The basis of the rhetoric triangle was explained in the previous post, which was it being split into ethos, pathos, and logos yet what are these three devices? The use of these three have always been in many pieces of writing and each creating a way to connect to the reader or to get a point across. Learning about each of them can tell you when and where to place one of these devices.
Logos is one of the most beneficial ones out of the three. The reason behind why, is because logos uses facts and logic as a way to persuade the reader. Facts, as you may know, are truths that have been tested and have research backing it up while logic is using strong reasoning by taking in data and perceiving it. So in writing when the author uses logos it is hard to to fight against the persuaded text because of the truth it holds. Some examples of logos could be, "over the last 5 years studies have shown a 70% increase on student textbooks." The statistics help with rhetoric by applying facts that are hard to question.
In my book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, the use of logos were everywhere because of the authors persuasion on how applying flow(total focus on something) in an activity gives us a sense of discovery. "In our studies, we found that every flow activity, whether it involved competition,chance, or any other dimension of experience, had this in common: it provided a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality, it pushed the person to higher levels of performance, and led to previously undreamed-of states." In the beginning, "in our studies" is a giveaway that this is a logos because studies are experimentation's that lead to facts, and this fact applies to the study persuading you that, said previously,-flow activity provides the human body higher level of performance and discovery. Another argument the author portrayed was, how parent interaction when a child is young stays with them and creates what kind of person they are. To back up this claim Ms. Csikszentmihalyi told us a study done by her, "In one of our studies conducted at the University of Chicago..." Again, the use of "studies" shows that this sentence is a logos that is trying to persuade you with the statement.
Ethos, as stated is, "appeal of ethnics and it means convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader." Simply ethos means, the trustworthiness of the speaker, a good example would be, "Many teachers agree that summer assignments show that a student is able to take an AP course." The credibility is, "many teachers" because it trying to convince the reader that AP summer assignments are good because teachers agree with it.
In the beginning of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, credibility of the author, Ms. Csikszentmihalyi, was shown on the first page saying, "[Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi] has been researching optimal experiences of the human mind for 20 years." 20 years gives the credibility that Mihaly knows what she is talking about and gives an ethnic of how experience she is. Another example was shown in chapter four, "Although the Declaration of Independence may have been the first official political document it is probably true that no social system has ever stayed around that long." Using the Declaration of Independence, as an appeal of american ethnic, Ms. C (Csikszentmihalyi), questioned the credibility of other political documents.
The point of using pathos is creating an emotional connection or using stories to connect with the reader. Emotion is a great connection since it causes the reader to move, to feel sad, surprised, happy, etc. An example of a pathos would be, "after the rigorous punishment, Tom barely spoke again. this shows that child punishment is not the answer." The feeling of being punished connects with the reader and they feel what Tom must be feeling.
Many psychology books uses pathos because psychology is all about the body, brain, nerves, and feelings. i found many examples in just one chapter. "Christopher Burney, a prisoner of the nazis.... gave a typical example of this process." Christopher is the pathos connection because his story is being used to create an emotional connection while also the sentence is being used to persuade about the process of autotellic personality. Another example was about Tollas Tibor, " a poet who spent several years in solitary confinement during..." I decided to cut the text off since of its length but we can already see that Tollas's story is also being used as an emotional attachment to the subject. These are primary uses of pathos.
It seemed out of all three Ms. Csikszentmihalyi steered away mainly from using ethos. The reason why must be because using ethos does not always provide with truth and it is more of a guess rather such as, "many doctors believe sensodyne is the best toothpaste." Ethos are very opinion based and when writing a nonfictional book especially one of psychological research opinions should be kept out if it.
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