The Art of Persuasian Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Opening activity: If you haven’t already, then quietly take out your notebooks. Turn to page 66 and draw a line from Friday’s quickwrite. Turn to page 49 in the literature book and answer the prompt under “Writing: The Tone of the Time.” Only write a paragraph answering the prompt (5-7 sentences).

Author’s Tone Tone = author’s attitude toward his audience What is Edwards’s tone? What effect does this attitude have on his listeners? How would Edwards’s sermon be different if he had chosen a different style or diction? More friendly instead of condemning? More matter-of-fact

Opening Activity: Think of a time when you had to convince your parents. What was the situation? How did you convince your parents? What were some of the reasons that you used? Were you successful in convincing your parents?

Rhetoric…what…? Rhetoric (n.) = the art of speaking or writing effectively Aristotle sees rhetoric as an art of persuasion: Ethos Logos Pathos

Ethos Ethos: an appeal based on the character of the speaker; the document will rely on the reputation of the author

Ethos Examples: George Foreman and his Grilling Machine Boxer Fitness Preacher, too!

Pathos Pathos is appeal based on emotion: Anger is a very powerful motivating force. Aristotle points out that if we want to make an audience angry we need to know three things: The state of mind of angry people, Who the people are that this audience usually gets angry at, and On what grounds this audience gets angry at those people.

Pathos: Using Anger

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides a safe refuge for 180 species of migratory birds, serves as a birthing ground for one of the hemisphere's largest caribou herds and has been home to the Gwinch'in people for a thousand generations. Ninety-five percent (95%) of Alaska's North Slope is already available to Big Oil, but these companies want it all.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge provides a safe refuge for 180 species of migratory birds, serves as a birthing ground for one of the hemisphere's largest caribou herds and has been home to the Gwinch'in people for a thousand generations. Ninety-five percent (95%) of Alaska's North Slope is already available to Big Oil, but these companies want it all.

Logos Logos: appeal based on logic or reason Few of our children breath fresh air in their schools, which are being sprayed, inside and out, with millions of pounds of deadly, nervous system destroying pesticides.

NASA sees its mission to explore Mars as an endeavor to seek out the possibility of life on that planet. Knowing if water was on Mars is the first step in this research.

Types of Writing Pathos: Advertisements tend to be pathos-driven. Logic, or the appearance thereof, is what you want to strive for in academics, work, and other professional endeavors. Documents distributed by companies or corporations are logos-driven. Scholarly documents are also often logos-driven.

Let’s analyze! What modes of persuasions are used here?

“America's older citizens have rightly been called the "greatest generation." It is morally unacceptable that the people that built this country -- our senior citizens -- should suffer hunger in a land of plenty, which they helped to create.” -from America’s Second Harvest program

Homework: Find an advertisement or persuasive document and analyze how it uses the three modes of persuasion: Bring the advertisement in along with your analysis on a separate sheet of paper.