Style & Figures of Speech

1. Figures of Speech
2. Writing With Style
3. Pros on Prose

Figures of Speech

Aristotle may be 2,500 years old--but his writings on rhetoric are still relevant today.

• Top 20 Figures of Speech
• Figures of Speech in Advertising Slogans
• Definitions of Rhetoric
• Tool Kit for Rhetorical Analysis
• Sample Rhetorical Analysis
• What Is a Metaphor?
• 13 Ways of Looking at a Metaphor
• Humaphors: The Top 10 Metaphors of Stephen Colbert

• The Metaphors of Dr. Gregory House
• Metaphors Be With You
• Who or What Is Personification?
• What Is Irony?
• What Is an Analogy?
• Homer Simpson's Figures of Speech
• Discussion Questions for Rhetorical Analysis
• 100 Sweet Similes

Writing With Style

Learn how to become a more versatile and imaginative writer.

• What Is Style?
• Figures & Tropes
• Using Similes and Metaphors
• A Scrapbook of Styles
• Kurt Vonnegut on Writing with Style
• Writing with Lists
• Using Sentence Fragments Effectively

• Effective Strategies of Repetition
• Ten Principles of Effective Writing
• Tricolons: Writing With the Magic Number Three
• Bdelygmia: The Perfect Rant
• How to Write Good, by William Safire
• Essays on English Prose Style

Pros on Prose

Major writers of the past and present discuss reading, writing, and the English language.

• William F. Buckley on Words
• Anthony Burgess on the English Language
• Samuel Butler on Words and Writing
• Natalia Ginzburg on Being a Great Small Writer
• Doris Lessing on the Compulsion to Write
• Bernard Levin on Writers and Writing
• Norman Mailer on Writers and Writing
• Maugham on Writing Without Frills
• H.L. Mencken on the Writing Life
• Toni Morrison on Writing

• Joyce Carol Oates on Writing: "Don't Give Up"
• George Orwell's Rules for Writers
• Grace Paley on Writing
• Poe on Punctuation
• "Murder Your Darlings": Quiller-Couch on Style
• Pirsig on Overcoming Writer's Block
• Dr. Seuss on Writing
• Swift on Style: Keep It Simple
• Mark Twain's Top 10 Writing Tips
• James Thurber on Writing and Editing