ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four important devices for creating emphasis in writing: climax, asyndeton, polysyndeton, and sentential adverbs. Climax is the arrangement of words and phrases or sentences in the order of increasing importance. Asyndeton is the presentation of a list of materials without any connecting coordinating conjunctions; polysyndeton is the opposite of asyndeton in that it places a coordinating conjunction between each element in a series. Sentential adverbs are words or phrases used to emphasize parts of the sentence or the entire sentence. The Style Check covers Demetrius discussing how the most effective sentences begin and end with stressed syllables. As usual, Define Your Terms asks students to write definitions of the devices presented in the chapter. The Web research section, It’s in the Cloud, asks students to do some research about who the rhetorician Demetrius was, because he is referred to several times in the book. Salt and Pepper discusses coordinating conjunctions because of their crucial role in polysyndeton. The chapter ends with a Review Questions quiz and Questions for Thought and Discussion, asking students to think personally about rhetoric and their writing lives ahead.
