The traditional high school five paragraph persuasive essay may be the first idea that comes to mind when thinking of an argumentative paper. First, you come up with a thesis — let’s say why chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla, for example — and then decide on three talking points to back up your claim. While this basic methodology works to a point, considering rhetorical appeals can strengthen your argument. The rhetorical appeals are ethos, pathos, and logos, and each appeal serves its own purpose.
Ethos is essentially ethics. You can discuss your claim through the lens of its ethical values in terms of religion, law, human rights, and so on. Many political issues are argued from ethos, although we won’t discuss that in depth here. The idea is to get you thinking about the ethical reasons that back up your claim. As a note though, ethos only appeals to the beliefs of your reader and may not offer solid evidence for someone less easily persuaded.
Whereas ethos appeals to the reader’s beliefs, pathos appeals to the your reader’s emotions. Think of commercials for charity organizations that feature children with cancer, animals in cages, or people living in abject poverty. These organizations are using pathos to appeal to the viewer’s emotions. You want to persuade your reader by appealing to their emotions of right and wrong, but you also need to remember that these appeals aren’t always going to work either.
This brings us to logos, which is the appeal to logical and reasoning. Logos uses facts and evidence to persuade the reader. When you use statistics, citations from reputable sources, test results, and the like, you are appealing to the reader’s logic. Although using ethos and pathos are great tactics, you want to make sure you’ve got a healthy dose of logos in any argumentative essay.
When you stop to consider preparing a longer paper and feel like you’re stumped thanks to the five paragraph essay model, just remember you can find more talking points if you just think about these rhetorical appeals. You’ll build a stronger essay, and you may even sway the reader to your cause. Regardless, you will impress your reader with an elevated argument — and probably earn yourself an A!
