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An anecdote [1] [2] is "a story with a point", [3] such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait.
Accurate determination of whether an anecdote is typical requires statistical evidence. [19] Misuse of anecdotal evidence in the form of argument from anecdote is an informal fallacy [20] and is sometimes referred to as the "person who" fallacy ("I know a person who..."; "I know of a case where..." etc.) which places undue weight on experiences ...
Anecdotes may be real or fictional; the anecdotal digression is a common feature of literary works and even oral anecdotes typically involve subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape designed to entertain the listener.
Anaphora – a succession of sentences beginning with the same word or group of words. Anastrophe – inversion of the natural word order. Anecdote – a brief narrative describing an interesting or amusing event. Antanaclasis – a figure of speech involving a pun, consisting of the repeated use of the same word, each time with different meanings.
An argument from anecdote is an informal logical fallacy, when an anecdote is used to draw an improper logical conclusion. The fallacy can take many forms, such as cherry picking , hasty generalization , proof by assertion , and so on.
A chreia was a brief, useful (χρεία means "use") anecdote about a particular character. That is, a chreia was shorter than a narration—often as short as a single sentence—but unlike a maxim, it was attributed to a character.
The following anecdote is told of William James. After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady. "Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr. James, but it's wrong.
Another ancient form of short story popular during the Roman Empire was the anecdote, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. Many surviving Roman anecdotes were collected in the 13th or 14th century as the Gesta Romanorum .