Terms : Hide Images
| 7859295244 | absolute | a word free from limitations or qualifications (e.g. "best," "all" "unique," "perfect") | 0 | |
| 7859295245 | adage | a familiar proverb or wise saying | 1 | |
| 7859295246 | ad hominem argument | an argument attacking an individua1's character rather than his or her position on an issue | 2 | |
| 7859295247 | allegory | a literary work in which characters, objects, or actions represent abstractions | 3 | |
| 7859295248 | alliteration | - the repetition of initial sounds in successive or neighboring words | 4 | |
| 7859295249 | allusion | a reference to something literary, mythological, or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize | 5 | |
| 7859295250 | analogy | making clear a concept or idea by showing its similarity to a more familiar concept | 6 | |
| 7859295251 | analysis of cause | identifying the forces responsible for an effect | 7 | |
| 7859295252 | anaphora | the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of consecutive lines or sentences | 8 | |
| 7859295253 | anecdote | a brief narrative that focuses on a particular incident or event | 9 | |
| 7859295254 | antecedent | the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers | 10 | |
| 7859295255 | anticipate an objection | to address the anticipated objection by addressing it before anyone else can raise the objection | 11 | |
| 7859295256 | antithesis | a statement in which two opposing ideas are presented in a balanced form | 12 | |
| 7859295257 | aphorism | a concise, memorable statement that expresses succinctly a general truth or idea, often using rhyme or balance | 13 | |
| 7859295258 | apostrophe | a figure of speech in which one directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, or some abstraction | 14 | |
| 7859295259 | archetype | a detail, image, or character type that occurs frequently in literature and myth and is thought to appeal in a universal way to the unconscious and to evoke a response | 15 | |
| 7859295260 | argument | - the statement of the meaning or main point of a literary work | 16 | |
| 7859295261 | assertion | a point suggested by the speaker for consideration as true or possible | 17 | |
| 7859295262 | assonance | repetition of the same vowel sounds within words close together (e.g. the long e sounds in the following: the team was green so the season was weak) | 18 | |
| 7859295263 | asyndeton | a construction in which elements are presented in a series without conjunctions | 19 | |
| 7859295265 | bandwagon | suggesting that something is right because everyone else does it. | 20 | |
| 7859295266 | bathos | insincere or overly sentimental quality of writing/speech intended to evoke pity (compare to pathos) | 21 | |
| 7859295267 | begging the question | a logical fallacy that involves taking for granted from the start what you set out to demonstrate. When you argue in a logical way, you state that because something is true, then, as a result, some other truth follows. When you beg the question, however, you repeat that what is true is true. | 22 | |
| 7859295268 | chiasmus | a statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed ("Susan walked in, and out rushed Mary.") | 23 | |
| 7859295270 | cliché | a tired, overused expression | 24 | |
| 7859295271 | climax | the point of highest interest or turning point in a literary work | 25 | |
| 7859295272 | colloquialism | informal words or expressions not usually acceptable in formal writing | 26 | |
| 7859295273 | conceit | a fanciful, particularly clever extended metaphor | 27 | |
| 7859295274 | concession | an acknowledgement of validity or truth of a point made by the opposition. | 28 | |
| 7859295275 | concrete details | details that relate to or describe specific things or events | 29 | |
| 7859295276 | connotation | the implied or associative meaning of a word | 30 | |
| 7859295277 | consonance | repetition of the same ending sounds in words close together (e.g. repetition of the final d sound in the following: the sound of the wind and heat of the sand) | 31 | |
| 7859295278 | corrective measures | proposing measures to eliminate undesirable conditions | 32 | |
| 7859295279 | deductive reasoning | reasoning in which a conclusion is reached by stating a general principle and then applying that principle to a specific case (The sun rises every morning; therefore, the sun will rise on Tuesday morning.) (compare to inductive reasoning) | 33 | |
| 7859295281 | denotation | the literal meaning of a word (compare to connotation) | 34 | |
| 7859295282 | description | the enumeration of characteristics of objects that belong to the same class. | 35 | |
| 7859295283 | dialect | a variety of speech characterized by its own particular grammar or pronunciation, often associated with a particular geographical region | 36 | |
| 7859295284 | dialogue | conversation between two or more people | 37 | |
| 7859295285 | diction | the word choices made by a writer | 38 | |
| 7859295286 | dilemma | a situation that requires a person to decide between two equally attractive or equally unattractive alternatives | 39 | |
| 7859295288 | direct address | to speak directly; to remove any separation between speaker and audience. | 40 | |
| 7859295289 | definition | to define a concept such as "excessive violence" to help resolve a question by narrowing or clarifying meaning | 41 | |
| 7859295290 | dissonance | harsh, inharmonious, or discordant sounds | 42 | |
| 7859295291 | either-or fallacy | offering only two choices when other valid ones exist; assuming that a reality may be divided into only two parts or extremes; assuming that a given problem has only one or two possible solutions | 43 | |
| 7859295292 | elegy | a formal poem presenting a meditation on death or another solemn theme | 44 | |
| 7859295293 | ellipsis | the omission of a word or phrase which is grammatically necessary but can be deduced from the context ("Some people prefer cats; others, dogs"). | 45 | |
| 7859295295 | epigram | a brief, pithy, and often paradoxical saying | 46 | |
| 7859295296 | epigraph | a saying or statement on the title page of a work, or used as a heading for a chapter or other section of a work | 47 | |
| 7859295298 | epiphany | a moment of sudden revelation or insight | 48 | |
| 7859295299 | epitaph | an inscription on a tombstone or burial place | 49 | |
| 7859295300 | epithet | a term used to point out a characteristic of a person. Homeric epithets are often compound adjectives ("swift-footed Achi11es") that become an almost formulaic part of a name. Epithets can be abusive or offensive but are not so by definition. For example, athletes may be proud of their given epithets ("The Rocket"). | 50 | |
| 7859295301 | ethos | - appeal based on the character or credentials of the speaker. An ethos-driven document relies on the reputation of the author | 51 | |
| 7859295302 | eulogy | a formal speech praising a person who has died | 52 | |
| 7859295303 | euphemism | an indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant | 53 | |
| 7859295304 | expletive | an interjection to lend emphasis; sometimes, a profanity | 54 | |
| 7859295305 | fable | a brief story that leads to a moral, often using animals as characters | 55 | |
| 7859295306 | false analogy | a type of logical fallacy involving a claim of persuasive likeness when no significant likeness exists. An analogy asserts that because two things are comparable in some respects, they are comparable in other respects as well. Analogies cannot serve as evidence in a rational argument because the differences always outweigh the similarities; but analogies can reinforce such arguments if the subjects are indeed similar in some ways. If they aren't, the analogy is false. (e.g. "war" on drugs - who is the enemy? Users, producers, dealers?) | 56 | |
| 7859295307 | figurative language | language employing one or more figures of speech to express an idea that is not literally true but which conveys something important about the subject Examples include simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy, hyperbole, synecdoche, understatement ) | 57 | |
| 7859295308 | flashback | the insertion of an earlier event into the normal chronological order of a narrative | 58 | |
| 7859295309 | flat character | a character who embodies a single quality and who does not develop in the course of a story (compare to round character) | 59 | |
| 7859295310 | foreshadowing | the presentation of materiel in such a Way that the reader is prepared for what is to come later in the Work | 60 | |
| 7859295312 | frame device | When a work contains a story within a story, the frame is the outer story or the story that justifies or encompasses the inner story/stories. A example is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in which the primary tales are told within the "frame story" of the pilgrimage to Canterbury. | 61 | |
| 7859295313 | genre | a major category or type of literature | 62 | |
| 7859295314 | homily | a sermon, or a moralistic lecture | 63 | |
| 7859295315 | hyperbole | intentional exaggeration to create an effect (opposite of understatement) | 64 | |
| 7859295316 | hypothetical question | a question that raises a hypothesis, conjecture, or supposition the words in the expression; or, a regional speech or dialect | 65 | |
| 7859295317 | imagery | the use of specific details to create vivid images that appeal to one of the five senses | 66 | |
| 7859295318 | implication | a suggestion an author or speaker makes (implies) without stating it directly. NOTE: the author/sender implies; the reader/ audience infers. | 67 | |
| 7859295319 | inductive reasoning | a type of reasoning that takes specific examples and applies them to a larger or more general situation. For example, if a person notes that he saw three drivers talking on cell phones today and all were driving badly, that person might conclude that cell phone use makes people drive badly. (compare to deductive reasoning) | 68 | |
| 7859295320 | inference | a conclusion one draws (infers) based on premises or evidence | 69 | |
| 7859295321 | inquiry as introduction | setting an essay or speech in motion by raising a question and suggesting that the answer may be interesting or important. | 70 | |
| 7859295322 | invective | an intensely vehement, highly emotional verbal attack | 71 | |
| 7859295323 | irony | the use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning (verbal irony); or, incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs (situational irony) | 72 | |
| 7859295324 | jargon | the specialized language or vocabulary of a particular group or profession | 73 | |
| 7859295325 | juxtaposition | placing two elements side by side to present a comparison or contrast | 74 | |
| 7859295326 | legend | a narrative handed down from the past, containing historical elements and usually supernatural elements | 75 | |
| 7859295327 | limited narrator | a narrator who presents the story as it is seen and understood by a single character and restricts information to what is seen, heard, thought, or felt by that one character | 76 | |
| 7859295328 | literary license | deviating from normal rules or methods in order to achieve a certain effect (intentional sentence fragments, for example). | 77 | |
| 7859295329 | litotes | a type of understatement in which an idea is expressed by negating its opposite (describing a particularly horrific scene by saying, "It was not a pretty picture.") | 78 | |
| 7859295330 | loaded terms | using slanted or biased terms, especially those with strong connotations. | 79 | |
| 7859295331 | logos | an appeal to logic or reason; a speaker's effort to persuade his/her audience through the use of facts, statistics, and/or logical patterns of thought. | 80 | |
| 7859295332 | malapropism | the mistaken substitution of one word for another word that sounds similar ("The doctor wrote a subscription.") | 81 | |
| 7859295333 | maxim | a concise statement, often offering advice; an adage | 82 | |
| 7859295334 | metaphor | direct comparison of two different things | 83 | |
| 7859295335 | metonymy | substituting the name of one object for another object closely associated with it ("The pen [writing] is mightier than the sword [war/fighting]") | 84 | |
| 7859295336 | mood | the emotional atmosphere of a work | 85 | |
| 7859295337 | motif | an object, idea, or dramatic situation that recurs in a work - usually connected to the theme | 86 | |
| 7859295338 | narrator | the one who tells the story; may be first- or third-person, limited or omniscient | 87 | |
| 7859295339 | non sequitur | an inference that does not follow logically from' the premises (literally, "does not follow"). | 88 | |
| 7859295340 | omniscient narrator | a narrator who is able to know, see, and tell all, including the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters | 89 | |
| 7859295341 | onomatopoeia | a word formed from the imitation of natural sounds | 90 | |
| 7859295342 | oxymoron | an expression in which two words that contradict each other are joined (icy hot) | 91 | |
| 7859295343 | parable | a simple story that illustrates a moral or religious lesson | 92 | |
| 7859295344 | paradox | an apparently contradictory statement that actually contains some truth | 93 | |
| 7859295345 | parallelism | when the writer/speaker uses two or more items in a sentence in parallel (the same) grammatical form. For example: "I came, I saw, I conquered" (Julius Caesar) .(Grammatical parallelism refers to the correct use of similar grammatical forms in a list, while rhetorical parallelism refers to the use of such repeated forms to create a desired effect on the audience.) | 94 | |
| 7859295346 | paraphrase | a restatement of a text in a different form or in different words, often for the purpose of clarity | 95 | |
| 7859295347 | parody | a humorous imitation of a serious work | 96 | |
| 7859295348 | parenthetical | a comment that interrupts the immediate subject, often to qualify or explain | 97 | |
| 7859295349 | pathos | an emotional appeal; a speaker's effort to engage feelings in the audience | 98 | |
| 7859295350 | personification | endowing non-human objects or creatures with human qualities or characteristics | 99 | |
| 7859295351 | philippic | a strong verbal denunciation. The term comes from the orations of Demosthenes against Philip of Macedonia in the fourth century. | 100 | |
| 7859295352 | point of view | the vantage point from which a story is told | 101 | |
| 7859295353 | polysyndeton | the use, for rhetorical effect, of more conjunctions than is necessary or natural (We cleared rocks and branches and roots and trash and sand.) | 102 | |
| 7859295355 | post hoc, ergo propter hoc | (from Latin "after this, therefore because of this") - assuming that because B follows A, B was caused by A. | 103 | |
| 7859295356 | premise | a proposition upon which an argument is based or from which a conclusion is drawn. | 104 | |
| 7859295357 | pun | a play on words, often achieved through the use of words with simììar sounds but different meanings | 105 | |
| 7859295358 | rebuttal | opposition to an assertion; disapproval or refutation. | 106 | |
| 7859295359 | red herring | a type of logical fallacy that involves diverting the issue with an unrelated topic | 107 | |
| 7859295360 | reduce to the absurd | to show the foolishness of an argument by taking the argument to its logical conclusion. It can be a logical fallacy if it exaggerates what is possible. | 108 | |
| 7859295361 | repetition | when a particular word or phrase is used repeatedly in a work. | 109 | |
| 7859295362 | rhetoric | the art of using spoken or written communication effectively; the art of guiding the reader or listener to agreement with the writer or speaker. | 110 | |
| 7859295363 | rhetorical question | a question asked merely for rhetorical effect and not requiring an answer | 111 | |
| 7859295364 | rhetorical devices | literary techniques used to heighten the effectiveness of expression (synonymous or nearly synonymous with the terms literary devices or resources of language) | 112 | |
| 7859295365 | round character | a character who demonstrates some complexity and who develops or changes in the course of a work | 113 | |
| 7859295366 | sarcasm | harsh, cutting language or tone intended to ridicule; a form of verbal irony | 114 | |
| 7859295367 | satire | the use of humor to call attention to human weaknesses or imperfections in social institutions | 115 | |
| 7859295368 | setting | the time and place of a work | 116 | |
| 7859295369 | simile | a comparison of two things using "1ike," "as," "than," or other specifically comparative words | 117 | |
| 7859295370 | solecism | nonstandard grammatical usage; a mistake; a violation of grammatical rules | 118 | |
| 7859295371 | structure | the arrangement or framework of a sentence, paragraph, or entire work | 119 | |
| 7859295372 | style | the choices a writer makes; the combination of distinctive features of a literary work | 120 | |
| 7859295373 | symbol | an object that is used to represent something else | 121 | |
| 7859295374 | synecdoche | using one part of an object to represent the entire object (for example, referring to a car simply as "wheels") | 122 | |
| 7859295375 | tautology | needless repetition which adds no meaning or understanding (widowwoman; free gift) | 123 | |
| 7859295376 | theme | a central idea of a work | 124 | |
| 7859295377 | thesis | the primary position taken by a writer or speaker | 125 | |
| 7859295378 | tone | the attitude of a writer, usually implied, toward the subject or audience | 126 | |
| 7859295379 | trite | overused and hackneyed | 127 | |
| 7859295380 | understatement | the deliberate representation of something as lesser in magnitude than it actually is; a deliberate under-emphasis. | 128 |
