Common devices
- Metaphor
- Direct comparison NOT using “like” or “as” when one thing is said to be another
- Examples
- There is a fire in my heart
- A blanket of snow
- Iron will
- Simile
- Direct comparison using “like” or “as” when one thing is said to be another
- Examples
- Her smile is as bright as the sun.
- It is frail as a spider's web compared to mine
- Personification
- Giving human attributes or behavior to a non-human thing
- Examples
- The wind moaned and screeched
- The moon was following me
- Parallelism
- using the same part of speech or syntactic structure in
- Each element of a series
- Before and after - coordinating conjunctions (and, but, yet, or, for, nor)
- After each pair of correlative conjunctions (not only...but also, neither...nor, both...and,
etc.)
- Examples
- I hear the delicate rustle of her skin, her hair. I hear the whispering of her most secret
dreams, dreams she hardly even hears herself.
- The fish said to catch Thing One and Thing Two, to clean the tub, and to wash Mother's
white dress.
- Alliteration
- Deliberate repetition of consonant sounds such as p, f, n, t which you pronounce by
stopping the air flowing freely through your mouth
- Examples
- The green grass grew /g/ /g/ /g/
- The bright blue bicycle /b/ /b/ /b/
- Onomatopoeia
- Use of words resembling the sound they mean
- Examples
- “Boom!”
- “Crash!”
- “Moo”
- “Oink”
- Oxymoron
- Seemingly contradiction of two words put together
- Examples
- Metaphor
- Direct comparison NOT using “like” or “as” when one thing is said to be another
- Examples
- There is a fire in my heart
- A blanket of snow
- Iron will
- Simile
- Direct comparison using “like” or “as” when one thing is said to be another
- Examples
- Her smile is as bright as the sun.
- It is frail as a spider's web compared to mine
- Personification
- Giving human attributes or behavior to a non-human thing
- Examples
- The wind moaned and screeched
- The moon was following me
- Parallelism
- using the same part of speech or syntactic structure in
- Each element of a series
- Before and after - coordinating conjunctions (and, but, yet, or, for, nor)
- After each pair of correlative conjunctions (not only...but also, neither...nor, both...and,
etc.)
- Examples
- I hear the delicate rustle of her skin, her hair. I hear the whispering of her most secret
dreams, dreams she hardly even hears herself.
- The fish said to catch Thing One and Thing Two, to clean the tub, and to wash Mother's
white dress.
- Alliteration
- Deliberate repetition of consonant sounds such as p, f, n, t which you pronounce by
stopping the air flowing freely through your mouth
- Examples
- The green grass grew /g/ /g/ /g/
- The bright blue bicycle /b/ /b/ /b/
- Onomatopoeia
- Use of words resembling the sound they mean
- Examples
- “Boom!”
- “Crash!”
- “Moo”
- “Oink”
- Oxymoron
- Seemingly contradiction of two words put together
- Examples
