Aristotelian
Appeals
LOGOS
An appeal to LOGOS
is an attempt to reach the audience's sense of logic, its sense of reason. Writers
appeal to logos by seeming reasonable and logical, whether or not they really
are logical. They want you to agree with their conclusion, their purpose. They
attempt to engage your mind by presenting an orderly progression of ideas through
words or images. To appeal to LOGOS, the writer makes claims. To do this the writers
may
- define terms
- state facts
or falsehoods
- portray cause
and effect relationships
- compare and
contrast
- give examples
Key words and
phrases sometimes help you identify an appeal to LOGOS. These included connectives,
such as ""because," "since," or "although."
Word pairs may also signal an appeal to logic: "either/or," "if/then,"
and "when/then."
PATHOS
An appeal to PATHOS
is an attempt to reach the audience's emotion, its passion and feeling.
Advertisements
appeal to pathos by reaching for the audience's heart.
Any emotion might
be the target of an appeal to emotion: sadness, happiness, anger, guilt, pride,
fear, hope.
Writers appeal
to pathos by invoking words and images that make us feel something. Think of
how the following words make you feel: "family," "baby,"
"puppy," "winner," "winter," "destiny."
ETHOS
An appeal to ETHOS
is an attempt to reach the audience by making the sponsor of the ad seem to be
of high ethical character. An appeal to ETHOS is not an attempt to make the audience
feel good about itself; its purpose is to make the audience feel good about the
writer or sponsor. The audience's feeling about itself is often the byproduct
of an appeal to ethos because of an appeal to pathos.
Advertisements
appeal to ethos by trying to convey that the sponsor of the ad is fair, good,
kind, wise, morally upright, or experienced. In this way, the sponsor is often
depicted as an authority.
The appeal to
ethos works if the readers end up trusting the ad's sponsor.