Writing Professionally for the public includes a lot of what Plato would consider rhetoric. My personal definition of rhetoric aligns itself with the persuasive definition it used to have. Whether you are writing reviews, advertisements, or even informational pamphlets a rhetoric is extremely important. To inform people you have to either reinforce their current opinion, create one, or change their bias (all of those involve persuasion). Writing for a private audience, the writer normally does not feel the need to persuade them. Usually private audiences are small and known. A public audience is broad and normally a big group. When you have a big professional or public audience, it is up to the writer to define the target and secondary audience. Those audiences normally include specific demographics of who will be the biggest listeners/viewers of the content, also called a “Discourse Community” (Bowden & Scott, 2003). As Bowden and Scott had explained, to get a good rhetoric for your work, the writer must be connected to the audience and the subject (rhetorical triangle). The “text”, which is in the center of the rhetorical triangle, connects to each part of the triangle. The using the subject and the audience you can determine the type of vocabulary, the tone, and the format for your writing that will be best for that target audience.
Rhetorical Appeals (Bowden & Scott, 2003) such as ethos, logos, and pathos are a big part of your professional or public writing. Ethos has a big impact on people who write for and represent their specific company and their beliefs (which normally already has a tone and personality of its own). Ethos helps build a companies reputation and credibility. Pathos is really big for advertising because its purpose is to hit people’s emotions. Many advertises use a victim technique which makes people sad and want to buy things to help. There is a comedy aspect that makes consumer’s feel as though they are friends with the company. Even some car insurance companies have mascots that are supposed to be like a father figure making young people feel comfortable and want to use those companies as their first insurance. Last but not least, we have logos. Logos would be the reasoning for why someone should do what you say. For instance, non profits use logos to sway people for donations. The use of statistics and why you should help make a big bump in donations. Rhetoric Appeals and the Rhetoric Triangle and big things to consider with public writing.
Last week I wrote about immigration. To write for the public with immigration you would really have to consider the Rhetoric Triangle. Due to a big opinion difference with this topic through generations, you would have to decide which audience you want to include and the specific type of text and the detailed parts of the subject to get their attention. Interactive public activities and online resources with specific comedic and friendly language would be best for a younger audience. A victimizing situation on TV or direct mail would be a better choice for an older crowd. After you decide your audience and text, thinking about the Rhetoric Appeals and how you will want to use logos, pathos, and ethos would be your next step. With a public issue such as immigration, women’s rights, and the opioid epidemic the professional writer would need to think about which direction they want to go in. Logos would include statistic which can be a big influencer and a big way to persuade and use rhetoric. Ethos would make people feel emotional and want to help or at least learn about the cause. Pathos would be how you act and resemble your cause. Using a combination of the three as well as keeping in mind your target and secondary audiences and the correct texts for them would result most likely in a positive manner for your cause.
Interesting point about persuasion and informing. Do we ever not try to persuade? Hmm. I go back and forth on this. What do you think? Also, I notice you use “emotional” toward end to describe ethos…are ethos and pathos sometimes hard to separate? Or for that matter, are they all like that?
I think emotion and personality (ethos vs pathos) are separate entities however they can definitely cross into each other. As for persuasion, I think we aren’t necessarily always trying to persuade because we aren’t always stating our opinions or ideals, but when we do, there is a big part of the conversation that includes stating your side and why you believe so which could be included in persuasion.
I found your article very interesting and liked how you separated it into paragraphs depending on what logistics you were talking about. In conjunction with your comment above, I agree that pathos and ethos are separate entities, but many of times have similarities and are prone to overlapping in some instances. I liked when you mentioned that ethos has a personality of its own – where I too feel that it tries to gain credibility, but in order to do so it needs to appeal and connect with a specific audience. I find this to be where pathos and ethos overlap because you need to formulate a connection with your audience in order to establish a positive reputation. Once the reputation is build, then the techniques of persuasion can come into play.
Your pathos explanation made me think of a commercial where a military veteran was persuading the usage of veteran’s insurance. It began with a visual representation of a flag followed by the veteran interacting with his family in a happy, peaceful environment. I liked that your article simplified the highlights of Bowden and Scott’s interpretation of rhetoric and made me consider how frequent these personas of rhetoric are used all around us. Everyday rhetoric is used and now I am more self-aware to discover when ethos, pathos, and logos are directed toward me (as the audience).
I really enjoyed your perspective on the rhetorical appeals. I liked how you applied the concepts of ethos, pathos and logos to the stereotypical appeals that we are so used to seeing as members of the general audience. I would have to agree that while these appeals are all independent, they are definitely not mutually exclusive. As the Bowdon text briefly explained, these appeals can be used to develop one another. For example, logos when appealing to the appropriate audience, can strengthen the appeal to pathos, and vice versa. I immediately think of the ASPCA or Operation Smile commercials. The use of statistics about the number of lives saved by these organizations appeals to the emotions of the audience. Ultimately, in public writing, for these appeals to be deemed successful, the writer must accurately understand both their primary and secondary audiences.
I would have to disagree with some of your statements on persuasion. I think regardless of the size of our audience, we are always persuading on some level. We write/speak/ produce everything for a purpose, and most of these purposes can be boiled down to persuasive motives. As Bowdon explained, even instructions can be used to convince people that you have the most authority over the subject, whatever it might be. I believe that even personal writing can have a persuasive undertone. A journal entry about the “worst (or best day)of your life” will be written to convince you of that if you look back on that entry.