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Now that you have learned about the different modes of persuasion and their uses and seen some ethos, pathos, and logos analysis in action, it’s time to see how our student is doing with her argumentative essay process. Let’s look at how she plans to appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos in her essay.
Watch as our student explores her choices and what strategies she thinks will be most convincing.
We’ve been reading about Aristotle and learning all about the modes or persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos in our class. Because I want to think about my appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos as I do my research, I have made some notes, and I have a few sources to get me started.
First with ethos. Because I need to have credibility I want to have credible sources, so I’m starting with this source. This article, entitled “Sorting Through the Science on Marijuana: Facts, Fallacies, and Implications for Legalization,” is written by a medical doctor and is really even and clear and full of research, so I think this is going to add to my credibility and my ethos.
For my pathos or my appeals to emotions, I’m going to focus on the number of people incarcerated for marijuana, and maybe tell some of their stories to really trigger that emotional impact. I’m using this site from the ACLU as a source, which talks about the high number of people arrested for marijuana. But, I also need to be careful because I found another source that makes me reconsider actually how many people actually end up in prison for marijuana. So, I’m going to have to look carefully at this, but I think this element is going to be key to an emotional appeal for my audience.
Finally, in terms of thinking about my logos, or my logic of my argument, I’m going to be working on making a comparison to alcohol, which is legal. This means I need to research alcohol issues, such as addiction and negative impacts, but I also am going to come back to this source because this also makes those connections in some of the research for me. I think talking about the science of marijuana and the science of alcohol is going to help me make a nice, strong, logical case in my paper.