1. Allusion – An indirect reference, often to another text, an historical event, a person, or a religious image or idea.
2. Anaphora – The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
Example: If we put pickles in chocolate ice cream, if we blend it together, and if we drink it down in one big gulp, then we will surely barf. – D. Reynolds
3. Analogy – a comparison made between two things to show their similarities
Example: Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” likens a woman to a summer day to show that, while they may not be alike physically, they both have the same effect on his heart.
4. Anecdote – a very brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something
Example: Thomas Paine’s “The Crisis No. 1” contains a story of a tavern keeper who, while standing at the door with a young child about eight or nine, declares “well, give me peace in my day.” Paine then counters with the statement “if there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.” He tells this story in order to convince people to consider the future of their children and therefore go to war against the British.
5. Annotation – Explanatory or critical notes added to a text
6. Antecedent – The noun to which a later pronoun refers
7. Antimetabole – the identical or near repetition of words in one phrase or clause in reverse order in the next phrase or clause.
We do not ride upon the railroad; it rides upon us. – Henry David Thoreau
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. – John F. Kennedy
8. Apostrophe – a technique by which a writer addresses an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is either dead or absent
Example: In Frederick Douglass’s “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, he tells the ships that they are free while he remains a slave. By address them, he conveys his frustration at being a slave.
9. Anthithesis – Parallel structure that...