Devices for Repetition

1. Devices for Repetition

2. Don’t be repetitive, but use repetition • Repetition devices can lead the reader to pay closer attention to key ideas in the writing • Helps audience see the writer as purposeful, forceful, or artistic

3. Devices • Anaphora: Repetition of the same group of words at the beginning of successive clauses • Exercise builds stamina in young children; exercise builds stamina in teenagers and adults; exercise builds stamina in older adults and senior citizens. • Epistrophe: Repetition of the same group of words at the end of successive clauses. • To become a top-notch player, I thought like an athlete; I trained like an athlete; I ate like an athlete.

4. Repetition (3) • Anadiplosis: Repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause. • Mental preparation leads to training; training builds muscle tone and coordination; muscle tone and coordination, combined with focused thinking, produces athletic excellence. • Anadiplosis is combined with climax here for a technique called “climbing the ladder”

5. Devices • Epanalepsis: Repeating the same word or phrase from the beginning of a line, phrase, or clause at the end of the segment. • “A lie begets a lie.” –English proverb • “To each the boulders that have fallen to each.” –Robert Frost

6. Devices • Antimetabole: Reversing the order of repeated words or phrases to intensify the final formation, to present alternatives, or to show contrast. • All work and no play is as harmful to mental health as all play and no work. • Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.