Persuasive Techniques

LOGOS  Logos  An appeal to logic and reason  Example:  School uniforms should be required because it would then be easier for staff to recognize intruders.  School uniforms should be required because it would decrease incidents of bullying.

LOGOS Strategies  Evidence  Examples and illustrations  Facts, statistics  Precedents, laws  Organization  Process  Comparison/contrast  Division/classification  Cause/effect  Definition, description

PATHOS  Pathos  An appeal to emotional reaction.  Example:  School uniforms should be required because it alleviates students’ fear of looking different and being picked on because of their clothes.  Suzy Jo McGuillicutty retells the story of when she was made fun of and beaten up because she wore the same blouse two days in a row. Sobbing, she conjures up painful memories of not fitting in.

PATHOS  Strategies  Inspiring feeling/empathy/sympathy  Anger, pride, guilt, love, shame, hope, etc.  Awareness of opposition  Awareness of the audience's cultural and emotional background  Race, age, sex, physical characteristics, habits  Economic or educational level  Religious or political affiliation  Ethnicity, country of birth, citizenship, location  Awareness of audience concerns  Needs, values, beliefs of groups audience belongs to

ETHOS  Ethos  An appeal based on your own credibility.  Example:  Based on research explained in the Winter 2004 issue of Educational Leadership, seventy-four percent of the schools who attempted a uniform policy could not claim success with any certainty since other confounding variables such as higher security and a peer mediation program could just have easily have been the cause of decreased school violence.  In my own observations as a student teacher at Waldo Middle School in Salem, Oregon, I discovered that on “uniform days,” behavior referrals decreased to nearly none, whereas on “dress free days,” referrals spiked to as much as ten times as many.

ETHOS  Strategies  Credibility (common sense)  Familiarity with subject  Awareness of broad perspective  Character (virtue)  Respect others' values  Value welfare of others  Show integrity, trustworthiness, open-mindedness  Confidence (good will)  Show self-understanding  Understand reader needs  Treat reader as equal