the repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause.

Example: "Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
(proverb, original source unknown)

 [image]

the repetition of a word in two different senses.

Example: “Your argument is sound, nothing but sound.”

(Benjamin Franklin)

[image] 

use of words alike in sound but different in meaning.

Example:"A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handyman with a sense of humus."
(E.B. White, "The Practical Farmer")

[image]

use of a word understood differently in relation to two or more words, which it modifies or governs.

Example: "I finally told Ross, late in the summer, that I was losing weight, my grip, and possibly my mind."
(James Thurber, The Years with Ross, 1959)

[image]

substitution of one part of speech for another.

Example: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

(Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address)

[image]

the noun to which a later pronoun refers.

Example: "I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose."
(George Carlin)

[image]

 a brief witty statement.

Example: "I am not young enough to know everything."
(Oscar Wilde)

[image]

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines.

Example: "[N]ot as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are". -JFK

[image]

Opposition or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.

Example: "[S]upport any friend, oppose any foe". (JFK).

[image]

Using a single feature to represent the whole.

Example: "In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course". (JFK).

[image]

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.

Example: "Let both sides explore....Let both sides, for the first time, formulate....Let both sides seek to invoke....Let us explore....Conquer....Eradicate....Tap....Encourage....Let both sides unite....Let the oppressed go free...."

[image]

Setence that completes the main idea at the beginning of the sentence, then builds and adds on.

Example: "But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course

[image]

the use of two different words in a grammatically similar way but producing different, often incongruous, meanings

Example: "You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit." -Star Trek

[image]

the identical or near repetition of words in one phrase or clause in reverse order in the next phrase or clause

Example: “We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.” Malcolm X

[image]

a sentence that exhorts, advises, calls to action

Example: Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us." -JFK

[image]

Placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts.

Example: "[That] we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century". (JFK).

 [image]

Sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end. (Opposite of Cumulative Sentence)

 Example: "[And] to that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support". (JFK).

[image]

Sentence that completes the main idea at the beginning of the sentence, then builds and adds on.

Example: "But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course--both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war". (JFK).
[image]

ommision of conjunctions between coordinating phrases, clauses, or words.

ex: "I pushed baby carriages,changed tired in the rain, marched for peace." (On being a cripple, Nancy Mairs)

[image]

the deliberate use of an understatement

ex: " Though rarer, these incidents are still common place in my life." (Myth of a latin woman,Judith Cofer)

[image]

Logical fallacies

Faulty analogies lead to faulty conclusions

ex: In the most intelligent races, as among the parisians, there are a large number of women who's brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains." (Womens brains, Stephen Gould)

[image]

the deliberate use of many conjunctions

ex: " And here you would be presented with a list of four possible pairs, one of which showed the same kind of relatioship: red is to stoplight, bus is to arrival, chills is to fever, yawn is to boring: well i could never think that way." (Mother tongue, Amy Tan)

[image]