Some of the above questions may strike you as relevant to an evaluation of logos as well as ethos—questions about the completeness and accuracy of information and whether it is used fairly.
In fact, illogical thinking and the misuse of evidence may lead an audience to draw conclusions not only about the person making the argument but also about the logic of an argument. In a perfect world, everyone would tell the truth and we could depend upon the credibility of speakers and authors. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. You would expect that news reporters would be objective and tell new stories based upon the facts. Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, and Brian Williams all lost their jobs for plagiarizing or fabricated part of their news stories.
After 28 years of employment, it was determined that she never graduated from college Lewin, Beyond lying about their own credentials, authors may employ a number of tricks or fallacies to lure you to their point of view.
Some of the more common techniques are described below. Others may be found in the appendix. When you recognize these fallacies being committed you should question the credibility of the speaker and the legitimacy of the argument. If you use these when making your own arguments, be aware that they may undermine or destroy your credibility.
Ad hominem : attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument itself. Guilt by association : linking the person making an argument to an unpopular person or group.
Examples: In politics, decorating a stage with red, white, and blue flags and bunting; in advertising, using pleasant or wholesome settings as the backdrop for print or video ads. Testimonial fallacy : inserting an endorsement of the argument by someone who is popular or respected but who lacks expertise or authority in the area under discussion. The most general structure of this argument runs something like the following: Person A claims that Person A is a respected scientist or other authority; therefore, the claim they make is true.
When you evaluate an appeal to logos , you consider how logical the argument is and how well-supported it is in terms of evidence. You are asking yourself what elements of the essay or speech would cause an audience to believe that the argument is or is not logical and supported by appropriate evidence. Diagramming the argument can help you determine if an appeal to logos is manipulative. Are the premises true? Does the conclusion follow logically from the premises? Is there sufficient, typical, accurate, and relevant evidence to support inductive reasoning?
Is the speaker or author attempting to divert your attention from the real issues? These are some of the elements you might consider while evaluating an argument for the use of logos.
Pay particular attention to numbers, statistics, findings, and quotes used to support an argument. It is so often discussed that we assume it must be true. Careful research will show that the original marriage study was flawed, and divorce rates in America have steadily declined since Peck, If there is no scientific evidence, why do we continue to believe it? Part of the reason might be that it supports our idea of the dissolution of the American family.
Fallacies that misuse appeals to logos or attempt to manipulate the logic of an argument are discussed below. Other fallacies of logos may be found in the appendix. Hasty generalization: jumping to conclusions based upon an unrepresentative sample or insufficient evidence. Indian Americans must all be great spellers! However, this biography gives the reader an understanding why Dr.
Hughes is the right person to write about this particular topic. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Bradley Hughes has been director of the writing center since and director of writing across the curriculum since His most recent publication, co-authored with colleagues, focuses on writing center podcasts Writing Lab Newsletter, Although many people will associate using numbers and statistics with logos, logos also includes logic and reasoning. In this way, logos appeals can be more subtly communicated.
Note that logos appeals are different from logical fallacies, which contain flawed reasoning or logic and should be avoided. The survey itself is deliberately open-ended and flexible because we wanted to give alumni room to respond in ways we could never anticipate, and because we want colleagues who participate in the PWTARP to replicate or adapt our survey design to their own institutions and to their own research goals.
We tried to design open-ended questions that would elicit full responses, not too scripted, we hoped, by the questions. Unlike logos, pathos appeals rely heavily on emotional manipulation. Pathos can trigger any kind of emotions in the reader ranging from sadness to anger.
These appeals are particularly effective in terms of connecting with the audience, and giving the message a personal and relatable touch. Hughes, Bradley, et al. UN Women. They are often used in speech writing and advertising to sway the audience. Aristotle used these three terms to explain how rhetoric works:.
The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [ethos]; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos]; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself [logos]. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. Ethos sometimes called an appeal to ethics , then, is used as a means of convincing an audience via the authority or credibility of the persuader, be it a notable or experienced figure in the field or even a popular celebrity.
Pathos appeal to emotion is a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response to an impassioned plea or a convincing story. Logos appeal to logic is a way of persuading an audience with reason, using facts and figures. Examples of ethos can be shown in your speech or writing by sounding fair and demonstrating your expertise or pedigree:. Using logos as an appeal means reasoning with your audience, providing them with facts and statistics, or making historical and literal analogies:.
Examples of pathos can be seen in language that draws out feelings such as pity or anger in an audience:. Understanding the different aspects of rhetoric will make you more aware of what goes into creating a persuasive argument.
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