Rhetorical Analysis Terms and Concepts

A comprehensive list of vocabulary and rhetorical analysis terms extracted from lecture notes, covering rhetorical strategies, devices, sentence types, and reasoning modes.

Rhetoric

The art of being a critical reader in order to find the ways that a writer or speaker uses language to shape people’s thoughts and actions in a given situation.

Analysis

A detailed examination of anything complex in order to understand its nature or to determine its essential features; explains how the parts work together to create the whole.

Rhetorical Analysis

Explains how the rhetorical choices made by the author (the parts) work to create the purpose of the text (the whole).

Annotations

Notes taken while reading a text including rhetorical choices, shifts in tone, topic, or appeal, and anything to clarify meaning.

Rhetorical Choice

The strategies an author uses to engage with the intended audience.

Methods

Capture the big picture of what is happening in each section of the text; what the author does in each section of a text.

Style

An author's unique way of communicating with words.

Embedding

Quotations from your sources should fit smoothly into your own sentences; full sentences are not quotes and dropped into your essay.

Rhetorical Situation

Consists of the speaker, audience, context, exigence, and purpose.

Speaker

The person who composed the text you are reading.

Audience

The original intended group the speaker is addressing.

Context

The circumstances that form the larger setting for a piece of text.

Exigence

An issue, problem, or situation that causes or prompts someone to write or speak.

Claim

An assertion of the truth of something; a claim is a debatable statement.

Evidence

Information that might lead one to believe something to be real or true.

Reasoning

The commentary a writer uses to explain how a strategy and evidence support the topic sentence and thesis statement.

Line of Reasoning

The way that claims and evidence are intentionally chosen and arranged to lead to the conclusion.

Thesis

A combination of methods and purpose statement.

Purpose

What the audience should do, know, think, or believe after receiving the message from the writer/speaker.

Topic Sentence

The first sentence of a body paragraph that focuses on a method listed in your thesis (not word for word).

Transition

A word or phrase that connects ideas in a paragraph or paragraphs themselves.

Logos

A logical appeal.

Ethos

A credibility appeal.

Pathos

An emotional appeal.

Counterargument

Acknowledging standpoints that go against your argument and then re-affirming your argument.

Concession

The act or an instance of conceding-accepting something as true.

Rebuttal

A form of evidence that is presented to contradict or nullify other evidence that has been presented by an adverse party.

Refutation

A statement that proves, or attempts to prove, that another statement is false, often requiring evidence or logic.

Fallacy

The use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument.

Shift

A change in tone, appeals, or content evident in the writing.

Diction

Choices that are related to selection of specific words.

Syntax

Choices that are related to the structure of the sentences.

Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.

Allusion

A reference to something real or fictional, to someone, some event, or something in the Bible, history, literature, or any phase of culture.

Analogy

A comparison between two things.

Anaphora

Succeeding clauses or phrases start with the same word or phrase.

Euphemism

The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant.

Expert testimony

When an expert in a field of study is quoted in an article to support the author's opinion.

Facts and statistics

The use of statistics and facts to make a point and persuade.

Hyperbole

Extravagant exaggeration.

Hypophora

A figure of speech in which the speaker poses a question and then answers the question.

Symbol

Something that stands for something else.

Anecdote

A short interesting story about a real incident or person (sometimes amusing).

Antithesis

Direct contrast of structurally parallel word groupings.

Aphorism

A concise observation that contains a general truth.

Asyndeton

The omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence.

Imagery

Language that evokes one or all of the five senses.

Irony

When a person says something or does something that departs from what they (or we) expect them to say or do.

Juxtaposition

Placing of two items side by side to create a certain effect, reveal an attitude, or accomplish some other purpose.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that compares two subjects without the use of “like” or “as”.

Simile

A comparison that uses “like” or “as”.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

Parallel Structure

The repetition of the same pattern of words or phrases within a sentence or passage.

Paradox

A self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

Personification

The attribution of human characteristics to something nonhuman.

Polysyndeton

A device in which several coordinating conjunctions are used in succession.

Repetition

A literary device that repeats the same words or phrases a few times.

Rhetorical Question

A question asked in order to create a dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer.

Tone

The writer or speaker’s apparent attitude toward the subject matter and/or issue.

Narration

Stories the author shares about themselves or others to illustrate an argument, offer evidence, or substitute for an argument.

Description

When writers indicate what a person, place, or thing looks like and often how it feels, smells, sounds, or tastes.

Definition

Involves telling the reader what something means—and what it does not.

Problem Solution

A mode of organization where a problem is presented in a detailed manner followed by a detailed explanation of a solution.

Simple Sentence

A sentence with only one independent clause (subject and verb that creates a complete idea).

Compound Sentence

A sentence made up of two or more simple sentences.

Complex Sentence

A sentence containing one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.

Compound/Complex Sentence

A sentence containing two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.

Inductive Reasoning

A type of reasoning that moves from the specific to the general.

Deductive Reasoning

A type of reasoning that moves from the general to the specific.