Non-fiction Unit Concepts and Terms

SUPPLEMENTAL HANDOUT: Non-fiction Unit Concepts and Terms

English 1 (2012-2013) / Knight

MODES OF DEVELOPMENT

The mode of development of a piece of writing is the method used to develop the main idea. Although each is different, their purposes are all to provide the reader with specific information needed to support or clarify the main idea.

There are several modes of development used in non-fiction writing:

1. Narration: the recounting of the events of a situation or incident, usually for a specific purpose. Narratives are usually told in two ways:
a. Chronological order (time)
b. Flashback style (time)
2. Description: the presentation of details about how something looks, tastes, smells, sounds, feels, or a combination thereof. Descriptive writing is usually organized in two ways:
a. Order of importance (less important to more important details)
b. Spatial order (according to space…or how things are arranged)
3. Examples: the use of specific examples that both illustrate and support the main idea. The signal words and phrases that are used are “for example” and “for instance.”
4. Classification and Division: Classification involves taking a group of one thing and organizing it into categories. For example, sorting clothing. Division involves taking one thing and dividing it into its component parts. For example, dividing a car into parts: “motor, tires, transmission, brakes, etc.”
5. Comparison and Contrast: To compare is to show how items are alike. To contrast is to show how items are different. Comparison and contrast involves pointing out the similarities and differences between two or more items.
6. Process: this is a method of doing a task or job, usually in orderly steps, to achieve a desired result. When using this mode, the writer must try to give clear and accurate guidance or directions, making the steps as simple as possible.
7. Cause and Effect: A cause and effect explanation tells why something turns out the way it does. There may be a single cause or multiple causes to an effect, or there may be a single cause and multiple effects. The initiator of an effect is a catalyst. Some signal words for cause and effect are “because,” “therefore,” “as a result,” or “consequently.”
8. Definition: this provides an explanation of a word or concept by actually defining it. Once the word or concept is defined the writer usually uses another mode of development (such as examples or description) to enhance the definition.
9. Persuasion: involves convincing the reader that you are right about a topic. Persuasion includes an appeal to the emotions, is subjective in tone, one-sided, and uses connotations of words to grab the reader’s feelings, empathy, or sympathy.
10. Argumentation: it is less emotional, more logical, and is objective. Argumentation must be based on a controversial idea, one that people disagree on; it also contains these elements:
a. statement of problem (the writer presents the issue or problem at the center of the piece)
b. solution (the writer offers a rational solution to the problem often through a proposal)
c. evidence (the writer offers evidence that supports the solution)
d. refutation (the writer anticipates and counters opposing points of view)
e. conclusion (the writer closes the piece with sentences or paragraphs that brings it to a satisfying and logical end)
Sometimes a piece of writing will be a combination of modes of development. Though this true, one mode of development will dominate and this dominant mode of development will reflect the writing’s purpose.
RHETORICAL TERMS
The rhetorical terms are used by writers to help in the attainment of purpose. Like the prose literary terms, these terms are often found in the works and often help the reader better understand the intended meaning or purpose.
There are several rhetorical terms used in non-fiction writing:
1. Anecdote (ANN-ik-dote): a brief story of an incident that took place that is used to illustrate a point being made in a piece of writing.
2. Aristotle’s Three Appeals: When Aristotle wrote his ‘Rhetoric’ in the 4th century BCE, he began a process of codifying the possible ways that speakers or writers could persuade their audiences by the use of evidence. His process has proven so useful that it has been the foundation for philosophers and writers for more than a millennium, and will likely endure as long as civilization does. Aristotle’s outline of the use of evidence for persuasive writing was just as useful for the ancients as it will be in the next century. The three appeals are:
a. Rational Appeal (Logos): persuasive language that contains an appeal based on logic. There are several forms:
i. facts
ii. case studies
iii. statistics
iv. experiments
v. logical reasoning
vi. analogies
vii. anecdotes
viii. authority voices
b. Ethical Appeal (Ethos): persuasive language that contains an appeal based on the writer’s reputation or authority. There are several elements:
i. trustworthiness
ii. credibility
iii. reliability
iv. expert testimony
v. reliable sources
vi. fairness
c. Emotional Appeal (Pathos): pronounced “PAY-thos,” it is persuasive language that an appeal based on the emotions. This can be categorized in two areas:
i. higher emotions: belief in fairness love pity
ii. lower emotions: greed lust revenge avarice
3. Audience: the group for whom the piece of writing is written. The writer’s audience will influence the subject, tone, style, and choice of language. A writer’s audience may possess several characteristics:
a. young
b. old
c. sophisticated
d. unsophisticated
e. educated
f. uneducated
g. close and personal
h. distant and impersonal
4. Allusion: a short, informal reference to a famous person or event.
5. Ambiguity (am-big-YOU-it-tee): doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation.
6. Analogy: compares two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one. While simile and analogy often overlap, the simile is generally a more artistic likening, done briefly for effect and emphasis, while analogy serves the more practical end of explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the abstract in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more extended.
7. Anaphora (ah-NAF-oh-rah): the repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences, commonly in conjunction with climax and with parallelism. Example:
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”
-Winston Churchill
8. Antithesis (an-TITH-uh-sis): a concept used to establish a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure. Human beings are inveterate systematizers and categorizers, so the mind has a natural love for antithesis, which creates a definite and systematic relationship between ideas. Example:
“Brutus: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” –William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
9. Apostrophe: a device that interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back. Example:
“For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him.” –William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
10. Connotative Language: language that is emotionally charged and is used for the purpose of evoking emotions in the reader.
11. Dialogue: a conversation between two persons. This is used to create an impression of a person or a situation.
12. Diction: the choice and use of words in speech or writing.
13. Euphemism (YOO-fuh-miz-em): the act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive. Example:
“When the final news came, there would be a ring at the front door -- a wife in this situation finds herself staring at the front door as if she no longer owns it or controls it--and outside the door would be a man... come to inform her that unfortunately something has happened out there, and her husband's body now lies incinerated in the swamps or the pines or the palmetto grass, "burned beyond recognition," which anyone who had been around an air base very long (fortunately Jane had not) realized was quite an artful euphemism to describe a human body that now looked like an enormous fowl that has burned up in a stove, burned a blackish brown all over, greasy and blistered, fried, in a word, with not only the entire face and all the hair and the ears burned off, not to mention all the clothing, but also the hands and feet, with what remains of the arms and legs bent at the knees and elbows and burned into absolutely rigid angles, burned a greasy blackish brown like the bursting body itself, so that this husband, father, officer, gentleman, this ornamentum of some mother's eye, His Majesty the Baby of just twenty-odd years back, has been reduced to a charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it.” -Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
14. Figurative Language and Imagery: Descriptive language that helps the writer to get the point across.
15. Hyperbole: the counterpart of understatement deliberately exaggerates conditions for emphasis or effect. In formal writing the hyperbole must be clearly intended as an exaggeration, and should be carefully restricted. That is, do not exaggerate everything, but treat hyperbole like an exclamation point, to be used only once a year. Then it will be quite effective as a table-thumping attention getter, introductory to your essay or some section thereof.
16. Main Idea: A main idea is important information that tells more about the overall idea of a paragraph or section of a text. There are two types:
a. Implied Main Idea: the main idea of a piece of writing that is not actually stated outright, it is often suggested.
b. Stated Main Idea: the main idea of a piece of writing that is actually stated in a thesis statement and should be easily detected.
17. Medium: a means of conveying something. It can also be regarded as a mode, channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment. Mediums are can legitimately be either fiction or non-fiction. Although they are mostly either one or the other it is not uncommon for there to be a blend of both, particularly non-fiction with a dash of fiction for added spice. There are several examples of medium:
a. biographies
b. autobiographies
c. travelogues (travel writing)
d. newspaper articles
e. magazine articles
f. advertising
g. user instruction manuals
h. posters
i. pamphlets
j. leaflets
k. essays
l. journals
m. documentaries
n. scientific papers
o. photographs
p. textbooks
q. blueprints
r. technical documentation
s. diagrams
t. letters
u. speeches
18. Metaphor: a device that compares two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other. Unlike a simile or analogy, metaphor asserts that one thing is another thing not just that one is like another. Very frequently a metaphor is invoked by the ‘to be’ verb. Example:
“Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” – William Shakespeare, Macbeth
A metaphor is the concept of understanding one thing in terms of another; it is a figure of speech that constructs an analogy between two things or ideas. The analogy is conveyed by the use of a metaphorical word in place of some other word. For example: “The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner.” (Cynthia Ozick, “Rosa”)
The components of a metaphor are tenor and vehicle; tenor refers to the concept, object, or person meant, and the vehicle being the image that carries the weight of the comparison. The words were first used in this sense by the critic I.A. Richards (1893-1979). In the first stanza of Abraham Cowley’s poem “The Wish,” the tenor is the city and the vehicle is a beehive:
Well then; I now do plainly see, This busy world and I shall ne’er agree; The very honey of all earthly joy Does of all meats the soonest cloy; And they, methinks, deserve my pity... There are several common forms of metaphors:
1. Dead metaphor: one in which the sense of a transferred image is absent. Examples: “to grasp a concept” and “to gather what you’ve understood” use physical action as a metaphor for understanding. Most people do not visualize the action — dead metaphors normally go unnoticed. Some people distinguish between a dead metaphor and a cliché. Others use “dead metaphor” to denote both. 2. Extended metaphor (conceit): establishes a principal subject (comparison) and subsidiary subjects (comparisons). The As You Like It quotation is a good example, the world is described as a stage, and then men and women are subsidiary subjects further described in the same context. 3. An implied or unstated metaphor is a metaphor not explicitly stated or obvious that compares two things by using adjectives that commonly describe one thing, but are used to describe another comparing the two. For example: “Golden baked skin,” comparing bakery goods to skin or “green blades of nausea,” comparing green grass to the complexion of a nauseated person or “leafy golden sunset” comparing the sunset to a tree in the fall.
19. Mood: a state of mind or emotion.
20. Occasion (or reason): the circumstances surrounding the writing. A writer may have a host of reasons for writing the work. Occasion and purpose are connected. There are a few generic occasions that may make a writer write:
a. celebration
b. tragedy
c. school assignment
d. friendly note
e. sharing of expertise
21. Onomatopoeia: is the use of words whose pronunciation imitates the sound the word describes. “Buzz,” for example, when spoken is intended to resemble the sound of a flying insect.
22. Oxymoron: a paradox reduced to two words, usually in an adjective-noun (“eloquent silence”) or adverb-adjective (“inertly strong”) relationship, and is used for effect, complexity, emphasis, or wit. EXAMPLE:
“I must be cruel only to be kind.” –William Shakespeare, Hamlet
23. Paradox: a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true. EXAMPLE:
“What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” -George Bernard Shaw
24. Perspective: it is a particular evaluation of something; it may be a situation or facts, especially from one person’s point of view. There are two studied types of perspective:
a. Objective Perspective: fact based presentation. The writer uses provable information rather than opinions and emotions.
b. Subjective Perspective: opinion based presentation. The writer will first use facts to present his point, then use opinion to express his own feelings, emotions, and ideas in regards to the subject.
25. Point of View: the perspective from which the work is written. The mode of development often dictates the point of view.
26. Purpose: the reason a writer is writing a piece of writing. The writer’s purpose may vary and it will also influence the choices of mode of development and language. There are several basic purposes that are commonly used in non-fiction writing:
a. To describe
b. To explain
c. To instruct
d. To persuade
e. To retell information about a person or past event (non-fiction narrative)
f. To explore and maintain relationships with others
g. To advise
h. To entertain
i. To inform
27. Repetition and Parallelism: the repeating of words, phrases, or patterns of words and phrases for the purpose
of emphasis. Repetition is a major rhetorical strategy, basically, the use of repeated words and phrases for
producing emphasis, clarity, amplification, or emotional effect.
28. Rhetorical question: a question posed, often as part of a persuasion or argumentation essay, for the purpose of
supporting the point of the writing. This question is not meant to be answered, but the answer is supposed to be
obvious as a result of the points of argumentation. It is a question that is not answered by the writer, because its
answer is obvious or obviously desired, and usually just a yes or no. It is used for effect, emphasis, or
provocation, or for drawing a conclusionary statement from the facts at hand.
29. Rhetorical Triangle: a diagram that represents a rhetorical situation as the relationship primarily among the
elements of speaker, subject, and audience. The elements of tone, medium, purpose, and message are also
considered within this diagram. Communication is essentially a ‘trilateral’ relationship, meaning, each point of
the triangle influences the others, and all are influenced by the context of the communication. Each point of the
triangle bears some responsibility for the success of the communication, and each point of the triangle
corresponds with one of Aristotle’s three appeals (i.e., general means of persuasion). (see Supplemental
Handout labeled ‘The Rhetorical Triangle’)
30. Simile: a comparison between two different things that resemble each other in at least one way. In formal prose
the simile is a device both of art and explanation, comparing an unfamiliar thing to some familiar thing (an
object, event, process, etc.) known to the reader.
31. Subject: a basic matter of thought, discussion, investigation, etc. in a piece of writing. The subject of a writer’s
work will influence the tone, modes of development, purpose, and many other elements. The subject is the
‘topic’ that the writer is writing about.
32. Syntax (SIN-taks): the study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to
form grammatical sentences. Simply put, it is the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences.
33. Tone/Attitude: The manner in which an author expresses his/her attitude; the intonation of the voice that
expresses meaning. Attitude is the author’s personal view or outlook toward a subject. This attitude often
determines the way an author approaches the content of his writing. It can also represent the attitude of the
speaker in the work towards his subject.
34. Transition: words and phrases that carry the focus of the writing from one thought or idea to another. (see
Supplemental Handout labeled ‘Transitions’) Transitions are often used to indicate the mode of development
being used:
a. Contrast essay (on the other hand)
b. Narrative writing (then, next, the following day)
35. Understatement: to deliberately express an idea as less important than it actually is, either for ironic emphasis
or for politeness and tact. When the writer’s audience can be expected to know the true nature of a fact which
might be rather difficult to describe adequately in a brief space, the writer may choose to understate the fact as
a means of employing the reader's own powers of description.
For example, instead of endeavoring to describe in a few words the horrors and destruction of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, a writer might state:
“The 1906 San Francisco earthquake interrupted business somewhat in the downtown area.”
The effect is not the same as a description of destruction, since understatement like this necessarily smacks of flippancy to some degree; but occasionally that is a desirable effect.
KEYS TO STUDYING RHETORICAL TERMS
Study Skills: Reading[1]
In an AP English course, you may feel you have never been given so much to read. AP English demands plenty of serious reading, and you might be tempted to “speed-read.” You may try to scan paragraphs and pages as fast as you can while hunting for main ideas. In a word: Don't. First, main ideas usually aren’t quickly accessible from “speed-reading” complex texts.
Also, if you race through good writing, you are likely to miss the subtlety and complexity. A paragraph of text by Frederick Douglass or Joyce Carol Oates, a poem by W.H. Auden, or a play by Shakespeare cannot be appreciated -- or even minimally understood -- without careful, often-repeated readings.
In reading your AP assignments, keep in mind to: Read slowly Reread complex and important sentences Ask yourself often, “What does this sentence, paragraph, speech, stanza, or chapter mean?”
Make Your Reading Efficient
How can you balance the careful reading AP English requires with your demanding chemistry and calculus workloads, plus get in play practice, soccer games, and whatever else you've got on your busy schedule? We’ve compiled some helpful tips to make your AP reading more efficient, fun, and productive.
1. Get a head start. Obtain copies of as many assigned texts as you can. Then you won’t waste time searching for a text when you absolutely need it.
2. Preview important reading assignments. By previewing, you carefully note:
 Exact title
 Author's name
 Table of contents
 Preface or introduction; this section often states the author’s purpose and themes
 In essays and certain types of prose, the final paragraph(s).
3. Pause to consider the author’s principal ideas and the material the author uses to support them. Such ideas may be fairly easy to identify in writings of critical essayists or journalists, but much more subtle in the works of someone like Virginia Woolf or Emily Dickinson.
4. Know the context of a piece of writing. This technique will help you read with greater understanding and better recollection. Knowledge of the period in which the authors lived and wrote enhances your understanding of what they have tried to say and how well they succeeded. When you read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, find other sources to learn about the difficult conditions for migrant laborers in California in the 1930s.
5. Read text aloud. Slow down when you are having trouble with poetry or complex prose passages, and read them aloud. Reading aloud may help you to understand the tone of the poem or passage.
6. Reread difficult material to help you understand it. Complex issues and elegant expression are not always easily understood or appreciated on a first reading.
7. Form the habit of consulting your dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, or atlas. Through such resources, you'll discover the precise meanings of words as well as knowledge about the content of what you are reading. Similar resources are available online or as computer software.
[1] The College Board. (2009). AP English Literature Reading Study Skills. Retrieved October 29, 2009, from http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/english_lit/reading.html?englit