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| Language describing ideas and qualities rather then observable or specific thing, people, or places. |
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| Ad Hominem argument/attack |
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| A personal attack on the character or other traits of one’s opponent rather than an argument against his/her ideas. |
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| The repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words |
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| A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art |
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| The multiple meanings, with intentional or unintentional, of a work, phrase, sentence, or passage. |
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| A brief recounting of a relevant episode, frequently personal or biographical. |
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| A sudden drop from the dignified or important in thought or expression to the commonplace of trivial, often for humorous effect. |
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| A balancing of two opposite or contrasting words, phrases, or clauses. |
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| The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. |
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| A terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or a moral principle. |
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| A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, a personified abstraction, or sometimes an inanimate object. |
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| Repetition of vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity. |
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| Commas used (with no conjunction) to separate a series of words. |
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| The emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author’s choice of objects that are described. |
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| Construction in which both halves of the sentence are about the same length and importance. |
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| Often called circular reasoning it occurs when the believability of the evidence depends on the believability of the claim. |
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| Inflated language; the use of high-sounding language for a trivial subject. |
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| A grotesque likeness of striking characteristic in persons or things. |
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| Arrangement by the order in which things occur; usually moves from past to present. |
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| Arrangement of material into groups; media classified as print, video, or audio, with representation examples of each. |
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| A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. |
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| The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. |
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| The non-literal, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning. |
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| Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity. |
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| The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word. |
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| A term used to describe a work that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of moral or ethical behavior or thinking. |
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| Reducing an argument or issue to two polar opposites and ignoring possible alternatives. |
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| (1) In grammar, the omission of a word or words necessary for complete construction but understood in context; e.g. “If [it is] possible, [you] come early.” (2) The sign […] that something has been left out of a quotation; e.g., “To be or not… that is the question.” |
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| A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work that is suggestive of the theme. |
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| The use of the same term in two different senses in an argument. |
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| (from the Greek, “good speech”) A more agreeable or less unpleasant substitute for a generally unpleasant word or concept. |
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| Writing that explains or analyzes. |
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| A metaphor developed at length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work. |
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| When two cases are not sufficiently parallel to lead readers to accept a claim of connection between them. |
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| Returning to an earlier time in a narrative for the purpose of making something in the present clearer |
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| Writing or speech not intended to convey literal meaning, usually imaginative and vivid. |
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| A device used to produce figurative language. |
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| The major category into which a literary work fits. |
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| The traditions for each genre, helping to differentiate between divisions and subdivisions. |
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| Literally, “sermon,” but may include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral and spiritual advice. |
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| Figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. |
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| Sensory details or figurative language used to describe, around emotion, or represent abstractions. |
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| A form of reasoning which works from a body of fact to the formulation of a generalization (opposite of deduction); frequently used as the principal form of reasoning in science and history. |
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| Beginning a narrative in the middle of the action. |
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| An emotionally violent verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language. |
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| Reversing the normal word order of a sentence |
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| The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant, the difference between what appears to be and what is actually true. |
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| The placement of elements, characters, scenes, objects, etc. side by side for purposes of comparison and contrast. |
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| A sentence in which the main idea (independent clause) comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses. |
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| The ironic minimizing of fact, understatement resents something as less significant that it is. |
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| A figure or speech using an implied comparison of seemingly unlike thing or the substitution or one for the other, suggesting some similarity. |
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| (From the reek, “changed label” or “substitute name”) A figure of speech in which the name or one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it |
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| Indicates the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work |
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| A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. |
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| A method of organizing an essay according to the relative significance of the subtopics. |
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| (From the Greek, “Pointedly foolish”) A figure of speech in which an author juxtaposes apparently contradictory terms. A rhetorical antithesis. |
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| A brief story from which a lesson may be drawn; Jesus used the parable to teach his followers moral truths. |
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| A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains and acceptable and often profound meaning. |
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| It refers to the grammatical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. |
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| A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. |
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| Qualities of a work that evoke pity or sorrow. An excess of pathos can create over-emotionalism. |
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| An adjective that describes words, phrases, or general tone that is overly, scholarly, academic, or bookish. |
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| A sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end, after all introductory elements such as words, phrases, and dependent clauses. |
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| The fictional voice (or mask) that a writer adopts to tell a story. |
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| A figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes. |
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| A subdivision of personification, this figure of speech refers specifically to the technique of assigning human emotion to a concept, animal, or inanimate object. |
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| In literature, the perspective from which the story is told. |
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| Sentence that uses and or another conjunction (with no commas) to separate the items in a series |
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| Post hoc, ergo propter hoc |
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| When a writer implies that because on thing follows another, the first cause the second. |
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| One type of subject complement – an adjective, group of adjectives, or adjective clause that follows a linking verb. |
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| A second type of subject complement—a noun, group of nouns, or noun clause that renames the subject. |
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| The fallacy of raising an irrelevant issue to draw attention away from the real issue. |
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| The art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse. |
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| This flexible term describes the variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing. |
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| Involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. |
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| A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. |
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| The branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another. |
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| Organization of information using spatial cues such as top to bottom or left to right. |
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| Refers to an attempt on the part of an author to reproduce the unembellished flow of thoughts in the human mind with its feelings, judgments, associations, and memories. |
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| The sum of choices an author makes in blending diction, syntax, figurative language, and other literary devices. |
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| The word ( with any accompanying phrases) or clause that follows a linking verb and complements or completes, the subject of the sentence by either(1) renaming it, or (2) describing it. |
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| Containing both a subject and a verb, but unlike the independent clause, unable to stand alone; it does not express a complete thought. |
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| Generally, anything that represents, stands for, something else. |
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| A figure of speech in which part of something stands for the whole thing. |
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| A sensation produced in one sense when stimulus is applied to another; i.e., seeing a color when hearing a sound. |
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| Describes the author’s attitude toward his or her material, the audience, or both. |
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| A word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, or longer passage of writing that serves as a link in the writing. |
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| All of the parts are related to one central idea or organizing principle |
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| The quality of realism in a work that persuades the reader that he/she is getting a vision of life as it really is. |
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| The quickness of intellect and the power and talent for saying brilliant things that surprise and delight by their unexpectedness; the power to comment subtly and pointedly on the foibles of the passing scenes. |
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