Ethos Pathos Logos

The question as to whether humans are emotional or rational beings when it comes to decision making has been widely studied and debated extensively throughout history. In today’s world emotion is usually associated with weakness and vulnerability. Rationality and logic are universal. Everyone uses the same logic (although some people use it more than others), but morality and feelings are unique and personal. They stem from our personality structure, values and are what make each one of us different from one another.We are cognisant that using our emotions to sway our decision making is wrong, and that we should strive to be more analytical and levelheaded; emotions tend to cloud our ability to make the proper choices nonetheless. The truth

Emotion is the energy and the very fuel of the persuasion process. You can inspire anyone by igniting positive or negative emotions such as hope, love, pride, gratitude or excitement. If you can capture these emotions within yourself, you can transfer them onto your audience. Although the pathetic appeal can be manipulative, it is the cornerstone of moving people to action. The more people react without full consideration of the why of an argument, the more effective that argument might be. Many arguments are able to persuade people logically, but the apathetic audience may not follow through on the call to action. Appeals to pathos touch a nerve and compel people to not only listen, but to also take the next step and act in the world. To appeal to the emotions of the audience and evoke an emotional response, the writer should try to create imagery by using vivid, concrete, and figurative

As a rhetorical appeal, logos is most often based on probabilities rather than certain truth, for we often cannot know a thing with absolute certainty, yet we must act anyway. To appeal to logic and evoke a cognitive, rational response, the writer often uses more theoretical or abstract language that includes literal or historical analogies, definitions, factual data and statistics, quotations and citations from experts and authorities, and informed opinions. Persuasion, to a large extent, involves convincing people to accept our assumptions as probably true. Similarly, exposing questionable assumptions in someone else's argument is an effective means for preparing the audience to accept your own contrary