SLO Vocabulary

Evaluate

Evaluate

Examine and judge carefully. To judge or determine the significance, worth, or quality of something; to assess.

Analysis

The process or result of identifying the parts of a whole and their relationships to one another.

Explicit

Clearly expressed or fully stated in the actual text

Connotation

The range of associations that a word or phrase suggests in addition to its dictionary meaning.

Irony

Incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected of events and the expected result.

Inference

A judgment based on reasoning rather than on a direct or explicit statement. A conclusion based on facts or circumstances.

Tone

The attitude of the author toward the audience, characters, subject, or the work itself.

Refutation

Countering of anticipated arguments

Juxtaposition

Placing one thing adjacent to another, especially for comparison and contrast.

Rhetoric

The art of and study of effective writing and speech.

Diction

Specific word choices an author makes to persuade or to convey a tone.

Ex: “She began imitating his careful diction.”

Clause

A group of words containing at least one paired subject and predicate.

Phrase

A group of words that do not contain at least one paired subject and predicate.

Ethos

Mode of persuasion requiring speakers to establish their credibility, skill, or morality on a given subject to an intended audience.

Pathos

Mode of persuasion speakers use when appealing to the various emotions of the audience, including fear, inspiration, intimidation, idealism, anger, nostalgia, despair, optimism, etc.

Logos

Mode of persuasion speakers use when appealing to the audience’s ability to distinguish, through discourse, the difference between what is reasonable or unreasonable.

Evidence

Proof coming from resources, fieldwork, and research that validates any logical support of an argument.

Reasons

Statements of logic that offer support for an argument.

Comma splice

A type of Run-On sentence in which the writer has erroneously placed only a comma between two independent clauses, resulting in a failure to link the two according to the grammatical convention.

Claims

Any statement of belief that can be contested; argument

Claims of Value

A statement made to show that something is moral or immoral

Fallacy

Rationales for claims that might seem reasonable, but are actually unsound- and usually false.

The Claim of Policy

A statement made to endorse specific courses of action.

Claim of Fact

A statement made to verify the authenticity of something.

Fused Sentence

A type Run-On sentence in which the writer has failed to make any attempt either to link or separate independent clauses, utilizing neither punctuation nor conjunctions.

Loose Sentence

A sentence structure in which a main clause is followed by subordinate phrases and clauses.

Parallelism

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

Periodic Sentence

A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended syntax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word.

Ambiguity

The presence of two or more possible meanings in any passage.

Concession

An argumentative strategy by which a speaker or writer acknowledges the validity of an opponent’s point.