*IMPROVED* How to Write About Ethos, Pathos, & Logos (The BEST Way)!
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of the Garden of English, Tim Frus encourages viewers to refine their rhetorical skills by understanding and applying ethos, pathos, and logos effectively. He advises against using Greek terms in English essays, emphasizing the importance of precision and clarity. Tim provides examples to illustrate how to identify and articulate these appeals in writing, advocating for a nuanced approach that reflects the complexity of rhetoric. He also recommends resources to help viewers enhance their rhetorical analysis skills.
Takeaways
- 🌱 The video emphasizes the importance of growth in both physical stature and mental capacity, drawing parallels between learning new skills and understanding rhetorical concepts.
- 🎓 The presenter, Tim Frus, encourages viewers to reflect on their initial experiences learning new concepts, highlighting the transition from rudimentary to nuanced understanding.
- 📚 The video discusses the core concepts of ethos, pathos, and logos, which are central to rhetoric, but suggests that understanding the 'rhetorical situation' is a prerequisite.
- 🔍 The presenter advises against using Greek terms in English rhetorical analysis, advocating for clear and precise English expressions instead.
- 📖 It's noted that the College Board's AP Language course and exam description does not emphasize Greek terms, aiming to prevent over-reliance on these terms in teaching and exams.
- 👨🏫 Tim Frus, being part of the development team for the AP Language course and exam description, shares insider knowledge on the curriculum's intent.
- 📝 The video provides guidance on how to write precisely about rhetorical appeals, suggesting that vague terms like 'pathos' should be replaced with specific emotional appeals identified in the text.
- 🔗 Links to additional resources, including a video on the rhetorical situation and an exam prep guide, are provided in the video description for further learning.
- 🎯 The importance of precision in writing is underscored, with examples given to illustrate how to articulate specific rhetorical strategies without using Greek terms.
- 🤝 The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to improve their writing skills by avoiding Greek terms and focusing on clear, precise English.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the 'Garden of English' video presented by Tim Frus?
-The main theme of the video is the exploration of core concepts in rhetoric, specifically ethos, pathos, and logos, and how to properly conceptualize and discuss them in the context of rhetorical analysis without relying on the Greek terms themselves.
Why does Tim Frus suggest that understanding the rhetorical situation is crucial before discussing ethos, pathos, and logos?
-Tim Frus suggests that understanding the rhetorical situation is crucial because it provides the foundation for analyzing the function of ethos, pathos, and logos. Without comprehending the context of the speaker, audience, and message, it's difficult to accurately assess how these appeals are being used.
What is Tim Frus's stance on using Greek terms like ethos, pathos, and logos in English rhetorical analysis?
-Tim Frus is against using Greek terms like ethos, pathos, and logos in English rhetorical analysis. He believes that it's more effective to use English terms and be precise in describing the rhetorical strategies being employed.
Why does Tim Frus believe that the use of Greek terms in AP Language exams should be avoided?
-Tim Frus believes that Greek terms should be avoided in AP Language exams because the College Board's course and exam description does not include these terms, aiming to prevent teachers from overemphasizing them and students from feeling obligated to use them.
What is the connection between the English word 'ethics' and the Greek term 'ethos'?
-The English word 'ethics' shares the same root as the Greek term 'ethos', which refers to an appeal to a speaker's character or authority.
How does Tim Frus suggest improving the precision of writing about pathos in rhetorical analysis?
-Tim Frus suggests improving the precision of writing about pathos by identifying the specific emotions being evoked, the speaker making the appeal, and the choice made by the speaker to elicit those emotions.
What is the advice given for writing about ethos in a rhetorical analysis essay?
-The advice for writing about ethos is to pinpoint the speaker, articulate the actual choice made by the speaker to build character, and describe the specific character being built, rather than using vague terms.
Can ethos and logos overlap in their effects according to Tim Frus?
-Yes, according to Tim Frus, ethos and logos can overlap in their effects. He gives an example of a toothpaste advertisement where the recommendation by dental professionals serves both to build the company's character as trustworthy and to highlight the logical choice for consumers.
What is the importance of precision in writing about emotional appeals, as emphasized by Tim Frus?
-The importance of precision in writing about emotional appeals is to clearly identify the specific emotion being targeted, as opposed to using broad terms that do not convey the intended effect or analysis accurately.
What resources does Tim Frus recommend for further understanding of burying ethos, pathos, and logos?
-Tim Frus recommends graphic resources created by his friend Katie Storms, which are linked in the video description, to help viewers understand how to effectively write about these concepts without using the Greek terms.
Outlines
🌱 Introduction to Rhetorical Growth and Concepts
Tim Frus from the Garden of English introduces the video by reflecting on human growth, both physical and mental. He draws a parallel between learning new concepts and developing skills over time, such as playing a sport or an instrument. Tim emphasizes the journey from beginner to mastery and encourages viewers to embrace the learning process. He sets the stage for discussing core concepts in rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos. However, he argues that understanding the 'rhetorical situation' is more fundamental. Tim suggests that viewers watch another video for an introduction to rhetorical situations before diving into the Greek terms. He also promotes his exam prep guide for AP English students and encourages viewers to engage with the video by liking, subscribing, and accessing the description for more resources.
📚 The Importance of Precision in Rhetorical Analysis
In this section, Tim addresses the common mistake of using Greek terms like ethos, pathos, and logos in English rhetorical analysis. He argues against this practice, suggesting that using English terms is more appropriate and clearer for understanding. Tim provides insights from the AP Language course and exam description, noting that these terms are not emphasized in the official curriculum. He shares his experience from the development of the course and exam description, explaining the intentional exclusion of Greek terms to avoid overemphasis. Tim then moves on to discuss the overlap and complexity of rhetorical appeals, using examples to illustrate how ethos, pathos, and logos can be intertwined in real-world scenarios. He critiques vague writing and provides guidance on how to write more precisely about these appeals, emphasizing the need to identify the speaker, the choice made, and the intended effect on the audience.
📝 Writing Precisely About Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
Tim continues his discussion on the proper approach to writing about ethos, pathos, and logos without using the Greek terms directly. He provides examples of how to articulate the concepts clearly and effectively in English. For ethos, he uses a toothpaste advertisement as an example, showing how the brand builds its character as reliable and effective without stating the term 'ethos'. Similarly, for logos, he demonstrates how the advertisement's claim of being recommended by dental professionals can be tied to both ethos and logos, showcasing the overlap between the appeals. Tim stresses the importance of precision in writing to convey a clear understanding of the rhetorical strategies used. He also mentions resources by Katie Storms that help visualize these concepts and encourages viewers to access these for free in the video description.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Rhetoric
💡Ethos
💡Pathos
💡Logos
💡Rhetorical Situation
💡AP English
💡Precision
💡Appeal
💡Character Judgments
💡Modes of Persuasion
💡Emotional Spectrum
Highlights
Emphasizes the importance of understanding rhetoric as a human growth process.
Introduces the concept of applying new concepts in a rudimentary form and growing to see complexity.
Advocates for the understanding of rhetorical situation before delving into ethos, pathos, and logos.
Suggests that the rhetorical situation is foundational to the study of rhetoric.
Provides a link to a video that explains the rhetorical situation in detail.
Recommends avoiding the use of Greek terms in English rhetorical analysis.
Points out that the College Board's AP Language course description avoids Greek terms.
Shares personal involvement in the development of the AP Language course and exam description.
Advises against using vague language when discussing rhetorical appeals.
Explains the English equivalents of ethos, pathos, and logos and their relevance.
Stresses the need for precision in writing about rhetorical appeals.
Provides examples of how to write precisely about pathos in rhetorical analysis.
Discusses the overlap of rhetorical appeals and the importance of recognizing this in analysis.
Gives a detailed example of how to write about ethos without using the term.
Demonstrates how to write about logos by connecting it with ethos in a toothpaste advertisement example.
Encourages the use of precise English over Greek terms for a clearer rhetorical analysis.
Offers resources from Katie Storms for further understanding of burying ethos, pathos, and logos.
Ends with an encouragement to learn to write effective rhetorical analysis essays.
Transcripts
welcome folks this is the garden of
English and I'm Tim frus I want to take
a moment and reflect on being a human
with you all as humans we not only grow
in our stature but also in Our Minds
when we first learn new Concepts we
typically apply them in a rudimentary
form but as we practice them we begin to
see greater complexity and Nuance think
about the first time that you ever
learned to play a sport or an instrument
you started with the basics but through
practice and application you learn to
fluidly blend techniques what seemed to
be so hard but became significantly
easier over time and I'm willing to bet
that if you look back on the times when
you were a beginner you might even be
embarrassed to think of how you were but
I want you to picture today's video like
these times in your life when you learn
something new and I want to talk about
some Core Concepts that you must
understand when it comes to discussing
rhetoric but I also want to give you
some advice about how to start building
your skill set so that by the end of
this video you'll be able to cast off
your old rhetorical self and put on the
new one today we're going to explore how
you can properly conceptualize ethos
posos and logos while on your journey to
rhetorical Enlightenment often when
rhetoric is introduced people start with
these three terms I don't really support
this position here's why in order to
really understand these Concepts it's
actually more important to know how to
analyze What's called the rhetorical
situation first without understanding
what the rhetorical situation is or what
comprises it it's incredibly hard to
analyze the function of the three Greek
terms that I've previously mentioned
mentioned now this video is not about
the rhetorical situation so if you want
to gain some introductory experience
with what should be the foundation of
your rhetorical studies you'll want to
check out my video that does that and it
looks like this it's also linked in the
description right below this video of
course as you trk down to the
description you can feel free to hit
that like button and the Subscribe
button and the channel member button and
the super thanks button clicking any of
those while you're venturing to access
the description will not only help us as
we work to reach our goal of 10 million
subscribers are you serious but it will
also get Garden of English content out
to others just like you by the way in
the description you'll also find a link
to my exam prep guide that will help you
earn high marks in your AP English class
and a qualifying score on your exam
since it covers all of the content that
you need to know for the course and it
includes plenty of multiple choice
practice and practice exams and other
self-study materials it even includes
content that aligns with AP US History
units anyway let's say that you've
already taken care of learning about the
rhetorical situation and the content
that's involved with that I know I got
it I got the concept now it's time to
address the major problem with using
these three classical Greek terms in
your writing when you write a rhetorical
analysis I want you to think about what
class you are learning all of these
terms in English class here's the issue
why would you want to use Greek when you
can use English I don't know or if
you're an AP L student do you think it
would be best to use Greek on your
English test yeah no but I'm not just
just saying all of this because I'm
trying to be discriminatory I'm actually
giving you this advice for two reasons
first in the AP Lan course and exam
description which is the guide that the
College Board provides teachers so they
can prepare you for the course and the
APL exam you will never find any of
these Greek terms that I've listed the
only illusion to ethos pathos and logos
you will find shows up in unit 2 in the
Essential Knowledge portion where the
CED recognizes that students need to
know that arguments seek to persuade or
motivate actions through appeals the
modes of persuasion those modes of
persuasion are ethos pathos and logos
notice how those words are not used in
the actual guiding document for the
course these words purposefully were not
included when the curriculum Frameworks
were being built this was so that
teachers wouldn't harp on such terms in
their classrooms and so that students
wouldn't feel obligated to write these
words when completing a rhetorical
analysis essay especially on their exams
you may be wondering how I would know
this information I what
I'll tell you see how my name is in the
acknowledgements at the front of the
College Board issued course and exam
description for this class I was
involved in parts of its development and
I know some of the conversations that
happened around not including those
Greek terms wait did I just make an
appeal to Authority that would logically
support my claim so does that mean that
I used ethos and logos right there well
technically yes but I'd never ever want
to word like that no especially in a
rhetorical analysis essay whether it's
on exam day or otherwise so let's figure
out what we should do when writing about
ethos posos and logos ethos in English
means an appeal to a speaker's character
or authority our English word ethics
shares the same root of the word ethos
and when you consider if a person is
ethical you often make character
judgments posos means an appeal to an
audience's emotions our word pathetic
shares the same root as posos and if you
think of how many times you've ever used
the word pathetic even if you thought
you were using it to mean simple or
stupid the event you were considering
pathetic was probably highly emotional
in nature man you are one pathetic
loser now logos means an appeal to logic
and the reasonability of a speaker's
message logic logos I think that's
reasonable enough I agree now I provided
these definitions because inside of them
you'll need to notice that elements of
the rhetorical situation are included
speaker audience and message must be
intrinsically understood in order to
even conceptualize how these terms
relate to what you are rhetorically
analyzing thus as I've already mentioned
it's important to make sure that you can
identify and describe elements of the
rhetorical situation before jumping into
the Greek what's also important is that
you know that while you experience
varied readings speeches advertisements
and conversations and you begin to
recognize these Concepts in action these
Greek appeals often overlap with one
another so I'm thrilled that you may
notice an appeal to character or an
appeal to emotions or an appeal to the
reasonability of something but you'll
have to expand your mind and realize
that these appeals are seldom isolated
English is like nesting dolls not
individualized boxes what I mean is that
something can be an ethical appeal an
emotional appeal and a logical appeal
all at the same time or they can be
entirely separate I know that this may
seem complex but this is the growing
process that I mentioned at the
beginning of the video when you learn
something new so let's look at some
examples where we can identify some of
the appeals and then let's learn how to
more precisely write about them even at
the AP reading in May and June after
students have taken a full year of AP
laying I often read sentences like the
following in rhetorical analysis essays
check these out the author uses posos to
appeal to the audience's emotions or the
author uses posos to pull on the heart
strings of the audience unfortunately
although students think they are
actually writing something they're not
what the prior sentences actually say is
that the author uses emotions to appeal
to the audience's emotions thank you
Captain obvious congratulations you've
said
nothing now I get it if you've ever
written a sentence like this I'm
thrilled that you may have noticed that
the speaker was trying to get the
audience to be emotional but you need to
be more precise good writing is
precision writing so here's what you're
going to want to do in order to make
this sentence significantly better first
you want to ditch the word use because
that's a terrible verb for a rhetorical
choice you can also find out more about
rhetorical choices in the unit 2 videos
in my exam prep guide and second you
want to actually identify every vague
element of your sentence and make it
more precise and concrete so let's
pretend that we had just watched an
ASPCA commercial you know those
commercials about animal rights imagine
we've just heard the song in the minor
key and we've seen all the mangled dogs
and cats and all those things like that
well sure the commercial was meant to
make people emotional but you need to be
precise and identifying what in the
commercial actually happens and what
emotion is meant to be evoked instead of
using the generic the author uses pathos
to appeal to emotions you'd want to
precisely identify the speaker who
happens to be the ASPCA you want to
precisely identify the choice of the
speaker which would be consistently
including pictures of abused animals and
then you'd want to precisely identify
the emotion or emotions that these
pictures should be evoking in the viewer
in this case these emotions would be
sorrow and pity so to write about posos
which is an umbrella term we want to
actually articulate this the ASPCA
consistently includes pictures of abused
animals which moves those viewing the
commercial to feel sorrow and pity good
work did I say posos in that sentence
absolutely not did I just write about it
really well you bet by the way if you
want to see the ASPCA commercial that
I'm referring to it's linked in the
description now one last thing here it's
important that you realize why you need
to be precise when writing about
emotional appeals think about the broad
spectrum of emotions that exist you have
the positive ones like love and joy and
the negative ones like hatred and fear
and you have everything in between even
more neutral ones like in we when you
just say POS or the word emotional how
am I supposed to know which emotion
you're actually talking about on such a
wide spectrum now why would I know that
I can't so you have to actually write
about what you mean okay let's move on
to ethos at the AP reading I often see
sentences that read like this the
speaker uses ethos to build his or her
character okay so once again what this
really means is that the speaker appeals
to his or her character to build his or
her character yeah this sounds so so
stupid get ready everybody he's about to
do something stupid and because you're
not stupid I don't want you to sound
that way to make this more precise I
need to pinpoint a speaker articulate
the actual Choice the speaker makes to
build his or her character and I need to
actually articulate what the character
is that's being built let's think about
a toothpaste advertisement if nine out
of 10 dentists recommend a particular
brand in this case sedine is sedine
building its character as the best fast
food chain absolutely not is sadine
building its character as a company
that's a trustworthy babysitter no the
character that sensed is building is
based on being the best most reliable
toothpaste on the market so to precisely
write about ethos here it would look
like this sadine promotes how highly
recommended the brand is amongst Dental
Professionals in order to Showcase that
they produce the most reliable and
effective toothpaste on the market yeah
that sentence rocks it's about the
concept of ethos but I never said the
term okay let's move on to logos now
when I see students writing imprecisely
about logos I often see sentences like
this the speaker uses logos in order to
show how reasonable his or her argument
is okay this is incredibly vague I don't
get it I need to identify the speaker
the choice and the actual claim of the
speaker in order to write about this as
precisely as I need to I'm going to
actually shoot back to the toothpaste ad
I just referenced in my ethos discussion
to model this one I'm doing this because
I need you to realize that these appeals
of often overlap and so do their effects
I can actually use the same choice but
tie it not only to a character-based
effect but also a logical one look at
this sadine promotes how highly
recommended the brand is amongst Dental
Professionals in order to highlight how
reasonable it is for individuals to
choose their toothpaste over all other
options The Logical most reasonable
choice for people who care about their
teeth is for them to use sadine assuming
that N9 out of 10 Dental professionals
do actually recommend it like the ad
says notice here that there's an overlap
between the data and how it functions in
relation to the umbrella concepts of
ethos and logos so in order to
accurately showcase my understanding of
the concepts and the Nuance between them
I'll need to bury using those Greek
terms and I'll have to write out what I
really mean in precise English my
brilliant friend Katie storms has some
excellent graphic resources about
burying ethos pathos and logos and you
can find these images and tips linked up
for free in the description of this
video I appreciate not not only her work
but her willingness to share these
Resources with you all I'm not telling
you not to know what ethos pathos and
logos are but I am telling you that you
need to adjust how you think about these
Concepts and how you write about them
and once you get used to this you can
learn to write incredibly effective full
rhetorical analysis essays by checking
out what's about to pop up right on your
screen
[Applause]
[Music]
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