How does a writer appeal to an audience and challenge what they think? How does the writer effectively communicate their ideas to their audience? Aristotle identified three main types of appeal: ethos, logos, and pathos.
Ethos (Greek for "character")
A speaker's ethos gives the audience a reason to listen to the writer. It could be experience, expertise, sincerity, or a combination of these things.
Ethos often emphasises the shared values between the audience and the writer. How does one build ethos? Typically, writers and speakers establish shared values or background expertise to establish credibility to the audience.
Imagine you must present your view on the same subject to two different audiences. For instance, you might be presenting your ideas on how to stop bullying to (1) the school board or a group of parents, and (2) a group of middle schoolers.
When talking to the school board, you would try to establish that you're an expert on the topic, and that you understand the school board's capabilities and incentives (perhaps by introducing yourself as a PhD in social sciences, and saying that reducing bullying will get the board reelected?). When talking to a group of parents, you would emphasise that you have the same concerns as them — every child deserves to be happy in school, but bullies should be helped instead of punished (or something, I just came up with that).
Appearing credible to the audience is only part of the key to conveying ideas. Apart from appearing credible, an author must also be, like, not stupid:
Logos (Greek for "embodied thought")
Logos is the use of logic and reasoning in crafting a piece of persuasive writing or rhetoric.
It's the sort of thing you do when you're in an argument with your parents — you find credible sources, expert testimonies, and so on to argue your case (then, your parents say "nah, I'm right").
One trick in using logos lies beyond simple evidence supporting your case: using facts and evidence to concede and refute. You concede the existence of a counterargument and agree that it may be true or reasonable, but you deny the validity of all or part of the argument (join speech and debate!). This demonstrates that you understand a viewpoint other than your own, you've thought through other evidence, and still stand by your view.
In the New York Times opinion article titled "Mother Nature is Brought to You By...", the author, Tim Wu, uses logos to strengthen his argument. Throughout the article (especially in the beginning), Wu uses data throughout to emphasise the spread of advertising, citing sources like The Washington Post and The Associated Press. He also gives examples ranging from school districts to marketing strategies in churches.
Of course, this wouldn't be a complete toolkit if we overlooked the success of seemingly fanatical authors like Jim Jones and Joseph Goebbels. What did they use? The third (and, in my opinion, often most powerful) and final rhetorical appeal: pathos.
Pathos (Greek for "passion")
An appeal to emotions, values, desires, and hopes — or to fears and prejudices.
Arguments that rely solely on pathos are by definition weak, they are generally more propagandistic and polemical than persuasive — an effective author understands the power of evoking an audience's emotions.
Consider Dwight D. Eisenhower's "Order of the Day" address: you won't find any numbers in the short message, but you will find inspiring language in every sentence. Here's a list of phrases he uses that appeal to your emotions:
- "You are about to embark on the Great Crusade"
- "The eyes of the world are upon you." (schizo much...?)
- "...and security for ourselves in a free world"
- "Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superirity in weapons and munitions of war and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men."
- "The tide has turned!"
- "The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!"
- "We will accept nothing less than full victory!"
Now, notice that my list is incomplete and has nearly as many entries as there are sentences in the entire message! Ethos can make people listen, logos can make people understand, but pathos can make people act. Nevertheless, all three are necessary in any rhetorical situation.
Let's say you're trying to convince your (skeptical) parents that a gap year would be beneficial. What combination of the rhetorical appeals would you use? Most likely, you would need a lot of ethos to convince your parents that you are more knowledgeable than them, and you'd need a lot of logos to convince them that a gap year is actually beneficial.
Humorous and Satirical Rhetoric
Humour and satire can be effective appeals to pathos — depending on your audience. Making the audience feel better (with a joke, for example) can make them more receptive to an idea. It can also exaggerate a concept to highlight its faults or vulnerabilities. However, misusing either of these can alienate your audience, which is why we refer to them as "rhetorical risks."
A good example of this is Animal Farm — a satirical commentary on Stalin's USSR. The book was well-received in the West, but banned in the USSR.