Smarter than a Freshman
refers to language that describes concepts rather than observable or specific things, people, or places
abstract
the opposite of passive voice, essentially any sentence where the subject of the sentence performs the action
active voice
in an argument, this is an attack on the person rather than the opponent's ideas
ad hominem
deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of words, phrases, or clauses
asyndeton
explanatory notes added to a text to explain, cite sources, or give bibliographical data
annotation
a type of rhyme in which the vowels in the words are the same but the consonants aren't
assonance
a declaration of statement
assertion
the word, phrase or clause referred to by a pronoun
antecedent
a collection of literary pieces
anthology
a narrative that functions on a symbolic level
allegory
the repetition of initial consonant sounds at the beginning of several words in a phase or sentence
alliteration
three different methods o appealing to an audience to convince them - ethos, logos, and pathos
Aristotelian appeals
the attribution of human like characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, or forces nature
anthropomorphism
the combination of reasons and evidence that an author uses to convince an audience of their position
argument
a story or brief episode told by the writer or character to illustrate a point, introduce an issue, etc
anecdote
a reference to the cultural canon such as the Bible, Shakespeare, classical mythology, etc.
allusion
inversion of the natural or usual word order to achieve emphasis in a sentence or line of poetry
anastrophe
a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or personified abstraction.
apostrophe
an argument stating that something is true because it has never been proven false.
argument from ignorance
archetype
a literary device employed to signify a relational comparison of or similarity between two objects or ideals
analogy
a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words
aphorism
deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of two or more poetic lines, prose sentences clauses, or paragraphs
anaphora
using a sequence of ideals that abruptly diminish in importance at the end of a sentence
anticlimax
repetition of words, in successive clauses, inverse grammatical order to reinforce antithesis
antimetabole