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Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, with tactics such as logos (logic), ethos (ethics), and pathos (emotions). Logical appeals must avoid fallacies, while ethical appeals establish credibility and moral responsibility. Pathos appeals to emotions through storytelling and sensory descriptions.
In general, rhetoric is the art of persuading another person to do something or to have a particular opinion. There are a number of tactics, or rhetorical strategies, that can be used to aid in persuasion. The most famous of these are Aristotle’s three types of appeals: logos, ethos and pathos. Mastering the techniques for using these strategies can help writers and speakers frame their rhetoric in ways that will be more persuasive to their audiences.
Logos in Greek means “logic”. A logical appeal often presents and analyzes factual data, often explaining cause and effect. For example, if a person is writing an article on global climate change, he or she might present information on average global temperatures and shrinking ice caps. The writer could then move on to analyzing what caused climate change and what effects climate change is likely to have.
When using logic as one of the rhetorical strategies, writers and speakers should be careful to avoid logical fallacies. A statement that may seem reasonable but is actually not is said to contain a logical fallacy. For example, some scientists have argued that climate change may have been a factor in the extinction of the dinosaurs. It would make no sense to say that climate change caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, because it would also cause the extinction of humans. This is a fallacy known as a hasty generalization, which says that because an event had a certain outcome once, it will always have the same outcome.
The second of Aristotle’s rhetorical strategies is ethos, which means “ethics.” In rhetoric, an ethical appeal is more often than not one that establishes the character or credibility of the person making the argument. This may involve the writer or speaker presenting their qualifications, such as a PhD in environmental studies, or explaining why they care about the environment. Another good way to establish credibility with an audience is to simply present a topic in a way that is easily understood and free from factual or grammatical errors. Occasionally, ethos can also mean an appeal to the public’s ethical or moral responsibility to act on an issue.
Pathos is the rhetorical strategy that appeals to the emotions of the audience. A very effective way to do this is to provide specific examples in addition to generalizations. For example, telling how a particular family’s fishing business went bankrupt because of climate change would appeal to the listener’s emotions more than a statistic about income lost to climate change. Storytelling, imagery, and sensory descriptions are specific types of rhetorical strategies that can provide emotional appeals.
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