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.

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.

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.