

Alex
Reading time
5 minutes
You may not know it but you need logos, ethos, pathos, and even kairos to come up with a good essay. Basically, these things, also called modes of persuasion, ethical strategies, or rhetorical appeals, can help you convince your audience and support your arguments. These four elements of persuasion were even described by Aristotle in his Rhetoric, and he definitely knew how to be persuasive. Now you can get a short summary of the ancient philosopher's research and use his knowledge in your favor!
So, what are logos, ethos, and pathos? You can see them as three elements of an effective persuasive message, which can come in handy for your argumentative essay. You're using them already, there's no doubt, but you're just doing it unknowingly for now. But by knowing them well and using them purposefully you can get as convincing and confident as by using a professional rhetorical approach. Also, knowing the structure of your persuasion will improve the structure of your speech overall, both written and spoken. So get to know logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos better.
Logos is the persuasive technique appealing to the rational part. It's related to the facts you use to support your argument and make your idea look more attractive to the audience. Logos is usually called a "logical appeal", and it comes in the form of the citation of statistics, facts, charts, graphs, etc. It makes your statement more reliable and legit by using undoubtful things that can be checked and measured.
There are different rational modes of thinking to use, here are some examples:
Let’s pretend you need to write an argumentative essay reflecting global warming. Here are some examples of logos you can use to make your arguments stronger.
Ethos is another important brick in the wall of your persuasion, it appeals to your character and evaluates your opinion in terms of your trustworthiness. It relies on your credibility as a speaker and decreases or increases the level of trust that the audience has towards you depending on how reliable you are as a source. Ethos is not only related to your own authority and achievements but also to the values or ideologies that your potential listener or reader may share.
There are several ways to show people your credibility, such as:
Let’s continue with your discussion paper on global warming. Here are some examples of ethos that can support your argument.
Pathos focuses your audience's attention on their emotions and how your writing corresponds with them. It appeals to such things as empathy, imagination, feelings, fears, etc. Combined with two other modes, this emotional one can help you build a strong argument that will convince any audience that you're right.
Here are some examples of what can help you:
As we keep going with your imaginary discussion essay about global warming, let's see what pathos examples can be useful.
This one is way less-used but still present. Kairos stands for "right time". And it basically refers to the optimal moment to take action. You can make your claim stronger by building a connection between your position and the actual situation you and your audience are in right now. Your logos, ethos, and pathos need to be served in a perfect moment to strike effectively, and that's when kairos comes into play.