Rhetorical Triangle

Ethos: Appeals to Ethics, Credibility or Character. Ethics, ethical, trustworthiness or reputation, style/tone. The credibility of the speaker persuades.

Pathos: Appeals to Emotion. Emotional or imaginative impact, stories, values. Uses emotional response to persuade an audience.

Logos: Appeals to logic. Persuade by reason and evidence.

4 Ways to Persuade with Emotion (Pathos)

  1. Concrete Examples
  2. Connotative Diction
  3. Metaphors and Similes
  4. Tone

Appeals to pathos target the link between audience members and their values.

When we act on our values, we experience emotions like happiness, pride, satisfaction, etc. When we do not, we often feel shame, fear, or anger. The same goes for the actions of people around us: we are often pleased when the actions of people around us align with our values and angry when they don’t.

Appeals to Emotion

Images can be used to instill an emotional response in the audience. Even implied images in text can be very emotionally powerful. A description of blood stained clothes draws certain emotions in a reader.

Lawyers know how important visuals can be. They dress their defendants in suits and ties to make them seem more credible.

Types of emotional appeals:

  • appeal to pity
  • appeal to fear
  • appeal to self-interest
  • Sexual
  • bandwagon
  • humor
  • celebrity
  • testimonials
  • identity prejudice
  • lifestyle
  • stereotypes
  • patriotic

Argumentative Essay

Solution Argument Prompt

Arguing a Solution

  1. Position. Take a clear position on an arguable topic.
  2. Reasons. Develop main reasons, keeping audience in mind.
  3. Evidence. Support all reasons with strong research.
  4. Opposition. Acknowledge the opposing argument and take it out.

Sample Essays

To Clear the Ocean, We Target the Rivers

Clicking Originality Away: Social Media’s Effect On Young Female’s Self Esteem

Papers Please! The Illegal Immigration Problem

Using Rhetoric Notes

Ethos

  • Research
  • Unbiased

Pathos

  • Emotional
  • Storytelling
  • So What?

Logos

  • Logical
  • History
  • Facts
  • Statistics
  • Evidence
  • Authority/Pros
  • Background

Creating Structure

Structure is very important to making an argument. It needs to be deliberate and well organized. You cannot come across as being all over the place. An argument needs order in order for the audience to follow along.

Here is one possible outline to use to build your paper:

  1. Position (thesis)
  2. Background
  3. Reason with evidence
  4. Reason with evidence
  5. Reason with evidence
  6. Reason with evidence
  7. Counterargument with refutation
  8. Conclusion with so what question addressing audience