Rhetorical Appeals
Legal Terms
Rhetorical Strategies
Documentary Terms
Literary Terms
100

An appeal to a specific emotion in the audience to make an argument convincing by using emotional language or emotional examples.


Pathos

100

An individual, company, or institution sued or accused in a court of law.

Defendant

100

Repeats the same words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer and more memorable.


Repetition

100

The state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount, especially in terms of financial security.

Poverty

100

An advance hint of what is to come later in a story.

Foreshadowing

200

An appeal to the author/speaker’s credibility, which makes the argument convincing by making the audience think the author/speaker is a good/fair person, has done their research, or has personal experience.

Ethos

200

A lawyer who conducts the case against a defendant in a criminal court.

Prosecutor 

200

A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.

Allusion

200

The system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status.

Class

200

George and Lennie's Farm in Of Mice and Men = The American Dream 

Symbolism

300

"My contract provides I be supplied with all my firewood."


Logos

300

A document issued by a legal or government official authorizing the police or some other body to make an arrest, search premises, or carry out some other action relating to the administration of justice.

Warrant

300

"And ain’t I a woman?"


Rhetorical Question

300

Deoxyribonucleic acid,  the carrier of genetic information and the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities of someone or something.

DNA

300

The uncertainty created when an author leaves elements of a text open to the reader’s interpretation.

Ambiguity 

400

"Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you."

Pathos

400

Oral or written evidence given by a competent witness, under oath, at trial or in an affidavit or deposition.

Testimony

400

"I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me!"

Parallel Structure

400

Open or hidden hostility directed towards someone of a different race. 

Racial Tension

400

At the end of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo believes Juliet is dead, but we, the audience, know she is not. 


Dramatic Irony

500

"I have eleven children, and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons, and when it come on them they will run the Devil bowlegged keeping up with their mischief."

Ethos

500

A formal charge or accusation of a serious crime.

Indictment

500

"Pontius Pilate! God will not let you wash your hands of this!"

Allusion

500

Illegal physical contact that usually involves force upon a person without consent or is inflicted upon a person who is incapable of giving consent or who places the assailant in a position of trust or authority

Sexual Assault

500

In TKAM, Scout's teacher, Miss Caroline, disapproves of Scout's ability to read and instructs her to tell her father not to teach her any more.

Situational Irony

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