Monday, January 30, 2012

Ethos and Pathos

Generally in an argument there are three general stances that one takes to get the most effectiveness out of their argument.  Ethos takes the stance of the speaker’s character to make their argument effective.  Pathos work on the emotions of others to create a strong argument, and Logos uses logic and reasoning to make a solid argument.  These are important because they are very general terms and can be used to almost any extent.  The effectiveness of each of these approaches is really based on your audience.  They can also be used in uniform for even more effective power.  Pathos that works solely on the emotions of others to get a point across would be more effective with family, and friends.  A good pathos argument is going to be something from the human society.  They want you to sympathize with the dog being locked up and feel bad that it is living like that. Pathos generally are used in advertisements, they cause pulse reactions and make you buy things before you really have the time to think about it.  There are a lot of different ways to attack or use emotions for example army commercials attack yourself conscious, they want you to feel weak and therefore the only way to be strong is to join the military. The other approach would be more of a guilty or sympathetic approach like stated before.  Ethos is also very important, but ethos is more biased towards the speaker.  Obviously a clown talking politics is not very effective and going to get many votes.  But if you stick someone like president Obama you’re going to get more of an audience appeal.  These arguments are generally really effective when the right person is arguing it. These arguments are generally more opinionated.  Ethos would be used more in a situation talking about a bill and why this is the right path to take.  It takes a strong character, with a lot of passion to make it work best. 



Monday, January 23, 2012

Inventing an Argument

Arguments are everywhere, and are used for just about everything.  It is a very useful tool when one can create a good argument.  There was even a job created around the ideal of arguments, a lawyer uses arguments for everything.  There are ways to make arguments more effective than others though.  That is how lawyer's win the trial.  An argument can be just a statement but it would be a very weak argument.  It is as easy as adding supporting information.  Supporting information will then be the basis of the argument and give the argument credibility.  An example of this would be the argument, "My phone is the best."  Now with an supporting information, "My phone is the best because it organizes my daily life, and allows me to do homework without carrying a bulky laptop."  Now the argument is much stronger.
The tone of the argument can also help the effectiveness of the argument.  If the argument sounds hasty or mean then one may take it the wrong way and reject it.  Some easy ways to make sure someone will listen is to make sure the argument is calm, and straight forward.  Asking your boss for a raise with a snobby voice is going to get you fired, but if you ask calmly and explain why you deserve it there is a much higher chance of success.

ideals for essay: