. | 71 | |
| 9902747849 | Rhetorical Question | one that does not expect an explicit answer. It is used to pose an idea to be considered by the speaker or audience. | 72 | |
| 9902747850 | Sarcasm | harsh, caustic personal remarks to or about someone; less subtle than irony. | 73 | |
| 9902747851 | Satire | A work that reveals a critical attitude toward some element of human behavior by portraying it in an extreme way. | 74 | |
| 9902747852 | Speaker | the voice of a work; an author may speak as himself or herself or as a fictitious persona. | 75 | |
| 9902747853 | Stereotype | character who represents a trait that is usually attributed to a particular social or racial group and who lacks individuality; a conventional patter, expression or idea. | 76 | |
| 9902747854 | Straw Man | when a writer argues against a claim that nobody actually holds or is universally considered weak. | 77 | |
| 9902747855 | Style | an author's characteristic manner of expression - his or her diction, syntax, imagery, structure, and content all contribute to_____. | 78 | |
| 9902747856 | Subjectivity | a personal presentation of evens and characters, influenced by the author's feelings and opinions. | 79 | |
| 9902747857 | Syllogism | A form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is drawn from them. | 80 | |
| 9902747858 | Rhetoric | the art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse. | 81 | |
| 9902747859 | Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent a whole, such as using "boards" to mean a stage or "wheels" to mean a car - or "All hands on deck." | 82 | |
| 9902747860 | Syntatic Permutation | Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. They are often difficult for a reader to follow. | 83 | |
| 9902747861 | Syntax | the grammatical structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words in a sentence. Syntax includes length of sentence, kinds of sentences (questions, exclamations, declarative sentences, rhetorical questions, simple, complex, or compound). | 84 | |
| 9902747862 | Thesis | the main idea of a piece of writing. It presents the author's assertion or claim. | 85 | |
| 9902747863 | Tone | the characteristic emotion or attitude of an author toward the characters, subject, and audience (anger, sarcastic, loving, didactic, emotional, etc.) | 86 | |
| 9902747864 | Transition | a word or phrase that links one idea to the next and carries the reader from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph. | 87 | |
| 9902747865 | Tricolon | sentence consisting of 3 parts of equal importance and length, usually 3 independent clauses. | 88 | |
| 9902747866 | Understatement | the opposite of exaggeration. It is a technique for developing irony and/or humor where one writes or says less than intended. | 89 | |
| 9902747867 | Voice | refers to two different areas of writing. One refers to the relationship between a sentence's subject and verb. The second refers to the total "sound" of a writer's style. | 90 | |
| 9902747868 | chiasmus | a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form; e.g. 'Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.' | 91 | |
| 9902747869 | idiomatic language | An idiom is a common word or phrase with a culturally understood meaning that differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest. For example, an English speaker would understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" - and also to actually kick a bucket. Use of the language structure of idioms would be considered idiomatic. | 92 | |
| 9902747870 | loose sentence | A loose sentence (also called a cumulative sentence) is a type of sentence in which the main idea (independent clause) is elaborated by the successive addition of modifying clauses or phrases. | 93 | |
| 9902747871 | loaded words/language | language that creates immediate emotional reaction, often negative. Often used in politics and propaganda. By themselves, loaded words are benign, but in context and with certain audiences, they stir emotions. The word "entitlement" can conjure up negative feelings against those who receive government assistance. | 94 |
