The three ancient Greece means of persuasion as discussed by Aristotle are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Ethos, the persuasive element of a person’s character that establishes their oratory credibility. This means that there past experience in their work is what qualifies them to instruct an audience on a topic. For example, a doctor has years of educational training and medical expertise and that’s what qualifies them to diagnose illness and prescribe treatments. This satisfies the Ethos element because the individual qualified themselves to instruct his/her patients in a medical fashion. Pathos, an appeal to emotion and a way to convince an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response. An example of this would be if my friend was about to be the last person to register for classes, and I told him if he was the last person he would look irresponsible to everyone to get him to register. This example works because by telling my friend he will look irresponsible it will likely trigger an emotional response from him and get him to sign up. Logos, an appeal to logic, convincing an audience of an argument by way of reason. An example would be, “History has shown that the more power a politician has the more likely they are to be corrupt”. This works because its a statement based off a real-life trend not based off speculation. Context is extremely relevant when it comes to choosing a persuasive appeal, as a person I feel as if the choosing is more based off the perspective of the audience you are trying to persuade. If I wanted to persuade someone to trust me, I would choose the Ethos model. If I wanted someone react emotionally to my persuasion I would choose the Pathos model. Finally if I wanted to persuade someone of something that they believe is untrue I would use the Logos model to persuade them through reason and not just my own opinion.
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