Pathos
Pathos is the Greek word "suffering" or "experience." It focuses attention on the values and beliefs of the intended audience, appealing to their emotions in order to persuade them to believe in an argument.
Pathos asks a few main questions: -How can I make the reader open minded to my points? -How can I appeal to my readers values and interests? -How can I engage my reader through emotions and imagination? |
For our purposes, there are five main types of pathos. These include emotional appeals, concrete examples of data (putting a face on the data), appropriate language for a given audience, recognition of audience’s values and beliefs, and direct appeals to the audience.