Apposition
Placing a second noun phrase beside a first to rename or specify it.
Apposition sets two noun phrases side by side, the second identifying or elaborating the first: 'Marcus Aurelius, emperor and Stoic, wrote to himself.' Grammatically the appositive could replace the noun it follows; rhetorically it adds a second angle without spending a new sentence.
Punctuation encodes a real distinction. A non-restrictive appositive — extra information — is fenced by commas, dashes, or parentheses: 'my brother, a lawyer, disagreed' (I have one brother). A restrictive appositive takes no commas and narrows the reference: 'my brother Tom disagreed' (I have several). Getting this wrong changes what the sentence claims.
In quotation practice, apposition is the standard way to introduce an unfamiliar speaker without breaking flow: 'Ida B. Wells, the journalist who documented lynching in the American South, wrote...'. It supplies credentials inside the sentence that carries the quote, which is why signal phrases lean on it so heavily.
Common mistake: stacking three or four appositives before the verb, so the reader loses the subject before the sentence does anything. One appositive per sentence is usually the working limit.
“Ida B. Wells, a journalist who counted the dead when newspapers would not, published Southern Horrors in 1892.”
Keep reading the glossary
The introductory clause — 'as Orwell writes' — that flags a quotation and identifies its source in running prose.
Using an epithet or title in place of a proper name — 'the Bard' for Shakespeare, 'the Iron Lady' for Thatcher.
A descriptive phrase attached to a name to characterise the person or thing named.
The use of many words where fewer would do — a deliberate roundabout expression.