rhetorical devies quiz

anaphora

the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines (parallel structure)

antimetabole

repetition of words in reverse order

antithesis

opposition or contrast of ideas or words in a parallel construction

asyndeton

omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words

cumulative sentence

completes the main idea at the beginning of a sentence and then builds and adds on

hortative sentence

exhorts, urges, implores, calls to action (let us, come then)

periodic sentence

main clause is withheld until the end of the sentence

synecdoche

a figure of speech that uses a part to represent the whole

zeugma

the use of two words in grammatically similar ways that produce a different, often incongruous, meaning

ad hominem

moves the argument from the issue at hand to the character of the speaker

ad populum

bandwagon, everybody is doing it

appeal to false authority

someone who has no expertise in a field is cited as an authority, celebrity endorsement

circular reasoning

repeats the claim as a way to provide evidence

false dilemma

either/or, presents two extreme options as the only possible choice

faulty analogy

makes two dissimilar things similar

hasty generalization

faulty conclusion is reached because of insufficient evidence

post hoc ergo propter hoc

claims that something is a cause just because it happened once before

straw man

chooses a bad example to ridicule or refute an idea, does’t attack the speaker just their ideas

red herring

an argument starts out on a subject, but deviates to another in order to avoid the initial issue

claim of fact

asserts something that is true or untrue, doesn’t always contain arguable information

claim of value

most common type of argument, argues against something being good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable

claim of policy

a claim that proposed a change

types of firsthand evidence

anecdotes, personal experience, current events

types of secondhand evidence

research, reading, investigation, historical facts, expert opinions, quantitive data