Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking by Andrew Dlugan Jan 24th, 2010 2300 years ago, Aristotle wrote down the secret to being a persuasive speaker, the secret which forms the basis for nearly every public speaking book written since then. Do you know the secret? If you don t, you might be wondering what a 2300-year-old theory has to do with public speaking in the year 2010. In a word everything! In this article, you ll learn what ethos, pathos, and logos are (the secret!), and what every speaker needs to understand about these three pillars of public speaking. What are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos? So, what are ethos, pathos, and logos? In simplest terms, they correspond to: Ethos: credibility (or character) of the speaker Pathos: emotional connection to the audience Logos: logical argument
Together, they are the three persuasive appeals. In other words, these are the three essential qualities that your speech or presentation must have before your audience will accept your message. Origins of Ethos, Pathos, Logos On Rhetoric by Aristotle Written in the 4th century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Aristotle compiled his thoughts on the art of rhetoric into On Rhetoric, including his theory on the three persuasive appeals. Many teachers of communication, speech, and rhetoric consider Aristotle s On Rhetoric to be a seminal work in the field. call it the most important single work on persuasion ever written. Ethos Before you can convince an audience to accept anything you say, they have to accept you as credible. There are many aspects to building your credibility: Does the audience respect you? Does the audience believe you are of good character? Does the audience believe you are generally trustworthy? Does the audience believe you are an authority on this speech topic? Keep in mind that it isn t enough for you to know that you are a credible source. (This isn t about your confidence, experience, or expertise.) Your audience must know this. Ethos is your level of credibility as perceived by your audience. Pathos Pathos is the quality of a persuasive presentation which appeals to the emotions of the audience. Do your words evoke feelings of love? sympathy? fear? Do your visuals evoke feelings of compassion? envy? Does your characterization of the competition evoke feelings of hate? contempt? Emotional connection can be created in many ways by a speaker, perhaps most notably by stories. The goal of a story, anecdote, analogy, simile, and metaphor is often to link an aspect of our primary message with a triggered emotional response from the audience. Logos Logos is synonymous with a logical argument. Does your message make sense? Is your message based on facts, statistics, and evidence? Will your call-to-action lead to the desired outcome that you promise?
Which is most important? Ethos? Pathos? or Logos? Suppose two speakers give speeches about a new corporate restructuring strategy. The first speaker a grade nine student gives a flawless speech pitching strategy A which is both logically sound and stirs emotions. The second speaker a Fortune 500 CEO gives a boring speech pitching strategy B. Which speech is more persuasive? Is the CEO s speech more persuasive, simply because she has much more credibility (ethos)? Some suggest that pathos is the most critical of the three. Bert Decker says that people buy on emotion (pathos) and justify with fact (logos). True? You decide. Aristotle believed that logos should be the most important of the three persuasive appeals. As a philosopher and a master of logical reasoning, he believed that logos should be the only required persuasive appeal. That is, if you demonstrated logos, you should not need either ethos or pathos. However, Aristotle stated that logos alone is not sufficient. Not only is it not sufficient on its own, but it is no more important than either of the two other pillars. He argued that all three persuasive appeals are necessary. Is he right? What do you think? What is Ethos and Why is it Critical for Speakers? Is your audience listening even before you speak your first words? Do they have high expectations? Are they prepared to be convinced by what you have to say? If not, you are suffering from poor ethos. What is Ethos? Ethos was originally defined by Aristotle in On Rhetoric as being trustworthy. He stated that we are more likely to believe people who have good character. Aristotle later broadened this definition of ethos to add that we are more likely to be persuaded by someone who is similar to us, whether by their intrinsic characteristics (e.g. physical age) or the qualities they adapt (e.g. youthful language). Aristotle does not include the concept of either a speaker s authority (e.g. a government leader) or reputation (e.g. an industry expert) in his definition of ethos, but this reflects the rather
narrow role for public speaking in his world. In our world, where speaking takes so many forms and where we often know a great deal about the speaker, we will include both of these elements in our definition of ethos. So, then, we will measure the ethos of a speaker by four related characteristics: 1. Trustworthiness (as perceived by the audience) 2. Similarity (to the audience) 3. Authority (relative to the audience) 4. Reputation or Expertise (relative to the topic) 1. Ethos = Trustworthiness An audience is more likely to be persuaded by someone who they trust, and this is largely independent of the topic being presented. If the audience trusts you, then they expect that what you are telling them is true. If the audience trusts you, then they expect that what you are telling them is true. Your trustworthiness is enhanced if the audience believes you have a strong moral character, as measured by concepts like: Honest, Ethical or moral, Generous, or Benevolent Additionally, your audience tends to trust you if you are a member of a group with which these qualities are often associated (e.g. a pastor; a firefighter). 2. Ethos = Similarity to the Audience Your audience is more receptive to being persuaded by someone with whom they can identify. Like trustworthiness, this aspect of ethos is largely independent of the topic. If you share characteristics with your audience, great! If you don t, you can adapt your language, your mannerisms, your dress, your visuals, and your overall style to match your audience. Consider this the chameleon effect. Keep in mind that there are limitations to how much you can adapt your speech and delivery. Beyond this limit, your audience will see you as lacking authenticity and that s bad. If you are similar to your audience, then your audience will be more receptive to your ideas in the same way that you are more likely to open a door at night if you recognize the voice of the person on the other side. There are many characteristics which you might share with your audience: Age, Gender, Race, Culture Example: A youthful audience identifies with a youthful speaker, just as a mature audience will identify more with a mature speaker. Socio-economic status Rich? Poor? Educated? Middle-class? Urban? Rural?
Citizenship Where you are from, whether in a global sense (what country are you from?), or in a local sense (are you urban, or rural?) Career or Affiliation Do you share a profession with your audience? Are you a member of the same organization as your audience? Personality Analytical? Emotional? Reserved? Outgoing? If you are similar to your audience, then your audience will be more receptive to your ideas in the same way that you are more likely to open a door at night if you recognize the voice of the person on the other side. 3. Ethos = Authority The greater a person s authority, whether formal (e.g. an elected official) or moral (e.g. the Dalai Lama), the more likely an audience is inclined to listen and be persuaded. Authority comes from the relationship between the speaker and the audience and is, in most cases, fairly easy to recognize. Several types of authority include: Organizational authority e.g. CEO, manager, supervisor Political authority e.g. president, political leader Religious authority e.g. priest, pastor, nun Educational authority e.g. principal, teacher, professor Elder authority e.g. anyone who is older than us In addition to these, every speaker has authority just from being the speaker. When you speak, you are the one at the front of the room, often on an elevated platform, sometimes with a microphone or spotlight. You control the moment and thus, have temporary authority. 4. Ethos = Reputation (or Expertise) Expertise is what you know about your topic. Reputation is what your audience knows about what you know about your topic. Your ethos is influenced by your reputation. Of the four characteristics of ethos, reputation is the one most connected to the topic of your presentation. Expertise is what you know about your topic. Reputation is what your audience knows about what you know about your topic.
Your reputation is determined by several related factors: Your experience in the field How many years have you worked with or studied this topic? Your proximity to the topic or concept Are you the one who invented the concept? Were you involved at all? Or are you more of a third-party? Your production in the field Books or academic papers written. Blogs authored. Commercial products developed. Your demonstrated skill If you are talking about money management, are you a successful money manager? Your achievements, or recognition from others in the field Awards won. Testimonials earned. Records achieved. Milestones reached. How do these characteristics combine? Ethos cannot be assessed with a checkbox ( yes, you have ethos or no, you don t. ) like you can with, say, pregnancy. It s more like beauty in the sense that there s a whole range of beauty and many ways to obtain it. (And, it s in the eye of the beholder your audience!) This is easy to see if you examine how the four characteristics of ethos combine in various ways. Consider the following examples: A CEO speaking to her employees As the CEO, she has organizational authority, and this is usually accompanied by a reputation built on years of success within the company. However, she may not be very similar to most of the employees (older than most; richer than most; perhaps more reserved and analytical). Nonetheless, her trustworthiness is solid based on past history of honest communication with employees. The U.S. President giving the State of the Union address The President has more authority than most people on the planet based on his job title. His reputation and trustworthiness probably depend a fair bit on your political beliefs. As for similarity to his audience, it s a mixed bag He s American, and he s not too old nor too young. But, he s a politician and in a socio-economic class which puts him apart from most citizens. A Teacher speaking to his students He probably has a record of trustworthiness, as long as he truthfully announces when assignments are due and exams are scheduled. He has authority over the 16-year-olds, both by way of position and by age. He has taught in the school for 10 years (expertise), including many of his students older siblings (reputation). Unfortunately, he s not really similar to his students in terms of age, wealth, career, or choice of music. All of them have significant ethos as they score high on several measures. In particular, authority and reputation often are closely related. (The things you did to earn the reputation often earn authority as well.)
On the other hand, none have perfect ethos. Indeed, this is very hard to obtain as some measures conflict. For example, your authority relative to your audience often weakens your similarity with them. Why is Ethos Critical for Speakers? If you have high ethos, your audience is listening and attentive from your first word. If you have high ethos, your audience is listening and attentive from your first word. They expect that you have something valuable to say, and they are eager to hear it. They are likely to be persuaded by you, provided that your speech is compelling. A bad speech will still sink you, but you ll have more leeway. If you have low ethos, your audience may not be listening or paying attention. (In fact, they may not even show up! Poor ethos doesn t attract a crowd.) Expectations are low, and a poor opening will kill you. Your audience can be persuaded, but your speech needs to be much better to do it. 15 Tactics to Establish Ethos: Examples for Persuasive Speaking How to Improve Ethos Long Before Your Speech Ethos is about your audience s perception of you, and this perception can be formed over many months or years, or perhaps over many past speeches. So, we ll first examine things you can do in the long run to improve your ethos. #1: Be a Good Person (Trustworthiness) Let s start with an easy one. Be a good person, do good things, and think good thoughts. There are far more important reasons to follow this mantra than to gain speaking ethos. Nonetheless, your ethos will grow. The positive effect you have on those around you will spread, and will become known to your audience. Example: How much ethos does Tiger Woods have (in the wake of the fidelity scandal) in terms of trustworthiness? #2: Develop Deep Expertise in Topics You Speak About (Reputation) Your expertise will often differentiate you from competing speakers. People are busy. (There s a news flash!) There are many things competing for their attention, and there are often many other speakers competing for their attention. Why will they choose to listen to you speak? Your expertise will often differentiate you from competing speakers. Example: Suppose an audience has two options for concurrent sessions at a conference:
1. Speaker A has very interesting ideas, but only 2 years of work in a related field. 2. Speaker B has written two best-selling books in the field, and is a sought after consultant with 15 years of experience. Who is the audience going to choose? There s a corollary for this rule too. Stick to speaking about topics for which you have deep expertise. #3: Market Yourself (Reputation) Developing the expertise doesn t earn you any ethos if you don t market yourself and let the world know about it. You ve got to take charge of your personal brand and make sure that it s a brand that emphasizes the qualities you want to emphasize. #4: Analyze Your Audience (Similarity) Thorough audience analysis is critical for improving your ethos. (It s critical for improving your pathos and logos too but that s a topic for another article. Stay tuned.) Audience analysis will reveal valuable clues that you can use to adapt yourself to your audience. Seek to find common traits that you share and highlight them. For other traits, find ways to adapt your language, your mannerisms, your dress, your PowerPoint visuals, or your stories to match the audience. Example: You ve been invited to speak to a company that is new to you. You don t know whether their corporate atmosphere is formal or relaxed. Through audience analysis, you discover that nobody in the company wears a suit to work. So, you choose a less formal outfit to adapt to your audience. #5: Show up Early to Welcome the Audience (Trustworthiness) Showing up with minutes to spare gives the impression that you almost had somewhere more important to be. Showing up early demonstrates your dedication to serve the audience. This, in turn, builds trust. #6: Share Event Experience with Audience (Similarity) If your presentation is part of a larger event, try to attend as much of it as you can. Every minute you spend with your audience as an audience member builds your level of affiliation with them. The event becomes a shared experience. The audience sees you as one of them. #7: Highlight Ethos in Marketing Materials (All) Depending on the event, you may have an opportunity to provide an author s bio to complement your speech title. Seize this opportunity. Make it clear to your potential audience why they
should spend their time (and their money) to listen to you. This is particularly critical if you are at an event with concurrent sessions. Don t assume that people make their decisions on topic alone. Example: Suppose you will be speaking at the Arizona Teachers Association Annual Conference. Positive testimonials from past presentations to teacher associations would be effective to establish your reputation. #8: Highlight Ethos in Introduction (All) Your introduction is probably the single best opportunity for you to establish your ethos with this audience on this day. For this reason, you should always write your own introduction. Don t let an event organizer wing it. Highlight the essential facts that establish your trustworthiness, similarity, authority, and reputation. As in the example above, pick the material specific to this audience and topic. Beware that you don t overdo it. Long introductions are boring. Long introductions filled with every accomplishment you ve had since age 21 are boring and pompous. You should always write your own introduction. Don t let an event organizer wing it. Example: Suppose you are delivering user training for employees to introduce the new corporate financial system. Key items to highlight in your brief introduction might be: 1. You were the project manager for implementing the new system (Reputation) 2. You have implemented similar systems twice before in your career (Reputation) How to Improve Ethos During Your Speech #9: Tell stories or anecdotes which show you are consistent with your message (Trustworthiness) Don t be a hypocrite. Nobody will act on your advice if you don t. Example: Suppose you are trying to persuade your audience to support Habitat for Humanity, an international organization that builds homes to eliminate poverty. You can raise your ethos by crafting stories or anecdotes which demonstrate that you are active in the local Habitat chapter. By demonstrating that you follow your own advice, your audience is more likely to believe you on other points which cannot be so easily verified (for example, statistics about Habitat for Humanity). Don t be a hypocrite. Nobody will act on your advice if you don t.
#10: Use language familiar to your audience (Similarity) Using language familiar to your audience is good for two reasons: 1. It aids in their understanding (which, indirectly, makes you more persuasive). 2. It helps the audience identify with you which boosts your ethos. By familiar language, I mean more than English versus Dutch. As well, I mean more than using words which are understood by the audience. To really get your audience to identify with you, you must use the terms that they would use to describe the concepts. Example: A few examples might make this clearer: 1. Many people would understand that property agent is the same thing as a real estate agent. However, depending where you speak, one of these terms will be more common. Use it! 2. Acronyms are dangerous if you are using ones that your audience doesn t know. Conversely, if everyone in your audience uses the term P.M. on a daily basis, you should use that term rather than project manager. #11: Use visuals/examples which resonate with your audience (Similarity) For any given message, you have a multitude of options for stories, anecdotes, visuals, or other techniques to convey your speech. From this multitude, try selecting the ones which have the biggest impact with this audience. Not only will you get the big impact, but the audience will also start thinking that you are just like them. That s good for you! Example: Suppose you are speaking to company management on the topic of goal-setting. Through audience analysis, you discovered that the company sponsored employees to run the local marathon. Although there are many metaphors and visuals you could use to talk about goalsetting, you choose to draw parallels between corporate goal-setting and the goals one sets when tackling a challenging race. You feature several vivid photographs of marathon races to complement your arguments. #12: Choose quotations and statistics from the right sources (All) Quotations and statistics are common speech tools which, on the surface, may contribute more to your logos (logical argument) than ethos. Nonetheless, if you choose the right sources, you can boost your ethos too. When you reference a reputable source, you boost your ethos by association. Example: When researching a speech about cancer research, you discover two statistics that will help you make your argument.
1. The source of the first statistic is some unknown author on Wikipedia. 2. The source of the second statistic is the Mayo Clinic. Which statistic is your audience more likely to believe? If you guessed the Mayo Clinic, you re right. When you reference a reputable source, you boost your ethos by association. So, the general guideline is to use quotations and statistics from sources which have high ethos to your audience, whether by trustworthiness, similarity, authority, or reputation. #13: Reference people in the audience, or events earlier in the day (Similarity) Earlier, we mentioned that, if possible, you should try to share the event experience with your audience. When you do, you can increase your ethos by incorporating something from that shared experience (or someone in the audience) into your speech. Your audience sees you as one of them, and a silent bond forms. Example: In the presentation preceding yours, the speaker repeated a memorable phrase It s never too late. If you can do it in a meaningful way, try to weave this phrase into your material. How to Improve Ethos After Your Speech #14: Make yourself available to your audience (Similarity) Whenever possible, stick around after your presentation is over. Mingle with the audience and continue to share in the event experience. Not only will you have the opportunity for productive follow-up conversations, but your audience will see you as accessible, and accessible is good. In short, your ethos will rise. #15: Follow through on promises made during your presentation (Trustworthiness) One technique for managing a short Q&A session is to defer thorny or complex questions to a later time. Example: If someone asks a question as part of a 10-minute Q&A session that would take you 20 minutes to answer, it s okay to defer the question saying: I d like to give the complete answer, but we don t have time today. I ll send it out to the group on email. It s okay to do that, but only if you do follow up! If you fail to do so, your audience will judge you as being untrustworthy. Even if your presentation was great, your influence on their future actions is diminished.
What is Pathos and Why is it Critical for Speakers? American psychologist William James wrote: The emotions aren t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action. Emotions whether fear or love, pity or anger are powerful motivators for your audience. An audience emotionally stimulated in the right way is more likely to accept your claims and act on your requests. By learning how to make emotional appeals, you greatly improve your effectiveness as a speaker. What is Pathos? The word pathos is derived from the ancient Greek word for suffering or experience. Think about other words from the same root: Pathogen and pathology describe the source of a patient s disease or suffering. Empathy is the ability to share the emotions of another person. Sympathy describes a similar ability to share emotions, usually negative emotions such as pain or sadness. Antipathy equates with strong, negative emotions toward another. Something that is pathetic is likely to arouse either compassion or contempt. All of these related words focus on the concept of shared experience or shared emotions. As a speaker, your goal is to create a shared emotional experience with your audience. Pathos describes your ability to evoke audience emotions and strategically connect these emotions with elements of your speech. Pathos: Evoking Emotions In Your Audience This leads to the obvious question what emotions can you evoke? The simple answer is all of them, but that isn t too helpful. There are a numerous theories of emotion. Philosophers and psychologists have attempted to itemize and categorize emotions into convenient buckets for thousands of years. According to translator George Kennedy, Aristotle provides the earliest systematic discussion of human psychology in On Rhetoric. Aristotle identified the following seven sets of emotions, with each pair representing opposites: As a speaker, your goal is to create a shared emotional experience with your audience.
Anger and Calmness Friendship and Enmity Fear and Confidence Shame and Shamelessness Kindness and Unkindness Pity and Indignation Envy and Emulation By comparison, twentieth century psychologist Robert Plutchik proposed a set of eight basic emotions along with eight advanced emotions. He, too, arranges them in opposite pairs: Basic Emotions o Joy Sadness o Trust Disgust o Fear Anger o Surprise Anticipation Advanced Emotions o Optimism Disappointment o Love Remorse o Submission Contempt o Awe Aggressiveness Many others have offered different categories of emotions. It isn t important to find the correct classification of emotions; indeed, there may not be a correct classification. Instead, the goals of a persuasive speaker are to: 1. be aware of the wide range of emotions, 2. decide which emotions to evoke, and 3. learn how these emotions can be evoked in your audience. Pathos: Why Evoke Audience Emotions at All? If evoking a particular emotion was the final result, it would quite a useless endeavor. Randomly making the audience feel anger or joy or fear or hope will not, in itself, get you anywhere. Emotions do not persuade in solitude. Aristotle knew that the emotion must be linked with your speech arguments. For example, Aristotle defines anger and describes what causes someone to become angry. He then encourages speakers to associate that anger with one s opponent: [...] it is clear that it might be needful in a speech to put [the audience] into a state of mind of those who are inclined to anger and show one s opponents as responsible for those things that are the causes of the anger and that they are the sort of people against whom anger is directed.
In other words, make your audience angry, and direct that anger at your opponent. If your audience is angry at your opponent, they will be more receptive to hear your ideas. Just as having high ethos makes your audience more likely to be persuaded, pathos can also make your audience more susceptible to being persuaded. By making an emotional connection with your audience: Your audience will be more likely to understand your perspective (via the shared emotion or experience). Your audience will be more likely to accept your claims. Your audience will be more likely to act on your call-to-action. Positive Emotions versus Negative Emotions If you utilize pathos well, your audience will feel the same emotions that you do. Your audience will feel the pain, the joy, the hope, and the fear of the characters in your stories. They will no longer be passive listeners. They will be motivated to act. Are all emotions equal? In other words, will any emotion do? Will my audience adopt my views equally if I make them feel surprise as when I make them feel anger? No. The evoked emotion must be appropriate to the context. In general, you want the audience to feel the same emotions that you feel about your arguments and the opposing arguments. One convenient way to see this is by looking at the difference between evoking positive emotions versus negative emotions. Positive emotions (e.g. surprise, joy, awe) should be associated with your claims, or your side of the persuasive argument. Negative emotions (e.g. fear, contempt, disappointment) should be associated with your opponent s claims. o Sometimes, you may have a human opponent (e.g. a political debate). o Other times, your opponent may be the status quo which you are seeking to change. Why is Pathos Critical for Speakers? In summary: If you utilize pathos well, your audience will feel the same emotions that you do. Your audience will feel the pain, the joy, the hope, and the fear of the characters in your stories. They will no longer be passive listeners. They will be motivated to act.
If you do not utilize pathos well, your audience will not be motivated to disrupt the status quo. They will be more likely to find fault in your logical arguments (logos, the topic for a future article). They will not feel invested in your cause. 18 Paths to Pathos: How to Connect with Your Audience #1: Select Emotional Themes and Points You always have choices to make about which points to include in the time allotted. Be sure that some of them carry emotional power. Example: Suppose you have identified fifteen reasons why your audience should consider public speaking training. Unfortunately, your short speech only allows you to discuss three or four of them. Which do you choose? Conquer your public speaking fear probably evokes stronger emotions than Learn to speak with more precision. #2: Choose Words which Add Emotional Emphasis Some words are emotionally neutral, while some are emotionally charged. Exercise judgment to select the words which fit the emotional tone that works to your advantage. Example: Consider the difference in words used to label a suicide bomber on opposing sides of a political war. What emotion does the label terrorist evoke? What emotion does the label martyr evoke? Which one would best complement your speech? #3: Use Rich Analogies and Metaphors Analogies, metaphors, and other figures of speech not only make your speech more interesting, but often allow you to make an emotional connection by tapping into emotions already felt by your audience. Example: If you speak about gang violence, you might plainly state that We have a problem in our city On the other hand, you might say We have a cancer in our city The latter analogy draws on your audience s pre-existing feelings about cancer, and makes them want to eradicate the cause! #4: Tell Stories Stories are often the quickest path to the greatest emotional connection with your audience. Carefully crafted stories allow you to evoke any of a wide range of emotions. This may explain why stories are often the most memorable components of a speech. #5: Use Humor Stories are often the quickest path to the greatest emotional connection with your audience.
Humor is closely related to storytelling, because you usually arrive at humor through stories. Nonetheless, humor merits special mention. Humor in a presentation evokes emotions such as joy and surprise, and often triggers secondary emotions such as calmness and friendship. If your audience is laughing, they are having fun. If they are having fun, they are happy to be listening to you and they are attentive. As an added boost, humor makes your audience like you (at least for a moment), and that boosts your ethos too. Nearly every presentation would benefit from more humor. How can you add humor to yours? #6: Connect through Visuals Maybe you have slides with photographs. Maybe you have a prop. Either way, a concrete visual element opens many more emotional pathways than abstract words alone. Examples: Consider the following pairs, and ask yourself which creates the stronger emotional impact: Saying that smoking damages lung tissue versus Showing a slide with a photograph of tar-like lung tissue Claiming that cords from window blinds pose a risk to children versus Showing (with a prop) how the cords might strangle a baby doll. #7: Model the Emotion with Your Delivery Techniques The emotional effectiveness of stories, humor, visuals, and other content tools often depends greatly on your delivery. Great delivery magnifies emotions; poor delivery nullifies them. Example: Words from your mouth or slides on a screen may induce sadness in your audience, but the effect is multiplied when combined with sadness on your face, in your posture, and in your voice. Additional Paths to Develop Pathos #8: Analyze Your Audience When your audience feels an emotion, they are motivated to act. Without doing any audience analysis at all, you always know two things: 1. Everyone in your audience is human. 2. Most humans share many emotional triggers. As a result, you can always achieve moderate success applying the first seven tools. But to hit a pathos home run, you ve got to analyze your audience. Are they old or young? Technical or non-technical? Male or female? Rich or poor? Liberal or conservative? These and
many other factors will impact which emotional triggers will have the strongest impact. Do the analysis! #9: Evoke Curiosity with Marketing Materials When your audience feels an emotion, they are motivated to act. If the emotion is pity, they are motivated to address the situation (e.g. perhaps by donating money to your charity). In a similar way, if you make your audience curious through your marketing materials, they are motivated to act. How does one act on curiosity? Show up to the presentation. Pay attention. Take notes. Engage with the speaker and follow along. So, make your audience curious. Include a bold claim or a startling statistic. (Of course, you need to follow up in your presentation.) Focus on the benefits to be realized by your audience, and their curiosity will attract them to your speech. #10: Evoke Surprise (in the Introduction and elsewhere) A great way to connect immediately with your audience is to start with a surprise. I admit there s no logical reason to suggest that a speaker who starts with a surprise will deliver a more valuable presentation. But, we re not talking logic here (that s the next article on logos). A surprise gets your audience excited. Getting them excited makes them listen. Surprise can be effective elsewhere, particularly as the length of your speech grows. Like curiosity, your audience is motivated to act on the surprise. How? They try to resolve how this surprising element fits with the rest of the presentation. To do that, they have to listen. Note that I m not talking about deliberately confusing your audience. Surprise is planned, and is usually followed quickly by an explanation. Confusion, on the other hand, results from poor planning, and usually lasts beyond the end of your presentation, at least until the Q&A. #11: Use Vivid, Sensory Words When you use sensory words, your audience feels emotions they have associated with those words. Tool #2 above advised the use of emotional words. One way to do this is to concentrate on concrete, vivid, sensory words. When you use sensory words, your audience feels emotions they have associated with those words. Example: When you mention the touch of your father s flannel shirt or the aroma of your grandmother s kitchen, you ve done more than just mention fabric and smells. You have
evoked emotions which, depending on your audience, probably include loving memories of childhood. #12: Be Authentic Remember that the goal of pathos is to connect with the audience and share emotions with them. To share an emotion, you ve got to feel it too. Pathos is not about tugging emotional strings as if you were a puppeteer. You get zero marks for that. Actually, you get negative marks for that, because your ethos gets destroyed when the audience realizes you are toying with them. Be honest. Share your presentation in a way that your audience will feel as passionately as you feel. #13: Match Your Vocal Delivery to the Emotion Vocal delivery is one clear clue to how you feel about what you are saying. Your tone, volume, pace, and other vocal qualities should mirror your emotions. Examples: Anger might be accompanied by a loud, defiant voice. Sadness or despair might call for a softer voice. Optimism or excitement might be matched by a quickened pace. #14: Match Your Gestures to the Emotion Your body is another clue for the audience to gauge your emotions. If you are telling a story about love or joy, your body shouldn t look like a mannequin. If you are revealing your own disappointment in a story, your shoulders should probably droop, and you shouldn t be smiling. Some speakers find it difficult to do this because they are speaking about past events where the emotions have dulled with the memories over time. The emotions were felt then, but aren t as easy to summon now. You ve got to show the audience how it felt in the moment. Remember that they are hearing this story for the first time. #15: Connect with Your Eyes To share an emotion, you ve got to feel it too. Eye contact isn t a scorecard. Your aim isn t to collect check-marks from each person who you look at over the course of your presentation.
Meaningful eye contact is about connecting with one person at a time. Your eyes should express your frustration, your contempt, or your joy. In the ideal case, the person you re looking at will mirror your emotion back to you. That s connection! #16: Eliminate Physical Barriers to Connect with Your Audience In most speaking situations, your goal should be to reduce barriers between you and your audience. Get out from behind the lectern. Move closer to the audience. Ask them to sit in the seats near the front. The closer you are to your audience, the more personal your presentation feels for them. The more personal it feels, the greater your chance for emotional connection. For much more on this topic, read Nick Morgan s excellent article: How to Connect With Your Audience by Moving Closer. #17: Eliminate Competing Emotions in the Environment There usually are a myriad of competing elements in and around the room which are evoking emotions in your audience. For instance, a marching band practicing outside might be annoying your audience. If this annoyance is strong, it may prevent you from evoking competing emotions with your presentation. The solution is to take charge and eliminate or minimize these causes whenever you can so that your audience can focus on you. Examples: Hunger and biological needs create strong emotions. Take appropriate breaks if you deliver lengthy training. Excessive noise, temperature extremes (either too hot or too cold), or poor lighting make your audience uncomfortable and perhaps even angry at you or the organizer. Do whatever you can to optimize the conditions. Speaking over your allotted time may make your audience nervous or anxious if they ve got to pick up their kids. Stick to your time bounds. Hecklers and your response to them can evoke many emotions. Learn how to handle them smoothly and professionally. #18: Avoid Tripping Emotional Land Mines Situations where you aren t familiar with your audience are potentially dangerous. Perhaps you ve been invited to speak at a company which has just experienced massive layoffs. Perhaps you ve been invited to speak to an audience of a different culture. In either case, you ve got to be careful not to say something (or gesture something) which accidentally triggers an emotion that you had not intended.
If you re lucky, you ll just say something that provokes unexpected laughter. If you re not, you ll say something that deeply offends your audience to the degree that they tune you out completely. Your best defense against this is extensive audience analysis. Do your homework. Sometimes, it may still happen despite your best efforts. In this case, it s important that you are actively reading your audience. If you have evoked an unintended emotion, you can usually tell. It s wise to address it and, if necessary, apologize for the unintended offense. What is Logos and Why is it Critical for Speakers? Have you ever listened to a speaker and thought: I m so lost. How did he come to that conclusion? Interesting theory, but it wouldn t work for me. No way! That number has to be wrong. Nice slides, but I ll stick with my own method. In all of these cases, the speaker probably suffered from poor logos. As a result, it s doubtful that you adopted their central message or followed the call-to-action. What is Logos? Logos is the Greek root word from which the English logic is derived. So, it isn t surprising that, in speaking, logos is often equated with logical reasoning or an argument based on reasoning. You might be thinking that logic is dry and boring. You might also be thinking that you want to be a dynamic and fun speaker, and so logical reasoning isn t really that important to you. While you may not get turned on by logical analysis, it is critical to your success. Before we can see why logos matters to you as a speaker, however, we need to define a few terms. A (Very) Brief Tour of Logical Reasoning Logical reasoning has two flavors: 1. Deductive reasoning, and 2. Inductive reasoning
Deductive Reasoning Deductive reasoning consists of one or more deductive arguments. You generally start with one or more premises, and then derive a conclusion from them. Premises can be facts, claims, evidence, or a previously proven conclusion. The key is that in a deductive argument, if your premises are true, then your conclusion must be true. For example, consider the following deductive argument: 1. Audiences hate all boring things. (premise) 2. Bullet-point slides are boring. (premise) 3. Therefore, audiences hate bullet-point slides. (conclusion) So, if audiences hate boring things (yes!) and if bullet-point slides are boring (yes!), then audiences must hate bullet-point slides. Inductive Reasoning Inductive reasoning is similar in that it consists of premises which lead to a conclusion. The difference is that the conclusion is not guaranteed to be true we can only state it with some degree of confidence. For example, consider the following inductive argument: 1. All Six Minutes articles you have read in the past were insightful. (premise) 2. This is a Six Minutes article. (premise) 3. Therefore, this article is insightful. (conclusion) Given these premises, it is reasonable to expect that this article will be insightful, but it cannot be stated with certainty based on those premises. It must be inferred. Audiences and Logical Arguments Your audience is applying deductive and inductive reasoning all the time. Okay, so why is this important? It s important because your audience is applying deductive and inductive reasoning all the time. It happens subconsciously, but they are doing it before you start speaking, while you speak, and after you ve finished. Let s consider an example. Example Scenario: You are trying to convince your audience to try a new weight-loss diet. You claim that the new diet reduces hunger. (premise A) You claim that reducing hunger will reduce caloric intake. (premise B) You claim that reducing caloric intake will cause weight loss. (premise C)
You conclude that the new diet will cause weight loss. (This is a sound, deductive conclusion which must be true if premises A, B, and C are true.) What could your audience be thinking? Every diet I have tried in the past has failed miserably. (premise D) This new diet is like those failed diets. (premise E) Therefore, this new diet will fail miserably. (This is a reasonable inductive conclusion drawn from premises D and E.) Because their own conclusion is based on strong, emotional experiences (i.e. a failed diet is emotional), it has high pathos and probably trumps your conclusion. Since your audience has to resolve these conflicting conclusions, they will look to your arguments for flaws. Although your deductive conclusion is sound, they will doubt your premises: I m always hungry when I am on a diet! (counters premise A) But if my caloric intake drops, I won t have enough energy to exercise, and I ll gain weight! (counters premise C) Your success depends on your ability to simultaneously make your argument stronger and competing arguments weaker. How can you be persuasive in this challenging scenario? Your success depends on your ability to simultaneously make your argument stronger and competing arguments weaker. For example: You can boost your argument by providing supporting facts, diet research, or even your personal success story with the new diet. You also must show why this new diet is unlike all those past failed diets. If successful, you would significantly cast doubt on premise E, and their entire inductive argument. Kill Two Birds with a Single Stone: Commonplaces It may seem impossible to build a strong argument when you ve got to compete against a lifetime of beliefs and premises that your audience has previously formed. You may wonder how you can persuade anyone of anything. The answer: commonplaces. Commonplaces are simply beliefs which are widely held. Commonplaces often represent shared wisdom, and come from many sources. For example: Family members may agree that eating dinner together every day keeps us strong. o This commonplace would make it hard for you to convince them to join a club that meets in the dinner hour.
Organizations may have core values which include communication is key to our success. o This commonplace means that they are particularly receptive to ideas which promise to improve organizational communication. Society at large generally believes that freedom of speech is a good thing. o This commonplace would be a good starting point to persuade members of your school board not to ban controversial classics from the school library. There are two keys to using commonplaces in your speeches: 1. Commonplaces can be used as (often unstated) premises in your speeches. You can use them just as you would use any other fact or claim. 2. When your commonplaces are different from your audience s commonplaces, use theirs, not yours! Suppose you want to encourage students graduating from an elite private liberal arts college to enlist in the military. Use the audience s commonplaces, not the military s. Instead of A strong nation is a peaceful nation, say, Our armed forces can use independent, critical thinkers. When you use your audience s commonplaces as your premises, your arguments appear much, much stronger. You don t have to convince them to adopt a completely new viewpoint; rather, you are simply encouraging them to take what they already believe (the commonplace) and apply it to a new scenario. Okay, I ll Use Commonplaces. Anything Else? Unfortunately, there s more to it than that. Using audience commonplaces is just one particularly strong technique. In general, you can develop strong logos by following three general principles: 1. Make it Understandable Whatever arguments you employ, they have to be easily understood by the audience before they can be persuasive. 2. Make it Logical Make sure your arguments stand up under the deductive and inductive reasoning that your audience will be using. Make sure your premises don t have holes in them, and have a strategy for addressing competing arguments which your audience already believes. 3. Make it Real Premises which are based on concrete and specific facts and examples tend to be accepted quicker than premises which are abstract and general. The more easily your premises are accepted, the more easily your conclusions will be as well. Why is Logos Critical for Speakers? Preconceptions are not easily pushed aside. If your presentation is hard to follow, or if your arguments are fairly weak, your audience will find it easy to dismiss your ideas.
Sound, logical arguments, on the other hand, are hard for your audience to ignore. When combined with good ethos and pathos, strong logos will cause all but the most stubborn audience members to give strong consideration to your ideas. The Circular Relationship between Logos and Ethos By demonstrating logos with strong, logical arguments, your audience will tend to see you as knowledgeable and prepared. This, in turn, raises your ethos (because, after all, only someone with pure intentions would work so hard to prepare such a convincing argument). Similarly, speakers with high ethos tend to receive less opposition when they present logical arguments. Their facts and claims are more easily believed. Work on both traits, and you will be much more persuasive. 17 Easy Ways to Be a More Persuasive Speaker General Strategies for Improving Your Logos Make it Understandable If your audience doesn t understand you, they can t be persuaded by you. To be an effective communicator, you ve first got to be a clear communicator. To be a clear communicator, you must use words, phrases, examples, and visuals that are understandable, and you ve got to deliver them at a pace that the audience can absorb. How can you do this? Let us count some ways #1: Use plain language. Use words that your audience uses. Avoid technical jargon that your audience (or a portion of your audience) isn t familiar with. Favor short words and phrases over long and convoluted counterparts. Don t imitate the language you might find in a legal transcript or an academic paper. Technical language is necessary for those contexts, but it isn t helpful in a conversation or presentation. Note that plain language doesn t mean boring language. Use vivid and descriptive language where appropriate. #2: Be explicit. To be an effective communicator, you ve first got to be a clear communicator.
Your audience should not need a decoder ring to figure out your message. It should be obvious. Spell it out if necessary. Make sure you are not misinterpreted. It is particularly important to make the connection between premises and conclusions explicit. Because is a magic word for this purpose: Because premise A and premise B, we can see that conclusion must be true. If your arguments involve more than a couple premises, be sure your audience sees the relationship between them. And these five advantages capital costs, scheduling, inventory control, marketing, and employee satisfaction together make this a winning proposal. #3: Trace sequences or processes in order. To help your audience understand a sequence or process, march through the steps or phases in a meaningful order, usually sequential. If you jump around the steps out of order, your audience will be confused. As the number of steps increases, so does the need to use a diagram for clarity. #4: Use diagrams. Carefully crafted and focused diagrams almost always enhance the understandability of your arguments. It doesn t matter if you draw in PowerPoint, on a white board, or on the back of a napkin it only matters that you clarify concepts for your audience. But, be careful not to introduce an unnecessarily complex diagram. In the worst case, a busy diagram or one with lots of irrelevant details will frustrate your audience and diminish your understandability. #5: Use charts. Like diagrams, a carefully crafted chart or graph will speak volumes and clarify a previously fuzzy relationship. Remember the warning about unnecessary complexity applies to charts too. #6: Use progressive disclosure. Suppose the diagram (or chart) which best explains the concepts is a complex one. What then? It doesn t matter if you draw in PowerPoint, on a white board, or on the back of a napkin it only matters that you clarify concepts for your audience. In nearly all cases, it should be possible to use progressive disclosure. This means that you build up the entire diagram (or chart) progressively as a series of chunks, revealing only a part of the overall diagram at a time. If you are drawing the diagram as you speak, you are inherently using