Academic Vocabulary 2
1. allusion (n) a direct or indirect reference in a book to another book or piece of art (when
Ponyboy refers to Gone with the Wind in The Outsiders, that is an allusion)
2. analogy (n) a comparison between similar concepts, characters, or works of literature so
the reader better understands a difficult idea (In Seedfolks, Nora [the British woman who was
taking care of Mr. Myles] makes an analogy between the community garden and a soap
opera: “It has suspense, tragedy, startling developments—a soap opera growing out of the
ground.”)
3. antonym (n) a word or words opposite in meaning (“good” and “bad” are antonyms)
4. synonym (n) a word or words that mean exactly or nearly the same (“on time” and
“punctual” or “prompt” are synonyms)
5. claim (n) the idea or opinion that a writer tries to prove or defend in an essay; a synonym
of claim is “thesis,” they mean the exact same thing (If you are writing about how football is
dangerous for children, your claim would simply be “Football is dangerous for children”—you
would spend the rest of the essay supporting your claim with concrete details [evidence] and
commentary)
6. denotation (n) the dictionary definition of a word (if you look up the word “Christmas” in
the dictionary, it will say something about it being a Christian holiday celebrated on Dec. 25 th)
7. connotation (n) the feelings or ideas that a word suggests (the word “Christmas” might
make you think of gifts, candy, snow, Santa Claus, family, lights, etc.—you won’t find these
connotations in a dictionary)
8. conventions (n) in writing, the conventions are the spelling, punctuation, capitalization, use
of paragraphs, and grammar that help make a student’s writing clear and understandable (If
your essay contains a lot of uncapitalized proper nouns (america, evergreen jr. high school), I
would write in the margins, “watch your conventions”)
9. counterclaim (n) a paragraph in an essay that acknowledges and then refutes the other
point of view (to use the football example, your counterclaim might begin with “Some might
say that football causes concussions; however, concussions in football are an insignificant
percentage of injuries that are just part of the game.”)
10. dangling modifier (n) a word or phrase that modifies a word not clearly stated in the
sentence (e.g., “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas—how he got into my
pajamas, I’ll never know.”)
11. dialogue (n) conversation or “talking” in a literary work (e.g., She said, “I don’t believe my
eyes.” The “I don’t believe my eyes” is dialogue.)
12. argument (n) a reason or set of reasons that your claim is true (when you write an
argument essay you are giving reasons, in the form of evidence, that your claim is true)