When drafting your papers, think about how the author appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos. Remember, your paper--regardless of the topic--is explaining how the author presents an argument. So, how does he use examples of each of these in the text to reach his readers?

Appeals to Ethos

Appeals to ethos are those discussions in your paper that reference or rely on appeals to an author or expert's credibility or expertise. Your reader is convinced of your argument's claim because you have "backed it up" with like-minded experts, researchers, and scholars.

The kinds of "experts" and "scholars" depends on your paper's topic and research focus. For example, if your paper is focused on special education funding, effective appeals to ethos would include research from educators, researchers, policy experts, government and political agencies.

If your paper addresses the safety of genetically modified foods, effective appeals to ethos might include research from food scientists, researchers, nutritionists, biologists, or botanists.

Below is an example of an appeal to ethos from one student's paper. Notice how this student includes research from the EPA Journal and research from the Attorney General of Texas.

The majority of the colonia population is of Hispanic descent and can be characterized as low income (Lewis 554). Jack Lewis, the assistant editor for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Journal, writes that Colonias are home to “large families of mostly Spanish-speaking farm workers, who face seasonal unemployment rates as high as 20 percent,” as stated in his article, “The U.S. Colonias: A Target for Aid.” The high rate of unemployment is a factor that only exacerbates the living conditions that Colonia residents face because of their extreme poverty and inability to finance the improvements that need to be made in their communities. According to the office of the Attorney General of Texas, “Although Colonias often are thought of as enclaves of illegal aliens, 65 to 80% of colonia adults are U.S. citizens (Lewis 555).

Appeals to Pathos

Appeals to pathos are those references in your discussion sections that appeal to your reader's emotion. These often include narrative examples that allow the reader to identify with the subjects in your paper. Such appeals are effective because the reader "sees him or herself" in the narrative, too.

For example, an effective appeal to pathos in an essay about the Red Cross might include narratives from people who were helped by the Red Cross during Hurricane Harvey. Or, an effective appeal to pathos in a paper about the representation of the cognitively disabled in film might include a specific scene (and dialogue) from the film, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Below is an example of an appeal to pathos from a student's paper. Notice that she uses two convincing hypothetical examples to "paint a picture" of what immigration looks like for children of undocumented parents. While these are hypothetical examples, they are convincing because they are informed by her research.

Imagine Jennifer, a girl living in California, who wakes up two hours before the school bell rings to give her enough time to choose the right outfit, straighten her hair, and put on glamorous make-up. Her life revolves around being with her friends, attending school Monday through Friday, and eating a good meal every night with her parents at the dinner table. She is aware of her ethnicity, but as a child, she is naturally ignorant about the fact that the only reason she may be living this carefree life is that her parents illegally crossed the border. Suddenly, reality hits the family. Thinking this day will be like any other day Jennifer is startled when she hears a loud knock on the front door from the police. In compliance with the police, the parents open the door and are told that they are being deported to Mexico. Today, it is unclear how many children like Jennifer are left on one side of the United States-Mexico border, “the dividing line between family members: the children on one side the parents on the other, both facing an uncertain future” (“Immigration Raids Leave Children Behind”). After such a horrible experience of being taken away from her parents, Jennifer must now suddenly grow up into an adult and care for her younger siblings.

Imagine now a child who has just found out that his parents are leaving to go to the United States. At an early age of just 7 years-old, Jose spends most of his time playing with his friends and coming home every day to his family. One day his mom and dad begin to load a van with their suitcases filled with clothes and other necessities. Although his mother reassures him that they will return to him in Mexico soon, he begins to cry. Jose knows they will not be back soon enough. As he grabs and tugs on his mother's sleeves, he asks her not to leave, that he will never ask for another toy as long as she doesn’t leave. Jose’s parents know why they need to go north. They want their family to afford to move out of the place where “most have no water for drinking, bathing, washing their clothes or even brushing their teeth” (Francois). He may understand why his parents are leaving to go to the United States, but his attempt to self-sacrifice his desires in exchange for his parents to stay with him is an example of how many children left behind in Mexico view the issue of immigration.

Appeals to Logos

An appeal to logos is one that relies on logic to convince audiences of the validity of your argument. Appeals to logic rely on statistics, figures, data, facts to convince readers because such appeals require audiences to use deductive and inductive reasoning.

An example of an appeal to logos in a paper on the Paris Climate Agreement might include statistics and data gathered by economists and policymakers. An appeal to logos in a paper on the misconceptions about foster care might include research by social workers on the number of children in foster care each year in the US. Or, an appeal to logos in a paper on representations of women in video games might include the dollars spent on video game sales each year, the number of gamers in the US, and typical amount of time a person spends playing video games each day.

The following is an effective appeal to logos because the writer is using data from the US Border Health program to show how many people are impacted by these diseases and how prevalent this issue is in these communities by comparison to the general population.

Many preventable infectious illnesses occur in Colonias at a much higher rate than in the rest of the U.S. including measles, rubella, and mumps (Bechtel 302). An evaluation by the United States-Mexico Border Health Program found that “measles occurred in Colonias at the rate of 40 cases/100,000 compared to 11/100,000 in the rest of the United States,” and “the incidence of mumps occurred between 5 and 41 cases/100,000 compared to the 2/100,000 U.S. rate” (302). The assessment also reported Rubella to be “6 to 10 times more likely to occur in the border counties than in the United States” (303).