Ethos, pathos and logos: the three appeals with examples, and the rhetorical analysis essay

Ethos, pathos and logos are the three ways a text persuades: ethos through the speaker's character and standing (why you should trust me), pathos through the audience's feelings (why you should care), and logos through reasoning and evidence (why this follows). Most real texts use all three; the question for a reader is which carries the weight and how. Below are three short passages we wrote to show each appeal, the tells that identify them, and the rhetorical analysis essay that puts the words to work.

The three appeals in one line each

An appeal is a way of reaching a reader. The three Greek words name three routes.

• Ethos (from the Greek for character): the reader trusts the speaker, because of who they are, what they know, the values they share and how fairly they treat the other side.
• Pathos (from the word for feeling, or suffering): the reader is moved, by a scene, a person, a charged word, and the feeling makes them want the conclusion.
• Logos (from the word for word, or reason): the reader follows a chain of reasons and evidence and arrives at the conclusion because it follows.

One honest note. Aristotle's Rhetoric names three means of persuasion, through the character of the speaker, through the disposition of the audience and through the argument itself. The school version, three labelled appeals you can underline in a text, is a simplification of that, and a useful one. Treat it as a tool for reading, not a quotation from Aristotle.

The frame around all three is what the Academic Writing course calls the rhetorical situation, its first idea: who is speaking, to whom, on what occasion, to what end (Bitzer 1968 is the classic statement of it). The appeals are idea 2, the next thing you learn, because an appeal only makes sense inside a situation. The same scene read to a different audience needs a different appeal.

Three passages, one appeal each

The occasion is invented for this page: a Grade 12 student addressing a school board that is deciding whether to move the first bell to 9 am. Each passage is written to lean on one appeal; the survey figures inside the third are part of the invented speech and are not a finding of any kind.

Ethos. I have sat in the front row of first period for three years, and I run the student council's attendance survey. I am not here to ask for an easier day. I am here because the numbers we collected say something the timetable does not.

The tells: credentials (three years, the survey), a value the board shares (not wanting an easier day), and a disclaimer of self-interest. The board is being told why to trust the speaker before it hears a single argument.

Pathos. Picture the 7:05 bus. Half the seats are asleep against the window. The boy in the back has a shift until ten and a test at eight.

The tells: a scene, a particular person rather than a statistic, sensory detail, and the reader placed inside it ("picture"). Nothing is argued. The board is being made to feel something, and the feeling points at a real problem.

Logos. In our survey of 240 students, 61 % reported under seven hours of sleep on school nights. If the bell moved an hour, the second bus loop, which already runs at 8:40, would carry the same routes with no new vehicles.

The tells: numbers, a conditional (if the bell moved), a cause-and-effect chain (the loop exists, so no new buses). The board is being shown that the conclusion follows, and it could check every step.

Same speaker, same occasion, same audience, three different routes. The appeals differ by the choice the speaker makes, not by the topic.

How to tell them apart in a real text

The appeal	What to look for	The question to ask
Ethos	first person, credentials, shared values, a concession to the other side	Why should I trust this speaker?
Pathos	a scene, a particular person, charged words, direct address, sensory detail	What am I meant to feel, and does the feeling point at something true?
Logos	numbers, definitions, if-then chains, cause and effect, an example standing for a class	Does this follow?

The honest paragraph. A sentence can do two of these at once. The sleep statistic is logos on the page; read aloud to a worried parent, it is pathos as well. A good analysis does not tick boxes for "present" or "absent". It says which appeal carries the weight in that sentence for that audience, and how the others support it. "The speaker uses pathos" is an observation; "the speaker holds pathos to one scene so the board cannot dismiss her as emotional" is an analysis.

Kairos, the fourth word teachers add

Some courses add kairos, the Greek word for the right moment. It names timing and occasion: the same speech about a 9 am bell lands differently the week after a late-bus crash than it does in June, when nobody is thinking about mornings. A speaker who opens with "after what happened last Tuesday" is using kairos. It is a secondary idea on this page and in most courses, one paragraph and no more; the three appeals are the vocabulary a marker expects.

When an appeal becomes a fallacy

Each appeal has a failure mode, and the line between them is whether the appeal stands in for the reason or supports it.

• Pathos that replaces the reason is the appeal to emotion. Think of the exhausted child crying on the bus, and tell me the bell should not move. The honest version keeps the scene and adds the thing it points at: Half the students on that bus report under seven hours of sleep; the scene is what the number looks like.
• Ethos that is not relevant is the appeal to authority. A famous actor said teenagers need more sleep. Fame is not expertise. The honest version cites the people who have measured adolescent sleep, by what they measured.
• Logos with a broken step is a non sequitur. The bus leaves at 7:10, so students are failing first period. The missing step (what happens between the bus and the mark) is the argument. The honest version supplies it or drops the "so".

Pathos is not a fault. A feeling can point at something true, and an argument with no feeling in it persuades nobody. The fault is a feeling asked to do a reason's job. The full list of these failures, each committed and fixed, is the fifteen fallacies, each with its fix.

The rhetorical analysis essay: what it is

A rhetorical analysis essay analyses how a text persuades, not whether you agree with it. In the Academic Writing course it is idea 22, after citation and before the research paper, and it rests on idea 3, reading critically: summary, response and critique. In the United States it is one of the three free-response essays on the AP English Language exam, where you are given a nonfiction text and asked how the writer's choices serve a purpose; how to study for AP English Language has the exam's shape.

The frame, in our words and without any textbook's acronym: the speaker, the occasion, the audience, the purpose. Then the choices the speaker made (the appeals, the structure, the word choice, the examples) and the effect of each choice on that audience. Every paragraph of the essay is about a choice and its effect. Your opinion of the speaker's position does not appear.

The rhetorical analysis thesis

The weak thesis every marker has read: The speaker uses ethos, pathos and logos. It is a list, every speaker does, and nobody could disagree with it, so it fails the test in the thesis test.

The fix names which appeal carries the weight, for whom, and how: The speaker persuades a cautious school board mainly through logos, using the bus timetable to turn a health argument into a cost argument, and holds pathos to one scene so the board cannot dismiss her as emotional. A reader could disagree (perhaps the scene does the real work), it says what and why, and a 1,000-word essay could prove it from the text.

One analysed paragraph, worked

A body paragraph of ours, analysing our own logos passage. The four moves are marked in brackets so you can see them; in the essay the brackets come out.

The speaker's strongest move is to turn the proposal into arithmetic the board already understands [the choice]. "The second bus loop, which already runs at 8:40, would carry the same routes with no new vehicles" [the evidence, a phrase from the text] takes the one objection a transport committee is certain to raise and answers it before anyone raises it [the effect]. A board that spends most of its meetings on budgets is not persuaded by sleep science alone; it is persuaded by a line item that stays the same, and the speaker knows which room she is in [the audience]. The appeal is logos, but its force comes from where it is aimed.

Choice, evidence, effect, audience. Every quotation is a phrase, not a sentence, and it is cited the way any source is, by the text and its line or page; citing the text you analyse shows the form.

The mistakes a marker sees: summarising the text instead of analysing it (retelling what the speaker said); labelling without the effect ("this is pathos" and nothing after); quoting whole sentences, which drowns the point in someone else's words; and judging the speaker's position instead of the persuasion ("she is right that the bell should move" belongs in a different essay).

A plan for the essay in forty minutes

1. Read the text once for sense, then once marking the appeals and the choices. Five minutes, then seven. The second read is where the essay comes from.
2. Write the speaker, the occasion, the audience and the purpose, one line each. Three minutes.
3. Decide which appeal carries the weight for that audience and write the thesis. Five minutes. Run the three-question test on it.
4. One paragraph per major choice, strongest first, each with the choice, the evidence, the effect and the audience. Fifteen minutes. Each paragraph's first sentence is a topic sentence that names the choice; topic sentences and transitions has the shape.
5. The conclusion says what the choices add up to for that audience, not whether you agree. Three minutes.
6. Two minutes to check that every quotation is a phrase and every label has an effect after it.

The general essay order, from the question to the proofread, is the whole essay in order. Before you write, explain to someone in one breath which appeal carries the weight and why; if you cannot, read the text a third time. That is chapter 5 of the free playbook.

The three appeals on one screen

Three definitions. Ethos: trust in the speaker. Pathos: the audience's feeling. Logos: the reasoning and evidence.

Three questions. Why should I trust you? What am I meant to feel, and is it pointing at something true? Does this follow?

The thesis pattern. The speaker persuades [this audience] mainly through [the appeal], by [the choice], and uses [the other appeals] to [their supporting job].

The paragraph pattern. The choice; the evidence, as a phrase; the effect; why it fits the audience.