Means of Persuasion

Persuasion in its totality can be referred to as the act of convincing or urging one to pursue an idea or act in a particular way. There are three main persuasion techniques audiences deploy from time to time when trying to convince their audiences to take up a particular idea. They are Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

Ethos

Ethos as a persuasion technique aims at registering the author’s credibility (in terms of qualifications and accomplishments) in the minds of his/her audience. This technique is deployed when the speaker intends to come across as a worthy character to address the issues at hand. To effectively deploy ethos the speaker has to choose the right language and vocabulary depending on the characteristics of the audience and context. For a speech or writing to be considered to have an appeal to ethos, the language used to persuade the audience must reflect the author’s morals as well as personality. The three Cs of credibility that are to define the appeals to ethos are competence, character, and caring. Competence involving having a good sense. Character encompasses having good morals, i.e., being of good character in the eyes of the audience. Caring entails having good will. It is the aspect of intending to do good to the audience without taking into consideration of profit motive.

In the clip, the aspect of competence is revealed by having the speaker citing what other credible researchers have heard to say about the topic. She has also done comprehensive research of the topic which makes the audience feels that credibility through competence is appealed. The character is evident in the way the speaker articulates her ideas with formal language and vocabulary that relates to the topic of boredom, innovation, and the brain. Lastly, reveal credibility through caring in the instances where she shares with the audience about her adventures work life as a journalist before motherhood. She talks of having rushed off when the Concord crashed and being among the first in Belgrade when there was a revolution in Serbia. This aspect is intended to make think critically and think out of the box and be innovative.

Pathos

The other way used to persuade the audience is through the use of pathos. Pathos in simple terms means an appeal to emotions. To persuade the reader to agree with sentiments, speakers and authors use certain phrases and sentences that evoke emotions. The speaker appeals to their audience by creating some connection to invoke their sympathy and pity. Pathos as a persuasion technique can also be used to create anger in an audience.

From the clip, the speaker begins by telling her audience about her struggles with motherhood while the rest of the world was moving on around her with the latest technology hence drawing some pity. She also about the pain she felt when deleting her favorite game, two dots. The speaker use of an image of her crying baby appeals to evoke some emotions from the audience. The speaker has also been able to evoke laughter by being humorous.

Logos

Logos involves the speaker capitalizing on logic to win over the audience’s acceptance of a particular proposition. To best apply logos the speaker will quote reputable authorities, historical facts, analogies, and statistics.

In this case study, the speaker plays recordings of qualified doctors and researchers and statisticians to validate her presentation professional backing. By acknowledging the sentiments of the professor of informatics Dr. Gloria Mark, neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Levitin, researcher Dr. Sandi Mann among others makes the audience feel that she is appealing to reasoning. She also quotes statistics on the use of mobile gadgets to effectively employing logos.

 
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