Rhetoric and style are ancient arts--of persuasion, expression, and effective communication--that are just as valuable to writers today as they were to students in ancient Greece and Rome.
What does it mean to write "with style"? Here we consider some of the various ways in which professional writers have defined and characterized style.
Modern theories of oral and written communication remain heavily influenced by the basic rhetorical principles introduced in ancient Greece by Isocrates and Aristotle, and in Rome by Cicero and Quintilian. Here, we'll briefly introduce these key figures and identify some of their central ideas.
These lists are intended to help you identify figures, tropes, and other rhetorical strategies and devices.
Though there are hundreds of figures of speech (many of them included in our Glossary of Grammatical & Rhetorical Terms), here we'll focus on just 20 of the most common figures.
There are hundreds of figures and tropes. And while we may not recognize their names, we use and hear many of these devices every day. So let's take a look at 20 uncommon words (most of them Latin or Greek) for some fairly common rhetorical strategies.
This quiz should help you to understand and remember the terms and concepts introduced in our page on the Top 20 Figures of Speech.
In this review quiz, we have collected 35 of the best known slogans introduced by advertisers over the past century. Your job is to choose the one figure of speech that each slogan most clearly illustrates.
This quiz should help you to understand, distinguish, and remember many of the rhetorical terms in our glossary.
These ten discussion questions provide opportunities to apply some of the key concepts and terms used in rhetorical analyses of essays, speeches, poems, short stories, and novels.
Writers use similes and metaphors to explain things, to express emotion, and to make their writing more vivid and entertaining. Discovering fresh similes and metaphors to use in your own writing also means discovering new ways to look at your subjects.
In addition to creating striking images to make our writing more interesting, similes and metaphors can be used to clarify and convey ideas.
When it came to practicing effective strategies of repetition, rhetoricians in ancient Greece and Rome had a big bag full of tricks, each with a fancy name. Here are seven common strategies--with some up-to-date examples.
In descriptive prose, writers sometimes employ lists (or series) to bring a person or a place to life through the sheer abundance of precise details. Enjoy reading some examples by four major writers.
A tricolon is a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses. It's a simple enough structure, yet potentially a powerful one.
In formal writing, the common prescription against fragments often makes good sense. But not always. As we'll see here, the sentence fragment may be used deliberately to create a variety of powerful effects.
Homer Simpson has contributed far more to the English language than just the popular interjection "D'oh." Let's take a look at some of those rich contributions--and along the way review several rhetorical terms.
Some metaphors--such as the comparison of life to a journey--are so common (or "conventional") that we may overlook the fact that they are metaphors. Here we look at some different kinds of metaphors, with examples drawn from poems, essays, songs, speeches, and advertisements.
All of us, every day, speak, write, and think in metaphors. And there are countless ways of looking at them, thinking about them, using them. Here are 13 types of metaphors, with links to examples and extended definitions.
As regular viewers of "House, M.D." are aware, the show's deeply disturbed protagonist (played by Hugh Laurie) is inclined to deliver inflammatory eructations of festering figures of speech. That is, he can snap off your head with the sharp edge of a metaphor.
Over the centuries, writers have not only been making good metaphors but also studying these powerful figurative expressions--considering where metaphors come from, what purposes they serve, why we enjoy them, and how we understand them. Here are the thoughts of fourteen writers, philosophers, and critics on the power and pleasure of metaphor.
If you put any trust in proverbs, you already know that time heals, steals, and flies. And you're equally aware that time is something we all make and take, keep and save, spend, waste, kill, and lose. Here, if you have the time to spare, are twenty metaphorical definitions of time.
We may have said "ciao ciao" to "The Sopranos," but let's never forget our favorite crime family's gifts to the ancient field of rhetoric.
Derived from the Greek word for "abuse," the rhetorical device of bdelygmia is a form of invective: an exuberant rant, a litany of disparaging remarks, a string of stinging criticisms.
The terms snarl words and purr words were coined by S. I. Hayakawa to describe highly connotative language that often serves as a substitute for serious thought and well-reasoned argument.
One way to develop our own essay-writing skills is to carefully examine how professional writers achieve a range of different effects in their work. Such a study is called a rhetorical analysis. Here you will find a sample rhetorical analysis of E. B. White's essay "The Ring of Time."
As you read John Gay’s mini-anthology of "New Similes," consider how many of these figures might today be thought of as clichés.
