THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CORNER
Gustavo Zapata

RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES
AND DISCOURSE MARKERS
FOR PARAGRAPH DEVELOPMENT
Being familiar with the various rhetorical techniques that writers use to develop their paragraphs helps in two ways: a) in writing well and in b) reading comprehension. The following is a general-purpose list of techniques. Each technique is accompanied by a brief explanation or words that will help you identify the kind of technique the writer is using in a text.
 
1. DESCRIPTION: It is characterized by an abundance of adjectives and/or adjectival constructions

2. SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT:		 There will be lots of prepositions and locative expressions: between, not far from, 
on the right, on the left, above, below, next, close to, near, far from, under, in, out, along, on top, through, etc.
3. CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER OR TIME SEQUENCE: Present:
today, now, at present, nowadays modern + noun, presently, contemporary + noun

Past:
last night, yesterday, last (year, week, month.),(a week)ago, formerly, earlier, in the past, in the last century, at that time, then,  shortly after that

Future:
tomorrow, day after tomorrow, in the future

Others: in adolescence, in childhood, at birth, as an adult, in old age, at death, simultaneously, as a child

Subordinating words:
when, as, as time passed, as soon as, then, till, until, while, since, by the time that 

Adverbs of frequency:
often, daily, hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly, biennially, everyday, sometimes never, frequently, quite, often

almost, never, seldom, always, on and off
 
4.EXAMPLES: for example, for instance, i.e., namely, such as, say, like, viz(videt licet)= that is to say, take... consider...
5. CLASSIFICATION: kind of, type of, sort of, can be classified into, can be broken down into,
major kinds of,, methods, parts,
divisions, categories, classes, types,
classifications, sources, regions, origins
bases, qualities, aspects, factors,
characteristics, attributes, category, sorts of
types of
6. ILLUSTRATION
7. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST: Adjectives in, superlative, comparative and zero degrees. Adversative expressions such as:

but, conversely, however, yet, still, nevertheless on the contrary

others:

in comparison with, different from, to compare,

to differ from, unlike, like,

in contrast, on one hand, on the other hand
 
8. CAUSE AND EFFECT: because, since, then, to cause, because of, due to, caused by,

as a result of, owing(owed)to, on account of, bring about

give rise to, bring on, to derive from

for the reason that, to produce, to result

to spring from
 
9. REASONING: to reason, to argue, it can be argued that, it can be proved that.
10.DEFINITION: X is a kind/ sort/ type of; X can be defined as.

According to the (title of source)...
11. ANALOGY: similar to, is like, like, unlike.
12. HYPOTHESIS: may, might, could, would, should, must, is likely to, perhaps, if...then. theory, speculate, conjecture, perhaps, present perfect with modals(may have, could have, might have, must have)
have, might have, could have, must have,
13.PREDICTION:

.

 is likely that, there is the likelihood that; probably; to forecast, to foresee, to foretell
14.PROPOSAL:
 		 to propose, it seems feasible to, would propose that, etc.
15.REFUTATION: true, untrue, false, fallacious, disagree with, inconsistent, consistency.
16. ENUMERATION:
 		 first, second, third. etc. ;1,2,3, etc.; to begin with, next, finally; (a), (b), (c), etc.; I,II,III, etc.

Gustavo Zapata