Example of logos cracked#
Example of logos professional#

The example I like to use is Martin Luther King, Jr.вЂ™s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Using all three techniques in concert helps create a strong persuasive piece. Heavy-handed pathos can make your reader feel manipulated, and no one likes to feel manipulated. The trick with pathos is to use emotion appropriately. Most of the things a writer does to build her ethos apply here as well: a well-crafted, accurate brief is a joy to read, which makes a reader happy to read it. Instead, a legal writer effectively uses medium mood control by using an appropriate tone, carefully choosing words, and avoiding techniques that might irritate a reader (like poor citation or sloppy organization, among others). Humor is quite difficult to use in legal writing. When the reader feels happy, he is more likely to be receptive to (and, thus, persuaded by) the readerвЂ™s message. вЂњMediumвЂќ here applies to the mode of communication and how that mode of communication affects the audienceвЂ™s mood. In legal writing, we use the emotional substance pathos when we attempt to create empathy for our client and when we appeal to grander themes of fairness or justice.ДЄnother kind of pathos is medium mood control. Any questions?вЂќ Here, it seems clear that the viewer is to feel fear and to act on that fear: Look what happens to your brain when you use drugs! DonвЂ™t use drugs!

Example of logos cracked#

ThereвЂ™s an ominous bit of music and a serious voice tells you, вЂњThis is drugs.вЂќ We then see an egg cracked into the pan, which is so hot that the white of the egg cooks immediately. The spot opens with butter sizzling in a hot pan. One example that I use to illustrate this idea is the ten-second public service announcement popular in the late 1980s. The speaker or writer uses emotional substance when she is trying to elicit an emotional response from her audience. There are two kinds of pathos: emotional substance and medium mood control. вЂњathos makes your audience feel you are right.вЂќ Id.

He might use figurative language, such as alliteration, similes, or metaphors.

He may use vivid, concrete language and examples. When a speaker or writer uses pathos, he is appealing to his audienceвЂ™s sense of empathy for his position or his client. The final technique is pathos, which deals with emotions-specifically, with empathy.

Example of logos professional#

Building ethos in legal writing means the writer must focus on providing substantively sound analyses and arguments, while appropriately acknowledging contrary law and counterarguments, but also focus on creating a professional and polished document that is error-free. As Professors Robbins, Johansen, and Chestek tell us, вЂњthos makes your audience trust you are right.вЂќ Id. When we read something from someone we trust, we are more likely to believe what she is saying. The second technique is ethos, which deals with the credibility of the writer. It makes sense that a persuasive legal document use logic to persuade readers, and logos is undoubtedly the starting point for a persuasive argument. Logos is the easiest technique to understand when referring to legal writing. As scholars Ruth Anne Robbins, Steve Johansen, and Ken Chestek say in their new book, Your ClientвЂ™s Story: Persuasive Legal Writing 21 (2013), вЂњLogos makes your audience think you are right.вЂќ Such writing contains citations to authorities or experts. Persuasive writing that uses logos uses, where appropriate, literal or historical analogies as well as factual and historical data. The first technique is logos, which means logic. Good persuasive writing argues a position by using a combination of three ancient rhetorical techniques: logos, ethos, and pathos. ItвЂ™s often challenging to succinctly explain these more subtle differences, but one easy way is to introduce the вЂњwhyвЂќ behind the differences, which in turn helps explain those differences.

But students need to make other, subtler changes in their writing (and thinking) to persuade effectively. Because lawyers use that paradigm to advance their arguments, students need to master it, which makes the structure of the argument look similar to objective writing. As students learn, though, thereвЂ™s more to persuasive writing-or at least more to good persuasive writing-than just arguing a position.ДЄt their core, objective and persuasive legal writing share many of the same traits, such as maintaining the small scale organizational paradigm we refer to as CREAC (a/k/a IRAC). ItвЂ™s a switch that some students welcome because they like the idea of arguing a position rather than having to be objective. In the second semester of their first year, students make the switch from objective to persuasive writing.