You can persuade audiences with three main types of evidence, or appeals. This evidence comes in the form of ethos, logos, and pathos — character, logic, and emotions. An argument can use one or all three of these appeals in different combinations. Sometimes, an argument might draw more heavily on one kind of appeal than the others. Think of arguments as ratios of these appeals. Some situations call for mainly factual arguments, and others require us to engage our audience on the emotional level.
Character
Appeals to character often involve points about shared values, morality, author, and reputation. Effective writers and speakers often remind their audience of the values they have in common–such as patriotism, humanity, charity, respect for law, equality, and freedom of speech. Persuasion can result from showing someone how a specific argument or perspective furthers their own beliefs and social causes.
Think about all of the times you listen to someone’s opinion because you consider them a good person, someone whose opinion you value and trust. Someone establishes excellent moral character when their actions align with their views and opinions, but also when they demonstrate traits a culture values–such as selflessness, dedication, reliability, and honesty. Sometimes, a person can mobilize these values in their speech and writing to convince an audience.
In politics, candidates usually talk about their experience, or their opponent’s lack of it. Merchandisers often try to find celebrity endorsements of their products, because they know that people pay more attention to advertisements when they recognize someone’s face, and then associate the product with their reputation.
We also often listen to people who hold a certain position of authority–judges, police officers, religious figures. Someone may also appear as “authority” on a subject if they’ve demonstrated expertise. Researchers who’ve studied a subject for a long time gather a level of authority. Any professional with substantial experience might be considered an authority as well.
Finally, audiences may be more receptive to arguments that come from writers and speakers who share certain characteristics with them. For better or worse, people tend to listen to members of their own community, religion, gender, or ethnicity. Sometimes, this can be problematic. Other times, writers can use shared demographics to build trust and credibility with skeptical audiences.
Logic
Appealing to someone’s reasoning involves the use of data, statistics, and historical facts to support your points. Logic also can use examples, analogies, and other forms of reasoning in the support of an argument.
Data serves as the most common form of logic. Numerical data such as statistics offer some of the clearest forms of support for an argument. They help audiences understand issues better as well, and can be used to show causal relationships, positive or negative trends, as well as results of studies. These kinds of evidence don’t always stand by themselves. Effective writers always provide interpretation and analysis to create context and show the relevance of numerical to their arguments.
Logic can also take forms other than explicit data. Using historical facts to establish precedents also counts as logical reasoning. An historical fact requires a careful examination of the similarities between a current situation and one that happened at some other point in history. Pointing to decisions made in these historical situations and their outcomes can offer support for a proposal or plan in a current situation.
When you explain a concept using a metaphor or example, you’re still using logic. Examples, metaphors, and analogies help to make new or radical concepts familiar. To persuade an audience, you often have to introduce new ideas and make sure they’re understood fully.
Emotion
Arguments frequently appeal to our emotions, directly and indirectly. An ad for a security system may juxtapose feelings of fear and safety. Meanwhile, a car company might use strategies in their commercials to make viewers feel a sense of adventure or freedom.
Writers make emotional appeals for a variety of reasons. Even academics might try to illicit certain feelings from readers toward their claims and evidence–although they avoid the explicit emotions that appear in other mediums.
Emotion perhaps the most powerful form of appeal, and therefore the most dangerous. People are most likely to make errors in judgment when operating on emotions alone. As a writer, you can use emotional appeals responsibly to enhance your ethical and logical arguments.
As audience members, it’s important to remain skeptical and analyze every argument we encounter for the soundness of its ethical, logical, and emotional components. A common activity in college writing classes is the rhetorical analysis. The better you get at analyzing arguments in terms of these three appeals, the more effective you’ll become both in creating and responding in rhetorical situations.