Empoword

Part Three: Research and Argumentation 247 Slippery Slope An unreasonable prediction that one event will lead to a related but unlikely series of events that follows. If we let people of the same sex get married, then people will start marrying their dogs too! False Dichotomy A simplification of a complex issue into only two sides. Given the choice between pizza and Chinese food for dinner, we simply must choose Chinese. Learn about other logical fallacies in the Additional Recommended Resources appendix. Pathos The second rhetorical appeal we’ll consider here is perhaps the most common: pathos refers to the process of engaging the reader’s emotions. (You might recognize the Greek root pathos in “sympathy,” “empathy,” and “pathetic.”) A writer can evoke a great variety of emotions to support their argument, from fear, passion, and joy to pity, kinship, and rage. By playing on the audience’s feelings, writers can increase the impact of their arguments. There are two especially effective techniques for cultivating pathos that I share with my students: • Make the audience aware of the issue’s relevance to them specifically—“How would you feel if this happened to you? What are we to do about this issue?” • Tell stories. A story about one person or one community can have a deeper impact than broad, impersonal data or abstract, hypothetical statements. Consider the difference between About 1.5 million pets are euthanized each year and Scooter, an energetic and loving former service dog with curly brown hair like a Brillo pad, was put down yesterday. Both are impactful, but the latter is more memorable and more specific.