Ethos Logos Pathos
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What Makes Discovering Psychology Work?
All authors use classical appeals, ethos, logos, and pathos, which are using audience based reasons to increase the effectiveness of the author’s argument. So what is ethos, logos and pathos? Ethos is the author’s way of establishing creditability to the audience. Logos is using data and facts to appeal to the audience’s sense of reasoning and pathos appeals to the audience’s emotions, as defined in Writing Arguments by (Ramage, Bean, & Johnson, 2012). How well do they use these appeals in chapter 9 of Discovering Psychology? (Hockenbury, & Hockenbury, 2011).
The chapter begins with an example of pathos; using the memory of childhood to set up the explanation of lifespan development. Telling the story of sifting through a sea of boxes during a move allows the reader to develop a metaphor of how lifetime psychological development takes place via different experiences as well as developmental changes and gene expression (Hockenbury, & Hockenbury). Looking at a person’s psychological development as an accumulation of traits, much like a box of souvenirs acquired throughout life, lets the reader experience the text in a more human way. In this way, textual pathos builds a connection and understanding between the reader and the raw information. Later in the chapter there are examples of humor in comics used during discussion of adolescence, tying the ideas of incomplete development to the antics of the characters in zits (Hockenbury, & Hockenbury 2011). Using humor involves the reader in a text they may not be interested in; trying to lighten the overall mood of what could be a very dry read.
Building upon this introduction, the text begins to introduce logos examples with definitions, explanations and an introduction to the concept of developmental psychology. Being a text book the audience would expect it to be pretty heavy with logos, and it is. Beginning with the metaphor of the life story,
What Makes Discovering Psychology Work?
All authors use classical appeals, ethos, logos, and pathos, which are using audience based reasons to increase the effectiveness of the author’s argument. So what is ethos, logos and pathos? Ethos is the author’s way of establishing creditability to the audience. Logos is using data and facts to appeal to the audience’s sense of reasoning and pathos appeals to the audience’s emotions, as defined in Writing Arguments by (Ramage, Bean, & Johnson, 2012). How well do they use these appeals in chapter 9 of Discovering Psychology? (Hockenbury, & Hockenbury, 2011).
The chapter begins with an example of pathos; using the memory of childhood to set up the explanation of lifespan development. Telling the story of sifting through a sea of boxes during a move allows the reader to develop a metaphor of how lifetime psychological development takes place via different experiences as well as developmental changes and gene expression (Hockenbury, & Hockenbury). Looking at a person’s psychological development as an accumulation of traits, much like a box of souvenirs acquired throughout life, lets the reader experience the text in a more human way. In this way, textual pathos builds a connection and understanding between the reader and the raw information. Later in the chapter there are examples of humor in comics used during discussion of adolescence, tying the ideas of incomplete development to the antics of the characters in zits (Hockenbury, & Hockenbury 2011). Using humor involves the reader in a text they may not be interested in; trying to lighten the overall mood of what could be a very dry read.
Building upon this introduction, the text begins to introduce logos examples with definitions, explanations and an introduction to the concept of developmental psychology. Being a text book the audience would expect it to be pretty heavy with logos, and it is. Beginning with the metaphor of the life story,
References: Hockenbury, D.H. & Hockenbury, S.E. (2011). Discovering Psychology (5th ed.) New York: Worth. Ramage, J. D., Bean, J.C., & Johnson, J. (Eds.). (2012). Writing Argments: A Rhetoric with Readings. (8th ed.). New York: Pearson Longman