Rhetorical Situation and Appeals
Rhetorical Situation
As is true of all six components of a rhetorical situation, purpose is relationally bound to the other five. For instance, a deliverer’s ethos will be tied to purpose. Again, consider the hypothetical scenario in which a company has hired a consultant to improve its hiring practices in terms of diversity. In this situation, the consultant’s purpose is likely to inform and persuade, since they want the audience to change their hiring practices and to be enthusiastic about this change. To accomplish this, the consultant may focus on establishing an expert ethos, referencing outside experts, and/or persuading by using the ethos of someone who has benefited from similar changes.
A complete understanding of a project’s rhetorical situation requires that purpose, audience, and design should always be considered collectively when making decisions about a project. However, to help you explore each question thoroughly, let’s consider them separately, beginning with purpose.
As you can see, all the elements of PAD relate when assessing a rhetorical situation: assessing purpose requires assessment of audience and design.
Rhetorical Appeals
A rhetorical appeal is the formal way of talking about how you use different methods to persuade someone.
Let’s imagine you’re ten years old and you really want a new video game for your birthday. You approach three people: your dad, your mom, and your grandma.
- For your dad, you point out that you have been a very good student this year, you have done all your chores, and you are a very responsible youngster who deserves to have a new video game.
- For your mom, you argue that video games improve hand-eye coordination and studies have shown that video games improve problem-solving ability and critical thinking.
- For your grandmother, you point out that you are very cute and her favorite grandchild, and that you love her very much.
You just used three rhetorical methods: appealing to logic, appealing to and appealing to emotions. In formal rhetoric, this is called logos, ethos and pathos. No one type is better than the other; usually the most effective arguments — the ones most likely to persuade someone of something — use all three. See Ethos, Pathos and Logos[1] for more information.
However, at times, one appeal may be more appropriate for one audience over another.
A team of scientists is more likely to be persuaded by studies, research, and logical thinking, so it may be better to use logos. A prestigious university may be more likely to be persuaded by your character and credibility as a person, meaning it may be better to use ethos. And, like your grandmother, your family may be more likely to be swayed by emotions, using pathos.
Advertisements, academic papers, and even tweets may use these three appeals. A car advertisement may point out the safety record of its vehicle (logos), mention how long its brand has been around and its reputation (ethos), as well as discuss the importance of safety (pathos). All of them work together to persuade you to do something, whether that’s to buy something, do something, or feel something.
- http://georgehwilliams.pbworks.com/w/page/14266873/Ethos-Pathos-Logos-The-3-Rhetorical- Appeals ↵
