Exaggeritng some part of your statement in order to give it emphasis of focus

Ex: The planet is getting so crowded we may have to take turns sitting down

Force of a descriptive statement is less than what one would normally expect

Ex: Einstein had an idea or two in his head.

Emphasies its point by using a word opposite to the condition

Ex: The test wasn't that hard.

Makes use of a contrast in language to bring out a contrast in idea

Ex1: That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind

Ex2: War is not fought to achieve joy, but rather to avoid pain.

Asking a question, then proceeding to answer it.

Ex: How do we know this to be true? We have observed it in the lab.

One in which the answer is merely implied

Ex: For what can war but endeless war breed?

ex: how can we expect a man to give more than we ourselves are willing to give?

Deals specifically with objections, usually without a question preceding it.

ex: Many other experts want to classify Sanskrit as an extinct language, but I do not.

Elaborating on the definition of a word, to make sure there is no misunderstanding

ex: At this point, we have a short time left - a short time being less than fifty years

Comparing two things that are already somewhat related with like or as

Ex: The sun peered, like a curious child, over the top of the mountain.

Speaks of one thing as though it actually were another

ex: She had the smile of a newborn baby.

Makes use of something that is well known to explain something that is less well known.

Ex: When your enemy comes to you in pain, you must do whatever in your power to help ease the pain. For when a child comes to you in pain, do you not do everything you can? Know then that in the eyes of the Lord we are all His children.

A reference to some fairly well-known event, place, or person.

Ex: The war was Vietnam all over again.

Reference to a specific famous person to link his or her attributes with someone else

Ex: He had the strength of Hercules

Quotation/maxim/wise saying

Ex: We would do well to remember, however, that all is fair in love and war.

Providing the reader with an example to illustrate your point

Ex: As example can be seen in the Seattle general strike of 1919, when for five days more than sixty-thousands workers ground the city to a halt.

Organizing ideas in your writing so that they proceed from the least to the most important

Ex: He began his career writing horoscopes for a local paper. By nineteen, he was writing front-page stories. At twenty-two, he published his first collection of short essays. And just nine days shy of his twenty-sixth birthday, he won the Pulitzer for his work at The New York Times.

using the same general structure for multiple parts of a sentence, or for multiple sentences in order to link them all

Ex: The manor-designed for beauty and grace, built for durability and strength, and located for privacy and safety- ws the ideal home for those three children

Ex: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessing; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Involves an inversion of the expected. Used to reinforce a statement.

Ex: We walked briskly along the seawall to catch the sunset, and quickly realized that we were too late [walked briskly vs quickly realized]

Takes the last word of a sentence or phrase and repeats it near the beginning of the next sentence or phrase

Ex: In education we find the measure of our own ignorance; in ignorance we find the beginning of wisdom

Takes an important word from anywhere in one sentence or phrase and repeats it at the beginning of the next sentence or phrase

Ex: This law destroys the fruits of thirty years of struggle, bringing us back to a less enlightened time. Law should be evolutionary, building up rather than tearing down.

Used to sum up a body of work that has come before, so that you can move on to a new point.

Ex: I have laid out for you neatly and in proper array the various flaws in the current system. Let me next offer you workable alternatives.

Device used to insert an aside or additional information into the main flow of your writing.

Ex: This continued for many years-some would say far longer than its should have-before a new brand of politician put an end to it.

Break out of the flow of the writing to directly address a person or personified object.

Ex: So we near our conclusion, and I must ask you, my wise reader, to bear with me for one more small digression.

Supplying a list of details about something

Ex: I went to the mall, the park, the river, the salon, and, finally, home.

Ex: There are plenty of great sites to choose from when visiting Washington D.C. You can go to the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, Ford's Theatre, and the International Spy Museum, to name just a few.

Way of ordering points to downplay negatvie points sos that the reader feels less strongly about them.

"She can be quick to anger, but when you're in need, she'll be there."

Attaching a descriptive adejective to a noun to bring a scene to life  or evoke a particular idea or emotion.

Eg: "The tall boy towered above his peers."

"On the day of the historic battle, the ferocious sun rose early and looked bloody."

Leaving out conjunctions in non-standard ways

Eg: "He was tall, dark, handsome"

"Jockeying for room on the table were turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, pies, rolls, butter, cranberry sauce, a cornucopia of vegetables."

Placing conjunction between every item

Eg: "We have an army and soldiers and tanks and planes."

"His hair and face and eyes and mouth combined to form an image of absolute power."

Device in which unexpected items in a sentence are linked together by a shared word.

Eg: "The runner lost the race and his scholarship" (linking word is "lost")

"The teenage sweethearts, the elederly couple, and the flickering candles all danced late into the night."

The use of a part of something to represent the whole.

Eg: "The rancher boasted about how many head of cattle he owned."

"The captain shouted, 'All hands on deck.'"

Device that allows you to refer to something closesly related to the actual object, and use tthat as a way of referring to the object itself.

Eg: "The White House answered its critics."

"The pen is mightier than the sword."

"The brass showed up unexpectedly and performed a surprise inspection."

"The Throne has issued an order that the troops will be paid by Thursday."

Rhetorical device in which you arrange the words in your sentence in an unexpected order.

Eg: "You have to admit it was a long year, but bearalbe"

"Intentions profit nothing, only promises kept matter"

"This sort of family argument necessitates a long arbitration, courtroom style."

A device a writer will use to express doubt about an idea.

"I'm unsure whether to be in favor of harsher penalties or opposed to them, as the arguments on both sides seem very strong."

Device in which the writer repeats a word or phrase at the beginning of multiple clauses or sentences.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up..."

A device in which the same word or phrase is repeated at the end of multiple clauses or sentences.

Eg: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

A device that combines both anaphora nd epistrophe.

Eg: "We enjoy life when we know ourselves to be free of temptation and sin, but we enjoy life also when we give ourselves completely to temptation and sin."

A device that repeats something that was already stated, while adding more detail and information to the original description.

Eg: "Next we come to the fruit fly- the drosophila melangaster, that tiny, insusbatial bug, on whom the foundations of biology have rested for so long."

"It was a cold day, a wicked day, a day of bitting winds and bitter frost."

The act of giving human attributes to something that is non human.

"We expect freedom to spread its wings across the globe and allow oppressed people to enjoy its warmth."

"The wind whistles in the tree."

A device that involves listing a series of clauses with no conjunctions.

"My dad went to Las Vegas, he lost his money, he came home."

"I came, I saw, I conquered"