All Rhetorical and Legal Terms.

Rhetorical and legal terminology is important to know so that you can make effective arguments and keep others and yourself safe from manipulation.

Logos.

Appeal to reason or planning.

A rhetorical appeal to logic, reason, and audience beliefs.

Ethos.

A rhetorical appeal to credibility, character, and trustworthiness judged by the audience’s beliefs.

Pathos.

A rhetorical appeal to emotions and feelings judged by audience’s beliefs.

The Rhetorical Triangle of a Creating an Argument

Speaker, audience, and message. A proper argument cannot exist if even one substantial element is missing.

In Medias Res.

A narrative technique that begins a story in the midpoint or at a crucial point of action, rather than from the beginning.

Ab Initio.

A narrative technique that begins a story at the beginning, rather than from the midpoint or at a crucial point of action.

Exigence.

The immediate and substantial reason an argument is presented.

State of the Audience.

The audience’s preexisting beliefs, values, biases, prior knowledge, and degree of receptivity.

Perspicuitas.

Clarity.

“One should not aim at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.”

Kairos.

TIME: The exact right moment for action, depending on location, time, audience beliefs, present values, and how different decorums change.

Debaters keep track to act in a way that benefits their side and fit a personally beneficial decorum.

Common Ground.

Shared interest, beliefs, values, mental traits, physical traits, senses, and more that can contribute to the general argument.

Decorum.

CULTURE: The words, subject, style, argument, tone, linguistic, social, aesthetic, and/or ethical properties of an audience.

Debaters fit decorum according to Kairos to receive a personally beneficial result.

Allusion.

An implied or indirect reference in text.

Anaphora.

Repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences, usually without conjunctions.

Epistrophe.

Repeating a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences, usually without conjunctions.

Asyndeton.

Omitting conjunctions between clauses, usually represented by a list or predictable structure.

Polysyndeton

The deliberate, close-succession use of many conjunctions across clauses.

Antithesis.

Placing contrasting longer ideas side-by-side (by separating conjunction, comma, period, word, etc) in a parallel structure.

Oxymoron

Placing contrasting shorter words side-by-side in a parallel structure, usually with nothing in between them.

Paradox

A statement that appears self-contradictory but reveals a deeper truth.

Chiasmus.

Reversing the grammatical structure or order of key terms in two parallel halves, usually without contradiction.

Zeugma

A single word—most often a verb or an adjective—grammatically governs or modifies two or more other words or phrases in a sentence (metaphorically, literally, abstract, etc).

Metaphor.

Making an implicit connection between two or more unrelated things, without using like or as.

Simile

Making an explicit connection between two or more unrelated things, while using like or as.

Analogy.

Reasoning or arguing a point by comparing it to a similar or parallel case (metaphorically, literally, abstract, etc).

Personification.

Giving human traits or qualities to abstract ideas or inanimate objects.

Hyperbole.

Extreme exaggeration used for emphasis, explanation, or effect.

Alliteration.

The repetition of the same consonant sound at the start of two or more words that are close together.

Rhetorical Question.

A figure of speech asked to make a point, emphasize an idea, or provoke thought rather than to get a direct answer.

Antonomasia

A descriptive trait, title, or epithet replaces a person’s proper name, or conversely, a famous name is used to describe a general type of person

Synecdoche.

A part of something is used to represent the whole, or—less commonly—the whole is used to represent a part.

Anadiplosis.

A literary and rhetorical device where the last word or phrase of one sentence, clause, or line is repeated at the very beginning of the next sentence, clause, or line to represent a Domino Effect.

Procatalepsis.

A speaker or writer anticipates an objection from an audience or opponent and immediately answers it before it can be voiced.

Apophasis.

A speaker or writer brings up a subject by explicitly claiming that they will not mention it.

Aposiopesis.

A speaker or writer deliberately breaks off a sentence and leaves it unfinished, letting the listener or reader supply the ending from their imagination.

Antanagoge.

A writer or speaker balances a negative or small/extreme point by immediately following it with a positive or extreme/small one to lessen its impact.

Expeditio.

Enlisting all possible solutions or explanations for a problem, and systematically rejecting all of them with flow and small reasons except for the one you want to pass.

The Trinity Rule.

The principle that ideas presented in groups of three are inherently more satisfying, memorable, and convincing to an audience.

Aporia.

Feigning doubt or helplessness to look humble and equal to your audience.

Amplification.

A writer or speaker expands or elaborates on a word, phrase, or claim by gradually adding more detail, description, or explanation by sentence structure.

Hypotyposis.

A highly vivid, lifelike description of a scene, event, or person that appeals directly to the senses, making the audience feel as though they are experiencing it firsthand.

• Sight (Visual imagery)

• Hearing (Auditory imagery)

• Touch (Tactile imagery)

• Smell (Olfactory imagery)

• Taste (Gustatory imagery)

• Movement/Internal sensation (Kinesthetic/Organic imagery)

Muqābalah // Parallel antithesis (PART OF PARALLELISM).

Two or more complex ideas are stated in a specific order, followed by their exact opposites in the same matching sequence.

Parallelism (BROADER CATAGORY OF MANY RHETORICAL DEVICES).

The use of the same grammatical structure or pattern in a series of words, phrases, or sentences to create balance, rhythm, and emphasis.

• Anaphora

• Epistrophe

• Antithesis

• Chiasmus

• The Trinity Rule

• Etc

Paradiastole.

You refreeze a negative trait or action by describing it with a positive spin (or vice versa) or certain reframing.

Linguistic obfuscation.

Using buzzwords and industry-specific language to sound highly professional while diluting the actual meaning of the message.

Stasis.

To identify the exact point of agreement or disagreement.

1. Fact (Context): Did something happen? What are the origins, existence, or facts of the case?

2. Definition (Terms): How can the act or problem be classified or defined? What category does it belong to?

3. Quality (Value): How serious, important, right, or wrong is it? What are its moral or practical qualities?

4. Policy (Action): What action should be taken or what policy should be implemented?

Disassociation.

Dissociation in rhetoric is an argument strategy where a speaker splits a single concept into two separate parts (Job versus expectation, etc) to change how the audience values them.

Moral reframing.

A communication and persuasion technique that involves translating or presenting an issue so that it aligns with the target audience's core moral values, rather than your own.

• Care / Harm (valuing kindness, protection of the vulnerable)

• Fairness / Cheating (valuing equal treatment, justice, reciprocity)

• Loyalty / Betrayal (valuing group allegiance, patriotism)

• Authority / Subversion (valuing respect for tradition and legitimate leadership)

• Sanctity / Degradation (valuing purity, cleanliness, avoiding corruption)

Self-generated reasons.

Arguments or justifications that the audience comes up with on their own, rather than points directly handed to them by the speaker or writer.

• Ownership: The audience typically trusts their thoughts over yours.

• Relevance: The audience automatically adapts their ideas to their personal experiences.

• Retention: The audience typically remembers their thoughts over yours.

Nyāya-style analogical dialogue.

A speaker uses a universally accepted example (common ground, analogy, etc) to prove a disputed fact or view to an opponent.

Concession.

Something you give up, grant, or allow to the opposition during a negotiation, argument, or contract.

Antisagoge.

Making a concession before making one's point.

Adianoeta.

An expression or sentence that carries two meanings simultaneously—one straightforward and innocent on the surface, and another subtle or ironic beneath it, understandable to a specific audience.

Paraprosdokian.

The end of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, forcing the listener to reinterpret the beginning.

Antanaclasis.

Repeating a single word or phrase within the same sentence, but changing its meaning in each different clause.

Catachresis.

Using a word or metaphor in a radically unusual, paradoxical, or technically "incorrect" way to describe something that lacks a direct name.

Distinctio.

Explicitly defining or clarifying the meaning of a word to prevent ambiguity or to subtly redefine the terms of an argument.

Metonymy.

Referring to an object, concept, or institution not by its actual name, but by something closely associated with it.

Epanorthosis.

Immediately correcting or refining a statement you just made, replacing a word with a stronger, more accurate, or milder one.

Syllogism.

A chain of deductive reasoning.

1. Major Premise: A broad, general statement or rule using words like “If.” (e.g., If all humans are mortal).

2. Minor Premise: A specific statement that connects to the major premise using words like “If.” (e.g., And if Socrates is a human).

3. Conclusion: A logical result drawn from combining the two premises using words like “Therefore.” (e.g., Therefore, Socrates is mortal)

Enthymeme.

A chain of deductive reasoning that simplifies the Syllogism. The audience implicitly fills in a missing…

1. Major Premise,

2. Minor Premise;

3. OR Conclusion.

The Duo Rule.

Structures ideas, arguments, or characters into pairs (2 things together) to create balance, opposition, comparison, or tension.

Deductive reasoning.

A systematic logical process that moves from general rules or premises ⟶ a specific, certain conclusion.

Inductive reasoning.

A systematic logical process that moves from specific, certain rules or premises ⟶ a general conclusion.

Premise.

A foundational idea, statement, or assumption that you accept as true and use as the starting point to build an argument, theory, or story.

Judicial Argument // Forensic Argument.

A past-tense form of argument typically meant to criminalize, blame, fight, or defend a topic or person regarding whether something is of audience interest (justice) or against audience interest (injustice).

Determines: Context, information, case of matter.

Epideictic Argument // Demonstrative Argument.

A present-tense form of argument typically meant to criminalize, praise, defend, or plan a topic or person regarding whether something is of audience interest (noble) or against audience interest (evil).

Determines: Virtue, common place, relevance, personalization.

Deliberative Argument // Legislative Argument.

A future-tense form of argument typically meant to strongly encourage an audience to do or not do an action or opinion regarding whether something is of audience interest (advantageous) or against audience interest (unadvantageous).
Determines: Punishments, actions, solutions, resolutions, ways of change.

Diacope.

A writer or speaker repeats a similar or exact word or phrase with a small (but never 0) number of intervening words in between.

Epizeuxis.

A writer or speaker repeats a similar or exact word or phrase with no intervening words in between.

Scesis Onomaton.

Use of successive synonym phrases to emphasize a point, typically separated by periods.

Meiosis.

Intentionally understates something, making it seem smaller, less important, or less severe than it actually is.

1. Gaslighting.

2. False Modesty.

3. Threat.

4. Insult Camoflague.

5. Moral Equalizing.

Exemplum.

An example, analogy, personal story, etc.

Quantitive Framing.

The strategic use of numbers, statistics, probabilities, and data representations to shape an audience's perception or emotions.

Definitional Retreat // Humpty Dumpty definition.

A debater invents a new word (or uses a newly-coined or inexperienced word), agrees its commonplace with the audience (either implied or exact), and uses its untraditional redefinition to control the debate. Beyond the debate room, the word can be legitimized through popularity, polarity, vague and complex terminology.

Implanting by Association // Manipulative juxtaposition.

Presenting two separate pieces of information side by side without explicitly connecting them, letting the listener's brain draw the manipulative conclusion.

Susceptible when: high-trust environments, exhausted audience, and special formatting.

False Dilemma.

A fallacy that reduces a complex issue to only two extreme choices.

Susceptible when: high-stress environments, low subject information, and polarized groups.

Ad Hominem.

A fallacy that attacks the character of a person to ridicule or offend them, without consideration of actual reliable evidence.

Susceptible when: public settings, exhausted audience, and uninformed or emotional target.

Gaslighting.

A fallacy where a person deliberately twists facts, denies events, or lies to make someone doubt their own memory, perception, or sanity.

Susceptible when: unequal power dynamics, in private, long time intervals, partial change to escalation, and during times of transition.

Red Herring.

A fallacy where someone introduces an irrelevant topic, detail, or diversion to pull attention away from the original issue.

Susceptible when: time-limited hours, uninformed audiences, and polarized groups.

Straw Man.

A fallacy where someone changes or exaggerates another person's argument to make it easier to knock down.

Susceptible when: time-limited hours, uninformed audiences, and polarized groups.

Appeal to extremified pity.

A fallacy where someone places the most horrific events against the most innocent looking children or pets to present irrelevance, unreliably magnify, or completely substitute facts to reach an improper conclusion.

Susceptible when: countless rumors, social media, and fundraising twists.

Slippery Slope.

A fallacy where someone claims that a minor initial action will inevitably trigger a chain of increasingly extreme, negative, and usually improbable consequences—without providing sufficient evidence for the connection.

Correlation Does Not Imply Causation.

A fallacy. Just because two things move or change together, you cannot automatically assume that one directly causes the other.

• Correlation: A statistical relationship showing that two variables move together (either both go up, both go down, or one goes up while the other goes down).

• Causation: A direct cause-and-effect relationship where a change in one variable actually produces the change in the other.

Appeal to Authority.

A fallacy where a debater insists that something is true because a member or group of authority said so, without any other reliable evidence.

Appeal to Anger // Appeal to Emotion.

A fallacy where emotions of rage, anger, etc are substituted for facts.

Appeal to Celebrity or Popularity.

A fallacy where a point is simply accepted because of celebrity status, social status, or popularity of the concept, without reliable evidence.

Alphabet Soup // Ambiguous.

A fallacy where the opponent uses unnecessarily complex questions or statements to confuse the reader or obfuscate their statements.

The Appeal to Tradition.

A fallacy where data or information is solely defined and verified by a past tradition.

Appeal to False Authority.

A fallacy where the opponent claims to use a source of relevant authority for information, when in fact it is not a source that is relevant or authority-wise to the information presented.

Appeal to Possibility.

A fallacy where a conclusion is improperly reached by the possibility of something occurring. You cannot predict the future.

Appeal to the Moon (FORM OF FALSE ANALOGY).

A fallacy where the speaker argues… “If we can put a man on the moon, then we can…” for a completely different subject, with mismatching evidence.

False Analogy.

A fallacy where someone compares two totally different things just because they share one small or surface-level similarity, or misrepresents an example to an actual situation by providing insufficient data.

Biased Sample Fallacy.

Drawing a conclusion about a population or idea based on a data sample that is biased or inaccurate.

Genetic Fallacy.

A mistake in reasoning where an idea, claim, or product is accepted or rejected based solely on where it comes from or how it started, rather than its actual content.

Overgeneralization.

A fallacy where someone draws a broad, sweeping conclusion from an insufficiently small, biased, or unrepresentative sample size.

Begging the Question // Circular Movement.

A fallacy where A circular fallacy (or circular reasoning) happens when you try to prove a point by just repeating the point itself in different words.

Claim A is true → Because of Claim B → Because Claim A is true.

Fallacy of Four Terms.

A fallacy where the definition of an important word in a chain of reasoning changes and unreliably affects the conclusion. A premise, premise, and conclusion should have 3 terms per idea, but this fallacy introduces a 4th that disrupts the context (the first premise, etc) of the chain of reasoning.

Definist Fallacy.

A fallacy where someone defines a term in a biased or inaccurate way so that their own argument becomes much easier to defend.

Gadarene Swine Fallacy’s Appeal to Popular Authority.

A fallacy that a group moving together in proper formation is automatically on the right course, or that an individual standing outside the group's formation is necessarily wrong