APELAC Rhetorical Terms 17 - 32

Atmosphere

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. Even such elements as a description of the weather can contribute to the atmosphere. Frequently, atmosphere foreshadows events.

Balanced Sentence

Construction in which both halves of the sentence are about the same length and importance.

Begging the Question

Often called circular reasoning, begging the question occurs when the believability of the evidence depends on the believability of the claim. In other words, one assumes a statement to be true when it has not been proven to be so.

Bias

Prejudice or predisposition toward one side of a topic or issue.

Bombast

Inflated language; the use of high-sounding language for a trivial subject.

Caricature

A grotesque likeness of striking characteristics in persons or things.

Chronological Order

Arrangement by the order in which things occur; usually moves from past to present. In reverse chronological order, events are told from present to past.

Cite

To identify a part of a piece of writing as being derived from (paraphrased, summarized) from a source. To fail to cite constitutes plagiarism.

Classification

Arrangement of material into groups; e.g., media classified as print, video, or audio, with representative examples of each.

Clause

A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. An independent, or main, 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. In this sample sentence, "Because I practiced hard, my AP scores were high," the independent clause is "my AP scores were high," and the dependent clause is "Because I practiced hard."

Colloquial/Colloquialism

The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. Colloquial expressions in writing include local or regional dialects and usage. Colloquialisms are to be avoided in formal writing; e.g. Jack was bummed out about his chemistry grade instead of Jack was upset about his chemistry grade.

Connotation

The non-literal, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning.

Consonance

Repetition of a consonant sound within two or more words in close proximity,

Denotation

The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word.

Didactic

(from the Greek, "teaching") 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.

Either/Or Fallacy

Reducing an argument or issue to two polar opposites and ignoring possible alternatives.