Things You Should Know: Rhetoric
Episode 09
Are you trying to convince your parents to get a dog? Or your students to do their homework? Never fear! Professor Pipes has the answer for you: rhetoric! In this episode, she discusses ethos, pathos, and logos, including explanation and examples. Hope you enjoy the art of persuasion!
Transcript
Welcome to another “Things You Should Know” episode of Piper’s Paraphrases. I’m Professor Pipes, and I’m here to talk about rhetoric.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion… ok, well persuasive writing and speaking. Rhetoric has been discussed and studied for centuries, with famous fans like Aristotle and Plato. No, not Pluto, Cooper. I’m not looking to get sued, here! I mean, it makes sense that it’s so popular, since it seems like everyone is trying to sell something, from their political agenda to the tastiest cheeseburger, to their cousin’s handmade jewelry on Etsy, so, people want to be persuasive. And as it turns out, you can persuade people in lots of different ways. Specifically, rhetoric can be divided into three different categories: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Ethos is Greek for “character.” This type of rhetoric involves the speaker or writer making themselves out to be a person of good morals and character. Ethos is easy to remember because it sounds like ethics, and it’s all about the speaker seeming ethical. Basically, if you think that a person is ethical and has good morals, you’re more likely to trust and listen to them. Ethos looks like a cliche used car salesman telling you they really like you, so they’re going to give you a great deal on a preowned Chevy, or a politician saying they feel very sorry about a tragedy that occurred and all the people affected. Maybe what they’re saying really is true, buuuuuut it’s also playing off the fact that we trust people whom we like. And we like people who seem respectable, qualified, and nice.
While ethos is about the speaker, pathos is all about you. Specifically, your emotions. If you want an easy way to remember that, think of the word sympathy. Sym means together, and pay-thaws is emotions, so sympathy means a togetherness of emotions. Anyway, pathos is all about manipulating your emotions, to make you feel really excited or scared or angry, so you’ll be persuaded into doing what the speaker wants you to do. This can look like a teacher acting really hyped up and peppy to get you excited about a lesson, or an advertiser describing the horrible, terrible things that will happen if you don’t buy their products. Pathos can also include using buzzwords that get a rise out of people, like talking about a threat to one’s “rights.” While we like to think that we make logical decisions, we are definitely motivated by our emotions more than we probably want to admit. I mean, I didn’t eat a pint of ice cream last night because of the health benefits…
Anyway, let’s move on to logos. Logos involves the use of logic and reasoning to persuade your audience. It’s pretty easy to remember, since logos and logic sound alike. Logos might look like data, facts, and figures. It might involve charts and diagrams. It can also involve a logical argument, like if A = B, and B = C, then A = C. I know, I know. I’m supposed to be talking about English, not math, but they both involve logic. However, logos does not necessarily mean that you’re giving true information, just because it’s logical. For example, if I said, “Sugar comes from a plant, and plants are healthy, and therefore you should eat lots of sugar with every meal because it’s healthy!” I would be lying to you. Sadly. I used a logical argument, though. Sugar. Plants. It seems rational, if you don’t think too hard about it.
You see? That’s the thing about rhetoric. It’s all about how it’s put to use. You can try to persuade people to do good things, but you can also use these methods of persuasion to try to trick and manipulate people. Well, at least now you’ll have a better understanding of the methods that other people might be using against you!
That’s all for this “Things You Should Know” episode of Piper’s Paraphrases. As always, thanks for watching. Now go forth, read a bunch, and be good people.
