1. Why do speeches use so much repetition?
Answer: Audiences need time to process information.

2. Do authors really take time to think of all these things when they write?
Answer: In speechwriting, yes. In novels, maybe not. Professional speechwriters spend hours interpreting how each line of their speeches will control the audience reaction.

3. Why do we need to learn these?
Answer: Some of you use some of these techniques naturally, but learning to control them and use them at your command, strengthens the overall organization of your writing. You will also have to use these in your speech.

4. Rhetorical Devices inverted syntax polysyndeton asyndeton ellipsis
juxtaposition
antithesis
oxymoron
paradox
farce
understatement
pun

5. Anaphora
We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit.
- Barack Obama
It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, unequal.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

6. Anadiplosis
It's because we have a vision, a vision for the future of this country, of this nation, of the WORLD ORDER!
- Iron Man
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory. Victory at all costs.
- Winston Churchill

7. Epanalepsis Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!
- Barack Obama
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these.
- Paul Harvey

8. Epistrophe
It has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom.
- Barry Goldwater
All of the speakers have agreed, that America has a very serious problem. Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem.
- Malcolm X

9. Parallelism (Repetition)
Brother: You say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book? 
Brother: We do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given to your forefathers and has been handed down -- father to son. We also have a religion, which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us, their children. We worship that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all the favors we receive; to love each other, and to be united.
- Seneca Chief Red Jacket

10. Parallelism (Repetition)
Ours is a Party of the man who was nominated by those distant conventions and who inspired and restored this nation in its darkest hours: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Ours is a Party of a fighting Democrat who showed us that a common man could be an uncommon leader: Harry S. Truman.
Ours is a Party of a brave young President who called the young at heart, regardless of age, to seek a “New Frontier” of national greatness: John F. Kennedy.
- Jimmy Carter

11. Consonance
My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief.
- Jessie Jackson
Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.
John McCain
He out-sang his cynics. He out–danced his doubters. He out-performed the pessimists.
- Rev. Al Sharpton

12. Assonance …the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The hot and monotonous night led to a soft mournful night.

13. Parallelism (Syntax) - George Bush
Our faith is sure, our resolve is firm, and our union is strong.
- George Bush
It has talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed the works of freedom.
- Barry Goldwater

14. Parallelism (Syntax)
Ours is a Party of the man who was nominated by those distant conventions and who inspired and restored this nation in its darkest hours: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Ours is a Party of a fighting Democrat who showed us that a common man could be an uncommon leader: Harry S. Truman.
Ours is a Party of a brave young President who called the young at heart, regardless of age, to seek a “New Frontier” of national greatness: John F. Kennedy.
- Jimmy Carter

15. Rhetorical Fragments
Look at the American Revolution in That revolution was for what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed.
- Malcolm X
He knew it was not enough. Not enough.
- Barack Obama

16. Polysyndeton/Asyndeton
Conjunctions
For
And
Nor
But Or
Yet So

17. Polysyndeton
Phrases
“a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist.” (1)
“let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.” (1)

18. Asyndeton
Phrases
In some ways, he was this town at its best-- strong, hard- driving, working feverishly, pushing, building, [and] driven by ambitions so big they seemed Texas-boastful.
- Mike Royko
Some of them were Buddhists. Some of them were Muslim. Some of them were Christians. Some of them were Confucianists; [and] some were atheists. Despite their religious differences, they came together. Some were communists; some were socialists; [and] some were capitalists.
- Malcolm X

19. Ellipsis Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater [teacher].
– Hazlitt
The streets were deserted, the doors [were] bolted.
- Unknown
“That’s camouflage, that’s trickery, that’s treachery, [and that’s] window-dressing.” (3)
- Malcolm X

20. Inverted Syntax No, not I. Yet alone I must be if I am to succeed.
By whom, I know not.

21. Juxtaposition
“You put the Democrats first and the Democrats put you last”
- Malcolm X
“I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.”
“Whether you’re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or alley…” (1)

22. Antithesis sink or swim to be or not to be (Hamlet)
“the ballot or the bullet” (1)
“It’ll be liberty, or it will be death.” (4)
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.“ (MLK, speech at St. Louis, 1964)

23. Antithesis Paragraphs
"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." (Jack London)

24. Oxymoron Examples Examples act naturally student teacher random order
original copy
found missing
alone together
criminal justice
peace force
even odds
awful good
Examples
student teacher
definite possibility
definite maybe
terribly pleased
civil war
real phony
ill health
small crowd
clearly misunderstood

25. Paradox
If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love.
- Mother Theresa
War is peace
“…exiled in his own land.” - MLK

26. Understatement
An example would be if a politician was talking about how the rich need to pay a higher percentage of taxes and was trying to counter the opponent’s argument that all Americans needed to do their part to pay taxes instead of expecting the rich to pay a higher percentage.
The politician may say, “You have to think about these people having to figure out how to survive on a salaries of two million dollars a year.”

27. Farce
Ex. Democrat Alan Grayson said during the healthcare debate that the Republican’s healthcare plan is: Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.
Ex. Many republicans claimed that Democratic healthcare plan was to form death panels to decide who lives and dies.

28. Puns (funny or serious)
Examples
Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet is dying and he says to his friends “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find a grave man.” (Shakespeare)
A streaker was found dead this morning. Police say the details are quite revealing.
Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
I couldn't quite remember how to throw a boomerang, but eventually it came back to me.
Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat minor.
The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering.