in this video I'm going to show you how to craft convincing persuasive arguments using what is known as Aristotle's rhetorical triangle by incorporating the three sides or corners of this triangle into your writing or speaking you'll have a much better chance of convincing your audience of your argument whether that's in an academic professional or personal context let's do it vertical triangle which is also called the Aristotelian triangle comprises three components the logos the Patos and the ethos these are called three rhetorical appeals fancy language aside though Logos Pathos and Ethos are simply different types of appeals that you can make to your audience in an effort to persuade them the idea is that by incorporating these three appeals into an argument in the correct dosage you'll present a convincing argument that persuades the audience of your point so first up let's look at logos logos appeals to The Logical reason driven side of our minds using logos in an argument typically means presenting a strong body of evidence such as facts and figures to support your position this evidence would then be accompanied by Sound Logic and well articulated reasoning that's difficult to dispute for example you'd be using logo us if you presented scientific studies that show the benefits of a balanced diet when you're trying to convince your friend to eat a little healthier similarly you'd be playing the logos card if you drew on well-established trustworthy climate data when you're presenting an argument about climate change you can often see logos in action on the public stage for example if you watch some of Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro's debates or arguments you'll see that they both often but not always draw on scientific literature or government published data sets to provide evidence for their claims now of course this doesn't mean that the way that they interpret the literature is always correct there are of course many factors at play but the point is that they regularly draw on these external sources and build seemingly logical arguments from that base so simply put logos is all about using evidence logic and reason to build a strong argument that will win over an audience on the basis of its object active Merit this contrasts quite sharply against pathos which we'll look at a little bit later but first let's look at ethos ethos is all about emphasizing The credibility and authority of the person making the argument for example you can play the ethos card by highlighting your expertise your achievements your qualifications accreditations or even your personal and professional connections ultimately the aim here is to Foster some level of trust within the Audience by demonstrating your competence as this will make them more likely to take your word as fat regardless of how accurate that actually is again if you've spent any amount of time on YouTube watching the likes of Jordan Peterson you'll notice that he often refers to his academic experience and qualifications his associations with popular universities such as Harvard University of Toronto and so on this is an incredibly common tactic that speakers will use across the board especially if if their credibility is being questioned in an interview setting it's useful to note that ethos also has a link to logos which we just looked at previously in that you can piggyback on credible figures by using them as your sources for example if you're citing highly credible academic works or data sets to support your argument there is something of a credibility transfer effect that takes place in the audience's mind long story short using ethos in an argument is largely about emphasizing The credibility of the person rather than the logical soundness of the argument which would be a sort of logos based approach this is a particularly helpful strategy when there isn't yet a large body of evidence to support your argument or when your position is quite contrarian to the status quo last but not least is pathos where Logos and Ethos appeal to the more logical side of us pathos appeals to the softer mush side of us humans specifically it focuses on evoking feelings and emotions in the audience so when you use Pathos in an argument the aim is really to cultivate some feeling of connection in the audience either towards yourself or to the point that you're trying to make in Practical terms pathos often uses storytelling vivid language and personal anecdotes to tap into the audience's emotions again you can see this tactic being used by authors and speakers all the time they're almost always sharing a story about something that happened to them and that story carries a lot of emotional weight that supports the core argument at hand most commonly you can spot ethos being used by politicians on the campaign Trail or social activists rallying for some sort of meaningful cause you can think for example about Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream speech although the speech obviously Incorporated all three rhetorical appeals the pathos component was incredible really powerful and it stirred up emotions in millions and millions of people simply put with pathos it's less about facts and figures and more about psychological affect or put another way pathos uses our shared humanness cultivates agreement and to persuade the audience okay so now we've unpacked the three components of Aristotle's rhetorical triangle and that's the logos which appeals to The Logical side the ethos which appeals to credibility and the pathos which appeals to the emotional side of us humans so the question is of course how can you use these most effectively well naturally Logos Pathos and Ethos are all tools that you can use to present a persuasive argument and quite commonly a good argument will incorporate all three of these however how much you use each one of them needs to be informed by careful consideration of who your audience is and what message you're trying to convey to them for example if you're writing a research paper for largely scientific audience you're likely going to lean more heavily on the logos conversely if you're presenting a speech in which you argue for greater social justice you might lean more heavily on the pathos side to win over your audience simply put you need to consider the relationship between yourself the audience and the message that you're sending so that you can strategically employ the three rhetorical appeals most effectively if you do this correctly you'll quickly notice what a difference these three relatively simple appeals can make to your ability to communicate and more importantly to persuade so that brings us to the end of this video if you got value from the video please do hit that like button so that more people can find this content if you want to learn more about how to develop your arguments and communicate for Maximum Impact be sure to subscribe to the channel and also check out the grad coach blog over at gradecoach.com blog until next time good luck foreign [Music]