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A bust of Aristotle.

Persuasive Strategies: Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Ideas about establishing credibility as a speaker aren’t new to us in the 21st century. Persuasion is a subject that has been studied by human beings around the world for thousands of years. Principles of persuasive public speaking were developed by scholars in places like China, Africa, Greece, and Rome. Many of the principles of effective argumentation we study today were first developed in ancient Greece and refined by teachers of public speaking in the Roman Empire.

Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote the first “textbook” on persuasion in the Western world, The Rhetoric. In The Rhetoric, Aristotle differentiated between different modes of persuasion speakers use. For Aristotle, there were two categories of persuasive modes: inartistic and artistic proofs. Inartistic proofs are resources like physical evidence that a speaker has access to. In contrast, artistic proofs are created by the speaker.

The three artistic proofs Aristotle identified are:

  1. Ethos: The speaker’s character. Ethos involves the way a speaker conveys to the audience that they can be trusted. Ethos includes evidence of good sense (what the Greeks called phronesis or practical wisdom), evidence of good will (called eunoia, enlightened self interest or good of the community), and evidence of good moral character (called arete, moral excellence).
  2. Pathos: The emotions the speaker is able to appeal to and awaken in their audience.
  3. Logos: Use of reasoning. Proving a truth or apparent truth by means of logical arguments suitable to the case in question.

Credible speakers make well-rounded arguments that involve a combination of ethos, pathos, and logos, depending on what’s appropriate for their purpose, audience, and context. Speakers are not the only people, though, who use these persuasion methods. Since these three persuasive “proofs” are so powerful, nearly anyone trying to convince you of something will probably use one or more of the three.

The short video below outlines some of the ways advertisers use ethos, pathos, and logos to sell products.

You can view the transcript for “Ethos, Pathos, & Logos: How to Use Persuasive Ad Techniques” here (opens in new window).

Persuasive Strategies Using Ethos

Ethos is the way a speaker establishes their credibility and conveys to the audience that they can be trusted.

Ethos is important in any kind of speech situation, but it is especially important when trying to persuade an audience. If your audience doesn’t view you as credible and trustworthy, they likely aren’t going to be persuaded by your argument. Therefore, it can be helpful to explain to your audience why you are a credible source they should give consideration to.

Through the process of delivering your arguments and sharing reliable, credible supporting evidence, you can demonstrate to your audience that you have taken the time to understand your topic and the evidence behind your argument.

Purdue’s Online Writing Lab provides concrete tips on being a credible author.  Many of these tips also apply just as well to speakers, including:

  1. Use only credible, reliable sources. Cite those sources properly.
  2. Show you have an open mind about your topic by acknowledging beliefs and values on both sides of the argument in an accurate way.
  3. Explain why you are interested in this topic. If you have personal experience, share it.
  4. Organize your argument in a logical and easy-to-follow manner. [1]

The last point is especially important in a speech because your audience won’t have the option to re-read the parts of your speech they find hard to follow.

The following video presents Anna Maria Chávez giving a speech in 2011, when she had just been appointed CEO of Girls Scouts of the USA. She uses appeals to ethos to establish her credibility.

You can view the transcript for “Anna Maria Chavez 2011 National Convention Speech 1 of 2” here (opens in new window).

Here is the video with accurate captions: Anna Maria Chavez 2011 National Convention Speech 1 of 2 (opens in a new window).

What to watch for:

The first part of Chavez’s speech is a classic appeal to ethos, both establishing her credibility and demonstrating her commitment to the Girl Scouts. Chávez does this by telling the story of how she became a girl scout and what she learned from Girl Scout camp (starting at 3:56).

The next part of her story demonstrates another facet of ethos. By telling the story of going to Yale, and then law school, and then becoming advisor to “a U.S. president, a vice president, two cabinet secretaries, three federal administrators, two governors, and a husband,” she establishes that she has the authority and credibility to lead a national organization. (The “…and a husband” joke demonstrates humor and relatability, which are as important as impressive credentials in appealing to ethos).

 

Check your Understanding (Opens in New Window)

Persuasive Strategies Using Pathos

You’ve probably seen commercials for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals featuring celebrities and images of sad, abandoned animals. Those commercials have been running for years and are notable because they have raised a staggering amount of money for the ASPCA.[2] How do those commercials make you feel when you watch them? Would they be as effective if they didn’t appeal to our emotions?

Convincing an audience to believe something or do something often can’t be achieved by only appealing to their sense of reasoning. Persuaders also need to know how to appeal to emotions in an effective and ethical way.

An appeal to pathos is an appeal to the emotions a speaker is able to awaken in their audience, such as sympathy, joy, humor, anger, or fear. One of the most common ways to bring emotional appeals into a speech is to use memorable examples. Stories can be compelling in the way they can personalize an otherwise general or abstract issue.

For instance, people who fundraise for charities or nonprofits often share with potential donors concrete stories of specific people to illustrate how donations can materially change lives for the better. These stories can tap into the emotions of the audience and help the audience identify with the subject of the story.

Politicians frequently use stories to grab an audience’s attention and move them to feel emotion. In almost every State of the Union Address for decades now, the president illustrates policy initiatives by using stories of real people who are often invited to the speech and are sitting in the audience. Those stories are often the most powerful and remembered moments of the State of the Union Address.

In politics, one of the classic appeals to pathos is to use one person’s story to argue for or against a policy position. During the final debate in the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican candidate John McCain invoked a small-business owner named Joe Wurzelbacher to attack Obama’s proposed tax initiatives. Several times during the debate, McCain and Obama sparred about how Obama’s tax and health-care policies would affect “Joe the Plumber” (at 0:05 and 2:18 in the clip below). McCain was hoping that viewers of the debate would be outraged by the idea that this hard-working tradesperson would see increased taxes under the Obama plan. Whether or not the plan would actually increase taxes on the average plumber (an idea energetically disputed by Obama) is beside the point; McCain’s “Joe the Plumber” story is an appeal to pathos.

You can view the transcript for “The Final Three-Minute Debate | TIME” here (opens in new window).

Here is the video with accurate captions: The Final Three-Minute Debate TIME (opens in new window).

Word choices are also key to effective emotional appeals. Vivid, powerful, and emotion-laden language can be very effective in moving an audience. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is a classic example of the way a speaker uses vivid word choices to appeal to the emotions and values of an audience.

Emotional appeals can be very effective, but they can also be overdone or used poorly. When using emotional appeals, be sincere and respectful of the audience. Emotional appeals can backfire when the audience perceives the speaker is being phony or manipulative. Also don’t rely solely on emotional appeals as doing so can be seen as less persuasive than an argument that balances emotional appeals with the use of good reasoning and evidence.

Persuasive Strategies Using Logos

Remember that logos refers to the use of logical reasoning in an argument. Using ideas of philosopher Stephen Toulmin, who studied how arguments work in everyday communication, we can break up an argument into different parts to help understand how they are structured

There are six elements for analyzing or presenting arguments that are important to the Toulmin method. When you’re preparing a speech, you can include these elements to ensure your audience will see the validity of your claims.[3]:

  1. Claim: conclusions whose merit must be established. For example, if a person tries to convince a listener that he is a British citizen, the claim would be “I am a British citizen.”

  2. Data: the facts appealed to as a foundation for the claim. For example, the person introduced in Part 1 can support his claim with the supporting data “I was born in Bermuda.” The data is your evidence or proof supporting the claim.

  3. Warrant: the reasoning that connects the data to the claim. In order to move from the data established in Part 2, “I was born in Bermuda,” to the claim in Part 1, “I am a British citizen,” the person must supply a warrant to bridge the gap between Parts 1 and 2 with the statement, “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen.” Toulmin stated that an argument is only as strong as its weakest warrant and if a warrant isn’t valid, then the whole argument collapses. Therefore, it is important to have strong, valid warrants.

  4. Backing: facts that give credibility to the statement expressed in the warrant; backing must be introduced when the warrant itself is not convincing enough to the readers or the listeners. For example, if the listener does not deem the warrant as credible, the speaker would supply legal documents as backing statement to show that it is true that “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen.”

  5. Rebuttal: statements recognizing the restrictions to which the claim may legitimately be applied. The rebuttal is exemplified as follows: “A man born in Bermuda will legally be a British citizen, unless he has betrayed Britain and become a spy of another country.”

  6. Qualifier: words or phrases expressing how certain the author/speaker is concerning the claim. Such words or phrases include possible, probably, impossible, certainly, presumably, as far as the evidence goes, or necessarily. The claim “I am definitely a British citizen” has a greater degree of force than the claim “I am a British citizen, presumably.”

The first three elements (claim, data, and warrant) are considered as the essential components of practical arguments, while the final three elements (backing, rebuttal, and qualifier) may not be needed in all arguments.

 

Toulmin’s Method applied to Examples

Example 1

Suppose you watch a commercial for a product that promises to give you whiter teeth. Here are the basic parts of the argument behind the commercial:

  1. Claim: You should buy our tooth-whitening product.
  2. Data: Studies show that teeth are 50% whiter after using the product for a specified time.
  3. Warrant: People want whiter teeth.
  4. Backing: Celebrities want whiter teeth.
  5. Rebuttal: Commercial says, “unless you don’t want to show your real smile.”
  6. Qualifier: Fine print says, “product must be used six weeks for results.”

Notice that those commercials don’t usually bother trying to convince you that you want whiter teeth; instead, they assume that you have bought into the value our culture places on whiter teeth. When an assumption—a warrant in Toulmin’s terms—is unstated, it’s called an implicit warrant. Sometimes, however, the warrant may need to be stated because it is a powerful part of the argument. When the warrant is stated, it’s called an explicit warrant.

Example 2

  1. Claim: People should probably own a gun.
  2. Data: Studies show that people who own a gun are less likely to be mugged.
  3. Warrant: People want to be safe.
  4. Backing: May not be necessary. In this case, it is common sense that people want to be safe.
  5. Rebuttal: Not everyone should own a gun. Children and those will mental disorders/problems should not own a gun.
  6. Qualifier: The word “probably” in the claim.

How would you assess the strength of the warrant in this argument?

Example 3

  1. Claim: Flag burning should be unconstitutional in most cases.
  2. Data: A national poll says that 60% of Americans want flag burning to be unconstitutional.
  3. Warrant: People want to respect the flag.
  4. Backing: Official government procedures for the disposal of flags.
  5. Rebuttal: Not everyone in the U.S. respects the flag.
  6. Qualifier: The phrase “in most cases.”

How would you assess the strength of the data in this argument?

The following video further discusses the components of the Toulmin model of argument.

You can view the transcript for “The Toulmin Model of Argumentation” here (opens in new window).

In the following video, Steven Klien, associate teaching professor of communication at the University of Missouri, uses the Toulmin model to analyze President Obama’s 2013 speech announcing air strikes against Syrian government forces. Klien’s explanation of Toulmin’s model is very clear and thorough, so you may want to watch it in its entirety, but for our purposes, the relevant section is 11:47 through 21:00.

You can view the transcript for “The Toulmin Model of Argument” here (opens in new window).

Here is the video with accurate captions: The Toulmin Model of Argument (opens in new window).

Check your Understanding (Opens in New Window)

  1. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/establishing_arguments/rhetorical_strategies.html ↵
  2. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/us/26charity.html ↵
  3. Toulmin, Stephen. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge University Press, 1958. ↵

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