Definition

Pathos, or the appeal to emotion, means to persuade an audience by purposely evoking certain emotions to make them feel the way the author wants them to feel. Authors make deliberate word choices, use meaningful language, and use examples and stories that evoke emotion.

Significance

The technique of pathos is an important skill for writers. Pathos connect the writers to audiences, making the audiences relate or touch the essence of the words that the author wrote. When writing essays, we can always stand on the readers’ perspective . By thinking about how the readers think and feel, we can always write out moving pathos. For example, when we want to write a persuasive essay, except giving out facts and logics, using pathos can deeply let the readers aknowledge the opinions of writers. When we are advcating the rights of marginalized groups of people, by relating those marginalized groups to readers’ family members, which both groups have no differences between each other, the readers would be convinced.

Examples

• Example 1:

• example 2:

They’ve worked against everything we’ve worked so hard to build, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process. Make no mistake, they’re the enemy, and they won’t stop until we’re all destroyed.

• example 3:

A teenager tries to convince his parents to buy him a new car by saying if they cared about their child’s safety they’d upgrade him.