What is negative definition

…members of this organization are committed by the Charter to promote and respect human rights. Those rights are not respected when a Buddhist priest is driven from his pagoda, when a synagogue is shut down, when a Protestant church cannot open a mission, when a cardinal is forced into hiding, or when a crowded church service is bombed (JFK, United Nations, September 20, 1963).

What is thesis

Opinion + topic =

What is epithet

Fleet-footed Achilles, earth-shaking Poseidon, and gray-eyed Athena are examples of?

What is rhetorical question

"Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?" by Henry David Thoreau is an example of what?

Teacher's judgment

At some point in The Scarlet Letter all the characters commit a sin, which is like breaking the law. Who decides the punishment for committing these sins and what is the affect on the society?

What is appeal to ethos

This is an example of what appeal: In our opinion the German people wish to have one united country. If the Soviet Union had lost the war, the Soviet people themselves would object to a line being drawn through Moscow and the entire country defeated in war. We wouldn’t like to have a line drawn down the Mississippi River… (JFK, Interview, November 25, 1961).

What is claim

Different types of this can assert to your readers the condition, course of action or your attempt as the writer to prove something.

What is irony

"Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

What is ambiguity

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

Teacher's judgment

Create a thesis statement for an essay that would explore the answers to these three questions: How do the actions of Tom differ from those suggested by Huck? How are Tom’s actions determined by society’s influence? What comment is Twain making about society through Tom?

What is anecdote

Frank O’Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall—and then they had no choice but to follow them. This nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome (JFK, San Antonio Address, November 21, 1963).

What is understatement

A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants.

What is double entendre

What Mercutio says: “love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.” What Mercutio means: love is like a man-fool running around trying to find a woman to have sex with.

What is apostrophe

A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply.

Teacher's judgement

Martin Luther King, Jr. states in Letter from Birmingham Jail, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Develop a thesis statement comparing this idea with those of Henry David Thoreau’s in Civil Disobedience.

What is quotation

At the inauguration, Robert Frost read a poem which began “the land was ours before we were the land’s”—meaning, in part, that this new land of ours sustained us before we were a nation. And although we are now the land’s—a nation of people matched to a continent—we still draw our strength and sustenance…from the earth (JFK, Dedication Speech, 1961).

What is hyperbole, understatement

(1) He [Julius Caesar] doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his...huge legs.–Shakespeare. (Caesar has become a giant.) (2) Ten thousand oceans cannot wash away my guilt. (3) Oscar has the appetite of a starving lion.

What is allusion

(1) Sir Lancelot fought with Herculean strength. (Reference to the mythological hero Hercules). (2) "I have met my Waterloo," the mountain climber said after returning from a failed attempt to conquer Everest. (Reference to the Belgian town where Napoleon lost a make-or-break battle). (3) Since my elementary-school days, math has always been my Achilles heel. (Reference to the weak spot of Achilles, the greatest warrior to fight in the Trojan War.

What is antithesis

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater, Republican Candidate for President 1964

Teacher's judgment

Create a thesis statement in which you take a stand in regards to a current topic in education.

What is parallel structure

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear an burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty (JFK, Inaugural Address, 1961).

What is warrant

An inference or an assumption, a belief or principle that is taken for granted. A guarantee of reliability; it guarantees the soundness of the relationship between the support and the claim.

What is allegory

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is, on the surface, a story about a group of children who find themselves on a remote island, after an aeroplane crash. It is, beneath the surface, a chilling warning about society, rivalry, power, violence and the thin veneer of civilisation, which represents a what?

What is antistrophe, anaphora

“In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo-without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia-without warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria-without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia-without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland-without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand-and the United States-without warning.” FDR

Teacher's judgment

"It is dangerous to be right in matters about which the established authorities are wrong." --Voltaire Write a thesis statement in which you agree with Voltaire's claim.