Ethos Pros And Cons Analysis

Ngoc Le

Prof. Bates

EN 102

9/14/2016

Ethos: The Trustworthy Element

Ethos is the most important part of the rhetorical argument because ethos convinces the audience that the speaker is trustworthy and intelligent. The definition of ethos is the authority of the speaker and how the speaker show his/her credibility. This essay will demonstrate how the effective use of how pathos will strengthen arguments. The evidences for ethos are giving expert support, being a pro on the topic, and providing personal experience.

The first evidence for ethos is to give the audience expert support. An example is when a woman comes to a skin expert to get advice for better skin routine products. Although she might not understand all terms the expert said,

Being an expert on the topic helps the speaker gain trust from the audience. For instance, many people would listen and take advice about food from Gordon Ramsay, the famous chief, seriously. The reason is because he is famous for having many years of experience in the field of cooking. Moreover, he owns many of the most famous restaurant in the world. Additionally, he currently is the host of many cooking shows, such as MasterChef, Kitchen Nightmares, and Hell's Kitchen. Additionally, Sarah Wilson who has spent over 25 years in learning dogs, caring and teaching many dogs. She also has nine books about dogs. There is properly no other people who can understand about dog than her. By becoming an expert herself, she has a high ethos when come to the field of dogs. Not only an expert has high ethos, having a higher ethos also comes from personal

For example, during my reading class two years ago, a group in my class was presenting about water pollution, they showed a polluted lake in China and talked about how it polluted. The class believed the group because the group was well preparing. However, when a classmate who was from China said that she saw the lake, and the lake was really very polluted, the class was very amused and had more trust in the presenting group. Moreover, many journalists nowadays travel many places in order to write real experience in their paper. For instance, Richard Engel, NBC chief foreign correspondent, spent many year in Iraq to record most of the conflict and battle in his report for the readers to have a better view in war zone. Personal experience give the audience a sense of truthfulness.

Ethos definitely is the most necessary element of the rhetorical argument. On the other hand, many would think that pathos is more crucial. The other opinion is "How can you have an powerful argument when there is no passion?" However, "how can you have an impressive argument when you have no valuable knowledge to make other trust you?" It does not matter how much passion a speaker has if that speaker does not have enough knowledge to make the audience believe in. In order to win an argument or to have an acceptable speech, ethos is an element cannot be