antagonist - The character who opposes the interests of the protagonist.
Ex: In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien creates Lord Sauron as the antagonist to
Frodo.
antanaclasis - Repetition of a word in two different senses.
Ex: If we do not hang together, we will hang separately.
anticipated objection - The technique a writer or speaker uses in an
argumentative text to address and answer objections, even though the
audience has not had the opportunity to voice these objections.
Ex: "You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air…You
ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory." (Winston Churchill)
antimetabole - The repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse
grammatical order.
Ex: One should eat to live, not live to eat.
apologist - A person or character who makes a case for some controversial,
even contentious, position.
Ex: In Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, Romeo makes a case for
marrying Juliet, despite the controversy over the issue.
apology - An elaborate statement justifying some controversial, even
contentious, position.
Ex: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal.'" (Martin Luther King Jr.)
apostrophe - The direct address of an absent person or personified object as
if he/she/it is able to reply.
Ex: "O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" (William Shakespeare)
appeal to authority - In a text, the reference to words, action, or beliefs of a
person in authority as a means of supporting a claim, generalization, or
conclusion.
Ex: Isaac Newton was a genius and he believed in God. Therefore, God must
exist.
appeal to emotion - The appeal of a text to the feelings or interests of the
audience.
Ex: If you don't graduate from high school, you will always be poor.
argument by analysis - An argument developed by breaking the subject
matter into its component parts.
Ex: The Virginians failed miserably at initial colonization and suffered through
disease, war, and famine because of their high expectations and greed, which
also molded their colony socially and economically.
asyndeton - The omission of conjunctions between related clauses.
Ex: "This is the villain among you who deceived you, who cheated you, who
meant to betray you completely." (Aristotle)
basic topic - One of the four perspectives that Aristotle explained could be
used to generate material about any subject matter: greater or less, possible
and impossible, past fact, and future fact.
Ex: Topics include justice, peace, rights, and movie theaters.
brain-storming - Within the planning act of the writing process, a technique
used by a writer or speaker to generate many ideas, some of which he or she
will later eliminate.
Ex: I brainstorm before history essays by writing down as many specific Exs as I
can think of for the prompt.
cloze test - A test of reading ability that requires a person to fill in missing
words in a text.
Ex: The SAT's language portion contains questions modeled in this way.
common topic - One of the perspectives, derived from Aristotle's topics, used
to generate material. The six common topics are definition, division,
comparison, relation, circumstances, and testimony.
Ex: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson's political opinions can be the
subject of a common topic, such as division.
compound subject - A sentence in which two or more nouns, noun phrases,
or noun clauses constitute the grammatical subject of a clause
Ex: The dog and the cat scurried away from the approaching car.