Persuasion Points 4

Which is better?

A. I’ve done it! I’m on the moon’s surface! Boo-yah!

B. That’s one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind.

Sentence B features antithesis, contrasting the ideas small/giant, man/mankind, step/leap. It is also a balanced sentence.

Assignment: Write a single balanced sentence that uses antithesis. Use the list of opposites below to generate ideas:

success/failure
intelligence/stupidity
above/below
war/peace
present/past
early/late
order/chaos
fast/slow

Example:
Live as if you were to die tomorrow; Learn as if you were to live forever.
--Mahatma Gandhi


Terms to Know: antithesis, parallelism, balanced sentence.