Is he right? What do you think?
Ethos, Pathos and Logos
Whenever you read an argument you must ask yourself, "is this persuasive? And if so, to whom?" There are seveal ways to appeal to an audience. Among them are appealing to logos, ethos and pathos. These appeals are prevalent in almost all arguments. To Appeal to Logic (logos) | To Develop Ethos | To Appeal to Emotion (pathos) | Theoretical, abstract languageLiteral and historical analogiesDefinitionsFactual data and statisticsQuotationsCitations from experts and authoritiesInformed opinions | Language appropriate to audience and subjectRestrained, sincere, fair minded presentationAppropriate level of vocabularyCorrect grammar | Vivid, concrete languageEmotionally loaded languageConnotative meaningsEmotional examplesVivid descriptionsNarratives of emotional eventsEmotional toneFigurative language | Effect | Effect | Effect …show more content…
Of course it needs information too, but the kind of information it needs can be generated only by vigorous popular debate. We do not know what we need to know until we ask the right questions, and we can identify the right questions only by subjecting our ideas about the world to the test of public controversy. Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as it is by product. When we get into arguments that focus and fully engage our attention, we become avid seekers of relevant information. Otherwise, we take in information passively--if we take it in at …show more content…
A few years ago, while watching the news in Chicago, a local news story made a personal connection with me. The report concerned a teenager who had been shot because he had angered a group of his male peers. This act of violence caused me to recapture a memory from my own adolescence because of an instructive parallel in my own life with this boy who had been shot. When I was a teenager some thirty-five years ago in the New York metropolitan area, I wrote a regular column for my high school newspaper. One week, I wrote a colunm in which I made fun of the fraternities in my high school. As a result, I elicited the anger of some of the most aggressive teenagers in my high school. A couple of nights later, a car pulled up in front of my house, and the angry teenagers in the car dumped garbage on the lawn of my house as an act of revenge and