Rhetorical Appeals
Analyze ethos, pathos, logos, tone, diction, and syntax as rhetorical choices that shape audience response.
A lesson of English 10, in Nonfiction and Rhetoric, about 10 minutes.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify and analyze the three classical rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), explain how authors use them, and evaluate their effectiveness and ethics.
The Three Appeals
Aristotle identified three modes of persuasion:
Ethos: an appeal to the speaker's credibility, authority, and character. Why should the audience trust this person?
Pathos: an appeal to the audience's emotions, values, or imagination.
Logos: an appeal to reason — logic, evidence, data, and structured argument.
Ethos
What creates ethos?
- Relevant credentials or expertise
- Personal experience with the subject
- Demonstrated fairness — acknowledging counterarguments
- Language register and precision that signal competence
- Trustworthiness and integrity
Example: A doctor arguing for vaccine efficacy draws ethos from their medical training. A parent of an unvaccinated child who died of measles draws ethos from direct personal experience.
Ethos can be established or undermined:
- Factual errors undermine ethos
- Transparent bias undermines ethos
- Acknowledging uncertainty strengthens it (paradoxically)
Pathos
What creates pathos?
- Specific, vivid stories (not generic statistics)
- Imagery and sensory detail
- Appeals to values the audience holds dear (family, safety, justice, freedom)
- Tone: outrage, compassion, fear, hope
The ethical question about pathos: is this emotional appeal honest and relevant, or is it manipulative?
Honest pathos: telling a specific story that is genuinely representative of a broader pattern.
Manipulative pathos: cherry-picked extreme case presented as typical; invoking emotion to avoid logical scrutiny.
Logos
What creates logos?
- Statistical evidence (from credible sources)
- Causal reasoning
- Logical structure (if X, then Y)
- Analogical reasoning
- Refutation of counterarguments
Common logical fallacies (failures of logos):
- Ad hominem: attacking the person, not the argument
- Straw man: misrepresenting the opposing argument to make it easier to attack