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| 4761326544 | Active Voice | When the subject is preforming a task actively instead of it being told by the narrator. Ex: Maria sang her song and the audience gave her a standing ovation. | 0 | |
| 4761327947 | Allusion | Refering to something or someone in a context that is related to the situation but not directly. Ex: Don't think you can just come back and act like nothing happened after you pulled an Arnold Benedict on us. This refers to the general who abandoned his American troops and sided with the enemy, at that moment Britain. | 1 | |
| 4761332020 | Anecdote | Recalling something that happened in the past to convey a certain point. Ex: You are the most irresponsible person I know do you remember all the shirts you "borrowed" from me and never gave back? I know you lost them all. | 2 | |
| 4761332860 | Antecedent | The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. Ex: Do you know how much I had to pay for your dancing classes that you never attended to? I'm pretty sure it was a huge waste of money. | 3 | |
| 4761334167 | Comic relief | An amusing scene that breaks tension in a play and provides contrast. | 4 | |
| 4761337613 | Diction | A specific use of word that depends on the situation. Either formal, casual... Diction shouldn't be mistaken with tone for example if talking about diction it should be reffered to as word usage. | 5 | |
| 4761339237 | Colloquial | Ordinary or familiar type of conversation. A "colloquialism" is a common or familiar type of saying, similar to an adage or an aphorism. For Example: "gonna" going to," y'all" you all. | 6 | |
| 4761339735 | Connotation | Words that mean the same thing but are not the same. For example "Alma mater" the latin word for nourishing mother. It is now used to refer to the previous school attended. | 7 | |
| 4761341773 | Denotation | The literal, explicit meaning of a word, without its connotations. Example: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts," W. Shakespear, As You Like It. | 8 | |
| 4761342581 | Jargon | The diction used by a group which practices a similar profession or activity. Ex: Med. field- "AKA" Above the knee amputation. Legal- "Cappias mitimus" when someone is physically taken to court to answer with or without his or her consent. | 9 | |
| 4761344618 | Vernacular | 1. Language or dialect of a particular country. 2. Language or dialect of a regional clan or group. Ex: "Baba" means dad in most Arab countries. | 10 | |
| 4761346506 | Didactic | Relating to education. Overly moral. Found in fiction, non fiction, and poems. Synonym: A more pedagogic approach. | 11 | |
| 4761347007 | Adage | A folk saying with a lesson. "Look before you leap." | 12 | |
| 4761350484 | Allegory | A story fictional or non fictional that can be used to refer to a hidden truth. For example George Orwell Animal Farm. | 13 | |
| 4761352138 | Aphorism | Brief statement that expresses a universal truth. Ex: "A watched pot never boils." | 14 | |
| 4761353005 | Ellipsis | Deliberately not using words to create an evasive mood. Usually done in a three timed pace. Unable to be understood without context. | 15 | |
| 4761353941 | Euphemism | Less offensive way to say something. For example: "mentally challenged" or mentally disabled. | 16 | |
| 4761354620 | Figurative Language | Opposite of literal language not supposed to be take seriously. | 17 | |
| 4761355130 | Analogy | An analogy is a comparison of one pair of variables to a parallel set of variables. Arm is to body as branch is to tree. | 18 | |
| 4761356301 | Hyperbole | Exaggeration. "My mother will kill me if I am late." | 19 | |
| 4761357987 | Idiom | A common, often used expression that doesn't make sense if you take it literally. "A penny for your thought?" an idiom used to ask people what they are thinking at the moment. Not to be taken literally. | 20 | |
| 4761358721 | Metaphor | Making a comparison without using like or as. Ex: She replaced the sun when the night finally reached us. | 21 | |
| 4761359398 | Metonymy | Replacing an actual word or idea, with a related word or concept. Ex: "Uncle Sam" United States. | 22 | |
| 4761359878 | Synecdoche | A kind of metonymy when a whole is represented by naming one of its parts, or vice versa. "The reds one by 5 points." | 23 | |
| 4761361130 | Simile | Using words such as "like" or "as" to make a direct comparison. "He was like the sun always shining light in worlds submerged in darkness. " | 24 | |
| 4761362212 | Synesthesia | a description involving a "crossing of the senses." Examples: "A purplish scent filled the room." "I was deafened by his brightly-colored clothing." | 25 | |
| 4761363522 | Personification | Giving human-like qualities to something that is not human. "It wasn't my fault the pie compelled me to eat it." | 26 | |
| 4761364230 | Foreshadowing | When an author gives hints about what will occur later in a story. | 27 | |
| 4761365286 | Genre | The major category into which a literary work fits: autobiography, biography, diaries, criticism, essays, and journalistic, political, scientific, and nature writing. | 28 | |
| 4761366426 | Gothic | Writing characterized by gloom, mystery, fear and/or death. Wuthering heights is an example of gothic literature. | 29 | |
| 4761367066 | Imagery | Word or words that create a picture in the reader's mind. Usually this involves the five senses. Authors often use imagery in conjunction with metaphors, similes, or figures of speech. | 30 | |
| 4761368891 | Invective | A long, emotionally violent, attack using strong, abusive language. " !§ù%$*" | 31 | |
| 4761369680 | Irony | When the opposite of what you expect to happen does. The opposite of what you really think. | 32 | |
| 4761370339 | Verbal irony | When you say something and mean the opposite/something different. "walk in the park" it would be verbal irony. | 33 | |
| 4761371404 | Dramatic irony | When the audience of a drama, play, movie, etc. knows something that the character doesn't and would be surprised to find out. Ex in horror stories the readers tend to know who the killer is because they look at the big picture. | 34 | |
| 4761372857 | Situational irony | Found in the plot of a book, story, or movie. Johnny spent two hours planning on sneaking into the movie theater and missed the movie. When he finally did manage to sneak inside he found out that kids were admitted free that day). | 35 | |
| 4761373828 | Juxtaposition | Placing things side by side for the purposes of comparison. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..." | 36 | |
| 4761374532 | Mood | The atmosphere created by the literature and accomplished through word choice (diction). Syntax is often a creator of mood since word order. | 37 | |
| 4761375043 | Motif | a recurring idea in a piece of literature. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the idea that "you never really understand another person until you consider things from his or her point of view" | 38 | |
| 4761375838 | Oxymoron | Suggests a paradox - "wisefool," "eloquent silence," "jumbo shrimp." | 39 | |
| 4761376876 | Pacing | The speed of an author's writing. An author's pacing can be fast, sluggish, stabbing, vibrato, staccato, measured, etc. | 40 | |
| 4761378012 | Paradox | A seemingly contradictory situation which is actually true."You can't get a job without experience, and you can't get experience without getting a job." | 41 | |
| 4761378797 | Parallelism | (Also known as parallel structure or balanced sentences.) Sentence construction which places equal grammatical constructions near each other, or repeats identical grammatical patterns. | 42 | |
| 4761379977 | Parallelism | Used to add emphasis, organization, or sometimes pacing to writing. "Cinderella swept the floor, dusted the mantle, and beat the rugs." | 43 | |
| 4761381205 | Anaphora | Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences or clauses in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer's point more coherent. "I came, I saw, I conquered." from Julius Cesar. | 44 | |
| 4761382014 | Chiasmus | When the same words are used twice in succession, but the second time, the order of the words is reversed. "Fair is foul and foul is fair." "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Also called antimetabole. | 45 | |
| 4761382521 | Antithesis | Two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses, or even ideas, with parallel structure. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" | 46 | |
| 4761383838 | Zeugma | When a single word governs or modifies two or more other words, and the meaning of the first word must change for each of the other words it governs or modifies. "The butler killed the lights, and then the mistress." "I quickly dressed myself and the salad." | 47 | |
| 4761384530 | Parenthetical Idea | Parentheses are used to set off an idea from the rest of the sentence. Side note to clear the obvious. | 48 | |
| 4761385930 | Parody | An exaggerated imitation of a serious work for humorous purposes. Ex: Saturday Night Live | 49 | |
| 4761386364 | Persona | The fictional mask or narrator that tells a story. | 50 | |
| 4761387565 | Polysyndeton | When a writer creates a list of items which are all separated by conjunctions. Normally, a conjunction is used only before the last item in a list. Examples of polysyndeton: "I walked the dog, and fed the cat, and milked the cows." "Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcass of an unclean beast, or a carcass of unclean cattle, or the carcass of unclean creeping things...he also shall be unclean." Polysyndeton is often used to slow down the pace of the writing and/or add an authoritative tone. | 51 | |
| 4761388841 | Pun | When a word that has two or more meanings is used in a humorous way. "My dog has a fur coat and pants!" "I was stirred by his cooking lesson." | 52 | |
| 4761389760 | Rhetoric | The art of effective communication. | 53 | |
| 4761391080 | Aristotle's Rhetorical Triangle | The relationships, in any piece of writing, between the writer, the audience, and the subject. All analysis of writing is essentially an analysis of the relationships between the points on the triangle. | 54 | |
| 4761392472 | Rhetorical Question | A question that does not need to be answered. "Food for thought." | 55 | |
| 4761393673 | Hypophora | is a figure of speech in which a writer raises a question and then immediately provides an answer to that question. Commonly, a question is asked in the first paragraph and then the paragraph is used to answer the question. It is also known as antipophora or anthypophora. | 56 | |
| 4761394685 | Sarcasm | A generally bitter comment that is ironically or satirically worded. Difference is the tone. Tone of sarcasm is bitter. | 57 | |
| 4761395706 | Satire | Work that critics a group of people or society through mockery and insults not said directly but in context the reader understand what they're saying. | 58 | |
| 4761398152 | Appositive | A word or group of words placed beside a noun or noun substitute to supplement its meaning. "Bob, the lumber yard worker, spoke with Judy, an accountant from the city." | 59 | |
| 4761399030 | Clause | A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. An independent clause expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence. A dependent, or subordinate clause cannot stand alone as a sentence and must be accompanied by an independent clause. (Example: "Other than baseball, football is my favorite sport." In this sentence, the independent clause is "football is my favorite sport" and the dependent clause is "Other than baseball." | 60 | |
| 4761401239 | Balanced sentence | A sentence in which two parallel elements are set off against each other like equal weights on a scale. Both parts are parallel grammatically. "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." Also called parallelism."Balance and parallelism do not communicate meaning by themselves," | 61 | |
| 4761402206 | Compound sentence | Contains at least two independent clauses but no dependent clauses."This house is too expensive, and that house is too small" | 62 | |
| 4761403273 | Complex sentence | Contains only one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. "I burned dinner but not the cake." | 63 | |
| 4761404418 | Cumulative sentence | When the writer begins with an independent clause, then adds subordinate elements. "He doubted whether he could ever again appear before an audience, his confidence broken, his limbs shaking, his collar wet with perspiration." The opposite construction is called a periodic sentence. | 64 | |
| 4761405810 | Periodic sentence | When the main idea is not completed until the end of the sentence. The writer begins with subordinate elements and postpones the main clause. "His confidence broken, his limbs shaking, his collar wet with perspiration, he doubted whether he could ever again appear before an audience." Filled with details ( used to create intrigue and suspense. | 65 | |
| 4761406670 | Simple sentence | Contains only one independent clause. | 66 | |
| 4761408599 | Declarative sentence | States an idea. It does not give a command or request, nor does it ask a question. "The ball is round." | 67 | |
| 4761410282 | Imperative sentence | Issues a command. "Kick the ball." | 68 | |
| 4761412087 | Interrogative sentence | Asks a question. It's distinctiveness is found through word usage ( who, what, where, when) | 69 | |
| 4761415816 | Style | The choices in diction, tone, and syntax that a writer makes. Style may be conscious or unconscious. | 70 | |
| 4761416318 | Symbol | Anything that represents or stands for something else. Usually a symbol is something concrete such as an object, actions, character...that represents something more abstract. Examples of symbols include the Whale in Moby Dick, the river and the jungle in Heart of Darkness, and the Raven in "The Raven." | 71 | |
| 4761417833 | Syntax/sentence variety | The structure of a sentence ( length, punctuation...) | 72 | |
| 4761418669 | Theme | The central idea or message of a work. The theme may be directly stated in nonfiction works, although not necessarily. It is rarely stated directly in fiction. Alienation - The effects of, the loneliness of, to cure it. Ambition - getting what you want, stunted by, thwarted. Betrayal - the pain of, in love and friendship. Coming of age - loss of innocence. Courage - courage to deal with conflict, lack of, developing, conquering with. Deception - how to deceive, results of. Discovery - what does it take to discover new places, inner meaning, strength, even treasure. Escape - from life, routine, prison, family pressures. Death - how to escape, what happens after, consequences of. Fear - driven by, dealing with, conquering. Freedom - loss of, gaining, handling, fight for. Good versus evil - survival of one despite the other, triumph of one over the other. Isolation - physical and emotional. Jealousy - trouble caused by, denial of, driven by. Justice - the fight for, injustice, truth versus justice. Loss - of life, innocence, love, friends, to avoid. Loneliness - no man is an island, or hell is other people. Love - love fades, is blind, can overcome all obstacles, can Lust - for power, for sex. Power - the search for, the loss of, what we are willing to exchange for. Prejudice - racism, bigotry, snobbery, dealing with. Security - the loss of, the finding of the need for, how we act when security is shattered. Spirituality and God - the struggle to find faith, live without faith etc. Survival - man versus nature | 73 | |
| 4761419331 | Thesis | The sentence or groups of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or proposition. It should be short and clear. Mostly found in the beginning of a prose but not always. | 74 | |
| 4761420161 | Tone | A writer's attitude toward his subject matter revealed through diction, figurative language and organization: playful, serious, businesslike, sarcastic, humorous, formal, somber, etc. | 75 | |
| 4761420541 | Understatement | The ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is. ex: All she did was save his life but no big deal." | 76 | |
| 4761423778 | Litotes | Rhetorical device used to affirm something by contradicting it. Ex: You won't be sorry. | 77 | |
| 4761424480 | Argument | An argument is a piece of reasoning with one or more premises and a conclusion. Essentially, every essay is an argument that begins with the conclusion (the thesis) and then sets up the premises. An argument (or the thesis to an argument) is also sometimes called a claim, a position, or a stance. Premise: All Spam is pink Premise: I am eating Spam Conclusion: I am eating something that is pink Premises: Statements offered as reasons to support a conclusion are premises. Conclusion: A conclusion is the end result of the argument - the main point being made. In an argument one expects that the conclusion will be supported with reasons or premises. Moreover, these premises will be true and will, in fact, lead to the conclusion. | 78 | |
| 4761425561 | Aristotle's appeals | Ethos- Appeal to ethics and morals/ Pathos- appeal to emotions/ Logos: Appeal to logic. | 79 | |
| 4761427456 | Concession | Accepting at least part or all of an opposing viewpoint. Often used to make one's own argument stronger by demonstrating that one is willing to accept what is obviously true and reasonable. | 80 | |
| 4761428327 | Conditional Statement | A conditional statement is an if-then statement and consists of two parts, an antecedent and a consequent. "If you studied hard, then you will pass the test." resembles the logic behind logos. | 81 | |
| 4761429576 | Contradiction | A contradiction occurs when one asserts two mutually exclusive propositions, such as, "Abortion is wrong and abortion is not wrong." Since a claim and its contradictory cannot both be true, one of them must be false. It is based on personal opinions. | 82 | |
| 4761430783 | Counterexample | A counterexample is an example that runs counter to (opposes) a generalization, thus falsifying it. Premise: Jane argued that all whales are endangered. Premise: Belugas are a type of whale. Premise: Belugas are not endangered. Conclusion: Therefore, Jane's argument is unsound. | 83 | |
| 4761431251 | Deductive argument | An argument in which it is thought that the premises provide a guarantee of the truth of the conclusion. In a deductive argument, the premises are intended to provide support for the conclusion that is so strong that, if the premises are true, it would be impossible for the conclusion to be false. (also see inductive argument) | 84 | |
| 4761432854 | Fallacy | A fallacy is an attractive but unreliable piece of reasoning. Writers do not want to make obvious fallacies in their reasoning, but they are often used unintentionally, or when the writer thinks they can get away with faulty logic. | 85 | |
| 4761434495 | Ad hominem | Latin for "against the man". Personally attacking your opponents instead of their arguments. It is an argument that appeals to emotion rather than reason, feeling rather than intellect. | 86 | |
| 4761435351 | Appeal to authority | The claim that because somebody famous supports an idea, the idea must be right. This fallacy is often used in advertising. When Bruce Jenner gold medal olympian was used in a bow of wheeties to promote the brand. | 87 | |
| 4761436048 | Appeal to the bandwagon | Being convinced of something just because of proliferation in people accepting the idea. "Succumbing to peer pressure and social conventionalities." | 88 | |
| 4761437120 | Appeal to emotion | An attempt to replace a logical argument with an appeal to the audience's emotions. People who argument and use pathos usually go for sympathy. | 89 | |
| 4761438221 | False analogy | Claiming that two situations are highly similar, when they aren't. "We have pure food and drug laws regulating what we put in our bodies; why can't we have laws to keep musicians from giving us filth for the mind?" | 90 | |
| 4761439069 | False cause | Assuming that because two things happened, the first one caused the second one. (Sequence is not causation.) "Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons. Therefore women's suffrage must have led to nuclear weapons." | 91 | |
| 4761439709 | Hasty generalization | A generalization based on too little or unrepresentative data. "My uncle didn't go to college, and he makes a lot of money. So, people who don't go to college do just as well as those who do." Stating something based on one reoccurrence that is not enough to h-justify it as a fact. | 92 | |
| 4761440452 | Non Sequitur | A conclusion that does not follow from its premises; an invalid argument. "Hinduism is one of the world's largest religious groups. It is also one of the world's oldest religions. Hinduism helps millions of people lead happier, more productive lives. Therefore the principles of Hinduism must be true." | 93 | |
| 4761441294 | Slippery slope | The assumption that once started, a situation will continue to its most extreme possible outcome. "If you drink a glass of wine, then you'll soon be drinking all the time, and then you'll become a homeless alcoholic." | 94 | |
| 4761442493 | Inductive argument | An argument in which it is thought that the premises provide reasons supporting the probable truth of the conclusion. In an inductive argument, the premises are intended only to be so strong that, if they are true, then it is unlikely that the conclusion is false. (also see deductive argument) provides truth and most of the time is the party that is correct in the argument | 95 | |
| 4761443500 | Qualifier | a word or phrase, especially an adjective, used to attribute a quality to another word, especially a noun. Can increase or decrease the quality of the word it modifies. Example: pretty ugly. | 96 | |
| 4761444622 | Sound argument | A deductive argument is said to be sound if it meets two conditions: First, that the line of reasoning from the premises to the conclusion is valid. Second, that the premises are true. A valid argument based on verified facts. | 97 | |
| 4761446255 | Valid argument | An argument is valid if the conclusion logically follows from the premises. The following argument is valid, because it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to nevertheless be false. We do not know if the argument is sound, because we do not know if the premises are true or not. Opposite of a fight. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." | 98 | |
| 4761448145 | Warrant | justify or necessitate (a certain course of action). | 99 |
