Rhetorical Appeals 

Appeals are rhetorical devices used to help persuade an audience. Appeals do not necessarily make an argument credible; however, they can make the argument more relatable or believable.

Socratic Appeals

Ethos - offers the audience evidence that he or she is credible. The communicator attempts to prove that he or she is well-informed about the topic at hand and that he or she is a good person with the audiences’ best interests in mind. This type of appeal may use testimonials, specialists, or God as support for his or her work.

Logos - offers the audience a clear, reasonable idea developed through reasoning and logic. This type of appeal may use reasoned examples, details and/or statistics.

Pathos - draws on the audience’s emotions so they will be sympathetic to the communicator’s ideas.

Targeted Appeals (that fall under the umbrella of ethos, logos or pathos):

Altruism - appeals to an audience’s sense of goodness or morality.

Anger - appeals to an audience’s sense of anger, outrage or hate.

Fear - appeals to an audience’s fears or anxieties.

Flag-waving or patriotic - appeals to an audience’s sense of patriotism.

Intelligence - appeals to an audience’s reasoning or wisdom.

Plain Folk - appeals to the experiences of the common man.

Snob - appeals to an audience’s taste for the finer, and usually unobtainable, things in life.

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Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies are ideas with flawed reasoning. While logical fallacies are present in many argumentative works, they can destroy the writer’s credibility and weaken an argument.

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Ad hominem - A personal attack of an individual instead of the issue at hand.

Bandwagon - Urges the audience to accept a position because a majority of people already do.

Begging the question (or circular thinking) - Assumes the idea you are trying to prove as being true

Cause/Effect -- Assumes that the effect is related to a cause because the events occur together.

Either/or thinking (or false dilemma) - Implies that one of two negative outcomes is inevitable.

Equivocation - Allows a key word or term in an argument to have different meanings during the course of the argument

Generalization - Bases an inference on too small a sample as the basis for a broader generalization.

Non Sequitur (or “does not follow) - Irrelevant reasons are offered to support a claim

Red herring - Introduces a topic unrelated to the claim.

Slippery slope - Assumes a chain reaction of events which result in a terrible outcome.

Straw man - States an opponent’s argument in an exaggerated form, or attacking a weaker, irrelevant portion of an opponent’s argument.