Here are the key differences between ethos, pathos, and logos:
In this excerpt from his “I Have A Dream” speech, King is using pathos to accomplish two goals at once. First, he is connecting with his audience by making it clear is aware of their plight and suffering. Second, he is citing these examples to cause sadness or outrage in the audience. Both of these effects will make an audience interested in what he has to say and more likely to support his position.
“However, although private demand, output, and employment have indeed been growing for more than a year, the pace of that growth recently appears somewhat less vigorous than we expected. Notably, since stabilizing in mid-2009, real household spending in the United States has grown in the range of 1 to 2 percent at annual rates, a relatively modest pace. Households’ caution is understandable. Importantly, the painfully slow recovery in the labor market has restrained growth in labor income, raised uncertainty about job security and prospects, and damped confidence. Also, although consumer credit shows some signs of thawing, responses to our Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices suggest that lending standards to households generally remain tight.”
At their core, objective and persuasive legal writing share many of the same traits, such as maintaining the small scale organizational paradigm we refer to as CREAC (a/k/a IRAC). Because lawyers use that paradigm to advance their arguments, students need to master it, which makes the structure of the argument look similar to objective writing. But students need to make other, subtler changes in their writing (and thinking) to persuade effectively. It’s often challenging to succinctly explain these more subtle differences, but one easy way is to introduce the “why” behind the differences, which in turn helps explain those differences. Good persuasive writing argues a position by using a combination of three ancient rhetorical techniques: logos, ethos, and pathos.
Ethos, Pathos, Logos Kairos Example
Here, the speaker uses pathos by appealing to the audience's emotions about their children and the future of the planet. The emotional appeal is reinforced by the personal anecdote of looking into his daughter's eyes.
Here, Steve Jobs is providing his background–via – of being a major figure in several different highly successful tech companies. Jobs is using ethos to provide substance to his words and make it clear to the audience that he knows what he is talking about and they should listen to him.
Remember, you use rhetorical appeals every day, depending on who you are talking to or writing to and depending on what you want from your listener or correspondent. Start paying attention to the ways you try to persuade different people. Emotionally (pathos)? Logically (logos)? Through an appeal to your own authority (ethos)? Once you can identify your own rhetorical appeals, you will be better able to recognize the way other writers and speakers use ethos, pathos, and logos.
Pathos is about connecting with your audience on an emotional level, appealing to their values, desires, fears, and hopes. Effective use of pathos can be a powerful tool for communication because it can engage the audience and elicit a response.
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos Worksheet
Pathos is a rhetorical device that involves the use of emotional appeals to persuade an audience. It is one of the three modes of persuasion identified by Aristotle, alongside ethos and logos.
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Movies
If ethos is the ground on which your argument stands, logos is what drives it forward: it is the stuff of your arguments, the way one point proceeds to another, as if to show that the conclusion to which you are aiming is not only the right one, but so necessary and reasonable as to be more or less the only one.
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Speeches
Your use of commonplaces is also a good point to interject pathos, as many of these common beliefs can illicit an emotional response. Let’s dig into pathos.
Here is an example of ethos being used in writing:
You’ll even see a reverse ethos appeal at times, an attack on an opponent which questions their credentials and trustworthiness and serves to alienate them from the audience. To head that off, it’s best to establish your ethos early on, both to give your attackers more of a challenge and to create a hook for your logos to hang on.
Ethos Pathos Logos Kairos Example
The final technique is pathos, which deals with emotions—specifically, with empathy. When a speaker or writer uses pathos, he is appealing to his audience’s sense of empathy for his position or his client. He may use vivid, concrete language and examples. He might use figurative language, such as alliteration, similes, or metaphors. “[P]athos makes your audience you are right.”
Ethos Pathos Logos In Advertising
Ethos, pathos, and logos can all be employed to deliver compelling and persuasive arguments or to win over an audience. Let’s look at a variety of examples to see how different speakers and authors have turned to these modes of persuasion over the years.