How do you use the rhetorical appeals of ethos pathos logos?The ideas of ethos pathos logos are ever present in our lives. So, it should be no hard task to incorporate these rhetorical devices into our writing repertoires. By perusing the qualities that each of these devices entails, we are able to write persuasively, emotionally, logically, and even credibly. We want to impress upon our readers the instinctual ability that we have to shower them with our creative genius and make them realize that anything they want to know we can offer them through the written word. Click for Free Writer's Block Help E-Zine and Free E-Book Do not fall under the assumption that the incorporation of ethos pathos and logos into our rhetorical arguments, logical writing, and other writing rhetoric will be difficult. If we are confident in our writing and hold true to the strength of our convictions that we are writing purposeful, relatable stories, poetry, etc., we will not have any trouble at all piecing it all together. When writing ethos, we must rely on the credibility of our character as the author of the piece, but also on the credibility of the characters we are creating for our readers. Your readers must be able to feel drawn to your characters, your dialogue, and your overall plot in order for the writing to be sustainable. In that way, we will be sure to not give way to despondent readers who are unsure why they are continuing to read our work. In terms of pathos, without first having ethos, the emotional nature of our characters, our stories, and our overall work is for naught. We need to base everything off of the credibility we truly have. Then and only then can we lead into the idea of emotional writing. We can concentrate on our readers and how we can make them feel drawn to our characters and the writing that lies below the surface features of the general work. Think about E.T. as an example. When Steven Spielberg, the cast, and the crew of the movie wrote the screenplay and created the characters, they had to find a way for viewers to relate to and emotionally invest themselves in an extraterrestrial creature who looked strange but was quite interesting in his own way. Henry Thomas, the boy who played Elliott and found E.T., thought back on the movie twenty years after it had been made, saying that E.T. had kind eyes, which made him warm to the puppet quicker than he could have ever imagined himself doing so. Just that word – puppet – impresses upon those who have seen the movie and identified with its themes that we truly reveled in the emotional connection between E.T. and Elliott, because E.T. was no puppet to us. He was a part of our culture, our world, our emotional make-up. The themes he was built upon were real to us, and therefore, so was he. The concepts behind writing pathos have to do with emotional connectivity. That is where character mapping can come into play. We must not only have already built our ethos – the credibility upon which everything else will stand to reason – but we must be able to solicit emotional responses from our readers through various appeals. You know when you are invested in a piece of writing or a movie you are watching. You feel happy, sad, curious, etc. along with the characters and the plots. You want to know what will happen next in order that you can be taken on an emotional ride wherein the writer of the work has allowed you to see the logical writing rhetoric that he or she has employed. Feeling compassion and warmth or hatred and angst toward certain characters and storylines are not bad ways to feel. There are people who will tell you that the characters and stories aren’t real. Sometimes they are, of course, in nonfiction writing. However, the best forms of fiction writing draw you in and create magical worlds for you to immerse yourself in. That is one of the most satisfying factors when reading an amazing piece of writing or watching the words come to life on-screen – feeling as though you are part of the action, adventure, drama, and humor that coexist within the author’s mind and the words on the page. The logos of a piece of writing becomes clear when the themes and ideas are all well reasoned and substantiated. Avoiding the use of fallacies in your writing is one way to go about ensuring the use of rhetorical logos. However, fallacies can sometimes prove the opposing perspective and shine light on great lessons that writers can present to their readers. For example, you can make all of your characters jump on the bandwagon and succumb to peer pressure by drinking at an underage party. This presents the opportunity to discuss morals, values, and the importance of abiding by the law. Also, you can have one of your characters constantly make hasty generalizations. The consistency of this character being so quick to jump to conclusions and make assumptions will potentially elicit the use of humor in your writing or it will make for a rather unlikeable character. The choice is yours in the way you write the character. If the character will be more interesting as an unlikeable, annoying nuisance who constantly berates others for what he deems their stupid decision-making skills, you might have a more interesting character; however, he or she will be one whom your readers will most likely love to hate. If the character will be more interesting as a Michael Scott type, a la The Office, who also does not have the best decision-making skills, but allows others (i.e. Dwight on The Office) to help ensure these bad decisions, you may be writing more of a comical romp.
Propose more ethos pathos and logos in your writing. See how these ideas can solidify your writing style and ensure not only credible writing, but logical and comprehensible ideas. Satisfy emotional connections between various characters, and also between your characters and your readers. However, if you don’t feel the ethos pathos and logos yourself as the writer, you can be quite sure that it will be harder for others to find. You must know and understand yourself and your writing before you can hope that others will find a connection with it. Once you have established your own connectivity, incorporate your readers into the mix and allow them to be pulled in to the amazing worlds that you create through your own style and flair for the written word.
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Be logical with your writing and don’t let yourself get caught up in too much crazy reasoning. Sometimes giving in to fallacies that will make for what you consider to be funnier, more captivating writing can be enjoyable, but if you find yourself going over the top and not being able to credibly say that any of the ideas you’re injecting into your writing can logically happen, you need to assess your writing and see what can be done. This will help ensure that more logos will be pronounced throughout it.