Ethos, pathos and logos are three ways to persuade an audience: ethos builds trust in the speaker, pathos connects with the audience’s feelings and values, and logos supports the argument with reasons and evidence. In a speech, they help listeners decide whether to trust you, care about your point and accept your conclusion.
You can use all three in a short presentation without announcing their names. Explain why you understand the issue, show what it means for the people listening, then make a case they can examine. The examples below show how to do that, including a complete short speech you can analyze.
Contents
At a Glance
| Appeal | Meaning | Audience’s question | Simple example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethos | Credibility and trustworthiness | Why should I trust you on this? | “I organize the club’s practice sessions, so I see where newcomers get stuck.” |
| Pathos | Emotion, values and personal relevance | Why should I care? | “Nobody should spend their first meeting worrying that they don’t belong.” |
| Logos | Reasoning and supporting evidence | Does your argument make sense? | “If everyone rehearses once before the meeting, we can use meeting time for feedback.” |
- A passage can use more than one appeal.
- Logos needs a sound connection between evidence and conclusion; a number alone is insufficient.
- Pathos can involve hope, belonging or fairness, as well as sympathy or fear.
- Use these appeals to improve your case and to examine other people’s arguments.
What Do Ethos, Pathos and Logos Mean?
The terms come from classical rhetoric and are associated with Aristotle. In modern speaking and writing, they usually describe appeals to credibility, emotion and reason. Purdue OWL explains the wider rhetorical context, including the relationships between the author, text and audience.
Watch: A Short Introduction to Rhetoric
TED-Ed’s How to Use Rhetoric to Get What You Want, by educator Camille A. Langston, introduces persuasion and the three appeals. As you watch, look for the relationship between a speaker’s argument and the audience they are trying to persuade.
A useful memory aid is ethos: trust; pathos: feel; logos: think. Treat that as a starting point. Trust also depends on how you reason, and a well-chosen example can make people think and feel at the same time.
Ethos: Give People a Reason to Trust You
Ethos concerns the credibility your audience gives you. Relevant experience can help, but so can explaining your sources, acknowledging uncertainty and treating objections fairly. A confident delivery will not repair an unsupported claim.
Suppose you are asking your club to introduce a welcome session. This is a useful opening:
“I’ve helped run our last four welcome meetings. Several new members asked the same practical questions afterward, so I’ve put together a short orientation we could offer before the next meeting.”
The speaker identifies relevant experience and explains how it led to the proposal. They do not need to claim expertise in every aspect of running a club.
If you are new to the topic, establish credibility through preparation: “I compared the three options against the room capacity, access requirements and our available volunteers.” Explain what you checked and let listeners assess it. Never invent qualifications or personal experience for the sake of sounding credible.
Pathos: Make the Human Consequence Clear
Pathos appeals to feelings and values. In a speech, it helps listeners recognize why an issue matters to them or to people they care about.
“Think about walking into a room where everyone already knows one another. A friendly introduction can make it much easier to stay and join the conversation.”
This example invites the audience to imagine a familiar feeling. It supports a practical proposal without claiming that every newcomer has the same experience.
Choose the emotion that fits your subject. A celebration might invite pride; a volunteering appeal might emphasize belonging; a proposal for clearer instructions might address frustration. Sad stories are only one option. Let people reach their own response rather than telling them that a decent person must agree.
Logos: Show How the Conclusion Follows
Logos is the reasoning in your case. Evidence matters, but you must explain what it supports and how it leads to your recommendation.
“A ten-minute orientation would answer the questions we repeat at each meeting. We could cover the room layout and session format once, then give newcomers a short reference sheet.”
The speaker links a recurring problem to a proposed remedy. A stronger version would add real evidence from the club, such as a record of repeated questions or feedback from newcomers.
Be careful about scope. Feedback from six club members may justify trying a small pilot. It would not establish what all clubs should do. For more on constructing the appeals, see Purdue OWL’s rhetorical strategies guide.
One Topic, Three Different Appeals
The easiest way to see the difference is to keep the proposal fixed. Imagine asking a team to send meeting agendas in advance. These are original examples, with hypothetical circumstances.
| Appeal | Example sentence | What persuades |
|---|---|---|
| Ethos | “As the person who prepares our meeting notes, I often have to clarify decisions after the call.” | The speaker has direct experience of the relevant work. |
| Pathos | “It’s frustrating to join a meeting ready to help and discover you needed a document nobody told you to read.” | The listener recognizes an avoidable frustration. |
| Logos | “Sending the agenda the day before gives people time to find the information needed for each decision.” | The proposed change addresses a specific preparation problem. |
You would not necessarily deliver these as three separate paragraphs. A natural presentation might introduce the frustration, explain what you have observed and propose a short trial.
Notice that none of the examples proves the entire proposal. You would still need to discuss who prepares the agenda, what happens when an urgent meeting is necessary and how much notice is realistic.
A Short Speech Using All Three Appeals
This original example asks a work team to try sending agendas before its regular meetings. The circumstances are fictional; replace them with your own facts when adapting it.
“Let’s try sending an agenda the day before each of our next three weekly meetings.
“I prepare our meeting notes, and I’ve noticed that some decisions stay open because the person with the relevant information did not know we would need it. We then spend time following up after the call.
“It’s frustrating to make room in a busy day for a meeting and leave unable to finish the task you came to discuss. We can make preparation easier for everyone.
“The agenda only needs the decision we want to make, who should bring information and a link to any reading. If we send that before the meeting, colleagues can prepare or tell us what is missing. For urgent issues, we can still agree on the discussion at the start.
“I can prepare the first agenda. Can we try the format for three meetings, then decide whether it helped us close the decisions on the list?”
How the Appeals Work Together
Ethos: The speaker prepares the meeting notes and identifies a recurring issue. Their credibility comes from relevant responsibility and observation. Offering to prepare the first agenda also makes their own role clear.
Pathos: The speech recognizes the frustration of leaving a meeting unable to finish a task. It connects the proposal to colleagues’ limited time without accusing anyone of being unprepared.
Logos: The agenda tells people what information a decision requires. Advance notice gives them an opportunity to obtain it. The limited trial provides a way to examine the proposal before adopting it permanently.
The final question converts agreement into a decision. If you need a subject for your own practice speech, start with our easy persuasive speech topics and narrow one to a specific audience and request.
How to Identify the Appeals in a Speech
To identify ethos, pathos and logos, examine what a passage asks listeners to accept and why. Quoting a sentence and naming an appeal is a start; explaining its effect on the intended audience produces a much stronger analysis.
- Identify the main claim. What does the speaker want the audience to believe or do?
- Select a precise passage. Choose a sentence or short section where a persuasive choice is visible.
- Name the mechanism. Is the speaker demonstrating relevant experience, appealing to a value, or connecting evidence to a conclusion?
- Explain the audience connection. Why might this choice matter to these listeners?
- Evaluate its strength. Does the passage earn trust or merely claim it? Does the evidence support the conclusion?
For example: “By explaining that she prepares the meeting notes, the speaker establishes relevant experience of the team’s decisions. This supports her credibility when she identifies unfinished discussions.” That is more useful than “This is ethos because she is credible.”
Avoid forcing every line into one category. A carefully attributed expert finding can support logos through evidence and ethos through responsible sourcing. Salt Lake Community College’s guide to rhetorical analysis discusses how the appeals overlap.
Using the Appeals Without Weakening Your Argument
Use each appeal to help the audience judge the proposal. The following checks are especially useful when revising a persuasive speech.
| Weak choice | Why it falls short | Better approach |
|---|---|---|
| “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” | Asserts credibility without showing its basis. | Explain the relevant work, research or experience behind the recommendation. |
| “Anyone who cares would support this.” | Pressures listeners and dismisses reasonable objections. | Explain who benefits and answer concerns about the proposal. |
| A dramatic statistic without context | Listeners cannot assess what it measures. | Name the source, population, timeframe and relevant limitation. |
| One story presented as universal proof | A single experience cannot establish how common something is. | Use the story to illustrate the issue and separate it from evidence about scale. |
Kellogg Community College’s guide to evaluating appeals offers a useful distinction between legitimate persuasion and misleading uses of credibility, evidence or emotion.
There is no fixed percentage of ethos, pathos and logos that every speech needs. A budget proposal may require detailed reasoning; a welcome speech may depend more on shared values and warmth. In either case, keep factual claims accurate and make the purpose clear.
Afterward, take one proposal from your own life and write a sentence that establishes your basis for speaking, a sentence that shows why the issue matters and a sentence that explains your reasoning. Read them aloud together. Remove anything that sounds exaggerated, then use our speech rehearsal tips to test whether the message is clear when spoken.
