Rhetorical Strategies Cheat Sheet

AP language

Metaphor

* an implied comparison between two unlike things.

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EXAMPLE: “Everyday is a winding road”.

Simile

* An explicit comparison between two unlike things with the use of “like'“ or “as”.

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EXAMPLE: “You are like a hurricane, there’s a calm in your eye.”

Personification

* Attributing human qualities to an abstract idea or inanimate object.

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EXAMPLE: “I hear the mutter of the battlefield”

Imagery

* Makes strong appeal to the five senses ; sight, sound , touch, taste, and smell.

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EXAMPLE: “ To be a book of magic; and once when a chambermaid had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor.”

Syntax

* The intentional emphasis on word of a sentence or phrase
* to analyze it, one should consider sentence form and structure, repetition, and punctuation.

Pun

* A play on the meaning of words that relies on a word having more than one meaning or sounding like another word.

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EXAMPLE: “ a mender of soles”

Irony

* the speaker means something other than what is said; the unexpected; a difference between what is stated to be literally true and what the reader knows to be true.

Hyperbole

* Exaggeration

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EXAMPLE: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!”

Litotes

* Opposite of hyperbole, underestimating

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EXAMPLE: “Oh, it was nothing”.

Synecdoche

* One word that makes the reader think of all things in the class

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EXAMPLE: “ All hands on deck”

Metonymy

* Designation of one things with something closely associated with it

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EXAMPLE: “ We call the head of the committee the “chair”, “crown” refers to royalty

Oxymoron

* Contradiction; two contradictory terms or ideas used together

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EXAMPLE: “ Parting is such sweet sorrow”. “Jumbo shrimp”.

Paradox

* A statement that appears to be contradictory but, in fact, has some truth to it.

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EXAMPLE: “ He worked hard at being lazy”.

Onomatopoeia

* refers to the use of words whose sound reinforces their meaning.

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EXAMPLE : “pop, bang”

Alliteration

* repetition of the same sound at the beginning of successive words, create a rhythm.

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EXAMPLE: “ Vessels were searched, seized and sunk”.

Euphemism

* Inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive or harsh

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EXAMPLE: “we put our dog to sleep”

Allusion

* a reference to another text or assumed knowledge of a reference, connects the reader with the author by assuming common knowledge.

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EXAMPLE: “ If I’m such a bad kid, why don’t you just put a scarlet letter on my chest?”

Anadiplosis

* Repeats the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning, can be generated in series for the sake of beauty, and to give a sense of logical progression.

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EXAMPLE: “ This treatment plant has a record of uncommon reliability, a reliability envied by every other water treatment facility on the coast. “

Chiasmus

* Grammatical structure when the first clause or phrase is reversed in the second, sometimes repeating the same words, it emphasizes the reversal in meaning and thus reinforces the contrast. It is useful in writing to emphasize differences.

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EXAMPLE: “ And so my fellow Americans, ask now what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. “

Parallelism

* A set of similarly structured words, phrases, or clauses

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EXAMPLE: “ He walked to the store, he walked to the library, he walked to the apartment”.

Juxtaposition

* The placing of contrasting settings, characters or other literary elements in opposition between paragraphs or between sections of the text to highlight an intended disparity.

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EXAMPLE: “ In cold blood is written not with typical chapter formation but as intended juxtaposition of the events in the clutter home in juxtaposition to the activities of the two misfits.