schemes and tropes

anastrophe

rearranging the normal word order to create a new effect with the sentence, saying, or idea.

example - "The greatest teacher, failure is"

parallelism

phrases in a sentence have similar or the same grammatical structure

example - "That's one step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

isocolon

involves repeating the same grammatical structure in two or more phrases or clauses

example - "I came, I saw, I conquered"

antithesis

the opposite of a statement, concept, or idea

example - "That's one small step for a man - one giant leap for mankind."

parenthesis

used when a writer wants to insert information into a passage that adds detail.

example - "She is coming to our house after work (around six o' clock)"

apposition

a grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side so one element identifies the other in a different way.

examples - "My friend the doctor"
or
"The Nile River, the longest river in the world"

ellipsis

two main ways.
1. appears as a sequence of dots, usually three (...), they will indicate that parts of a word or sentence have been omitted. These are called ellipsis points.
2. The use of ellipsis can also be more stylistic. This is when a word or phrase is left out, or omitted, from a sentence, may be necessary to make a sentence syntactically correct but not necessary to fully understand the sentence's meaning.

examples - "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth...the proposition that all men are created equal."
Or
"In the baseball game, our team scored four homeruns, the other team, only two..."

asyndeton

skipping one or more conjunctions, which are usually used in a series of phrases.

example - "After seeing all the evidence, I agree. They disagree."

polysyndeton

uses multiple repetitions of the same conjunction

example - "And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House!" -> the use of AND

alliteration

words that begin with the same sound are placed close together. Although alliteration often involves repetition of letters, most importantly, it is a repetition of sounds.

example - "Sally sells seashells by the seashore"

assonance

repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds within words, phrases, or sentences

example - "She seems to beam rays of sunshine with her eyes of green."

anaphora

when a certain word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of clauses or sentences that follow each other.

example - "I'm sick and tired of you letting me down. I'm sick and tired of you making me mad. And I'm sick and tired of you doing such silly things!"

epistrophe

a certain phrase or word is repeated at the end of sentences or clauses that follow each other.

example - "Last week, he was just fine. Yesterday, he was just fine. And today, he was just fine."

epanalepsis

the beginning of a clause or sentence is repeated at the end of that same clause or sentence, with words intervening
(A sentence that begins and ends with the same word)

example - "The king is dead, long live the king!"

anadiplosis

repeating a word or phrase at the end of one sentence or clause and at the beginning of the next.

example - "Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task."

climax

highest point of tension or drama in a narratives' plot. Often, it is also when the main problem of the story is faced and solved by the main character or protagonist.

example - "A story about a mother and daughter:
Conflict: A character and her mother are upset with each other. The main character believes she must be an artist, whereas her mother does not support her career and would rather have her be an accountant.
_______: The character and her mother have a large argument in which they both state their feelings. At the end of the argument, they agree to love one another despite their disagreements."

antimetabole

involves repeating words in reverse grammatical order in successive sentences or clauses

examples - "I know what I like, and I like what I know"
"Plan your life so you can live your plan"

chiasmus

a literary device that involves writing two similar clauses in reverse order, one after the other, within a sentence.

example - "Fair is foul and foul is fair"

polyptoton

repetition of a root word in a variety of ways

example - "You're so full of trickery! Playing tricks on me!"

metaphor

makes a comparison by directly relating one thing to another unrelated thing. do not use words such as "like" or "as"

example - "All religions, arts, and sciences are branches of the same tree."

simile

a literary term where you use "like" or "as" to compare two different things and show a common quality between them.

example - "He's as thin as a rail!"

synecdoche

allowing a part to represent the whole or vice versa

example - "All hands on deck!"
OR
A boy has been admitted to the hospital. The nurse says, "He's in good hands."

metonymy

a figure of speech that replaces words with related or associated words and is typically a part of a larger whole

example - "The pen is mightier than the sword."

antanaclasis

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated within a sentence, but the word or phrase means something different each time it appears.

example - "If we don't hang together, we shall surely hang separately."

paronomasis/paronomasia

occurs when a writer intentionally creates confusion by using similar-sounding words

example - "he had a photographic memory, but it was never developed.

syllepsis

a figure of speech that occurs when a word is used to modify or govern multiple words in a sentence, but only agrees with one of them in number, case, or gender.

example - "She caught the ball and a sharp look from the coach"

anthimeria

the usage of a word in a new grammatical form, most often the usage of a noun as a verb.

example - "I could use a good sleep."

periphrasis

the use of a longer phrasing in place of a possible shorter form of expression; a roundabout or indirect manner of writing or speaking

examples - "more happy"
OR
"I am going to the place where I can buy groceries"

personification

a kind of metaphor in which you describe an inanimate object, abstract thing, or non-human animal in human terms

examples - "Science-fiction novels were his constant companions."
OR
The tired old car coughed and wheezed and crawled down the street.

hyperbole

a figure of speech in which an author or speaker purposely and obviously exaggerates to an extreme.

example - "She's going to die of embarrassment."

litotes

an understatement in which a positive statement is expressed by negating its opposite.

examples - "Not bad"
OR
"Thank you, ma'am, you won't regret it."

rhetorical question

a question that is not asked in order to receive an answer from the audience or reader.

example - "What's the deal with airline food?"

irony

when there are two contradicting meanings of the same situation, event, image, sentence, phrase, or story.

example - A popular visual representation of ___ shows a seagull sitting on top of a "no seagulls" sign. The meaning of the sign is that seagulls are not allowed in the area.

onomatopoeia

a literary device that uses words that sound like what they describe

example - "Boom! Pow! Whoosh! Wham!"

oxymoron

a figure of speech that puts together opposite elements.

example - "My room is an organized mess, or controlled chaos, if you will. Same difference."

paradox

a statement that contradicts itself, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time.

example - "Nobody goes to Murphy's Bar anymore — it's too crowded"