what are three strategies are elements of a persuasive essay

Persuasive Essay Elements: How To Use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Persuasive Writing

Brendaw Waller

July 2, 2024

Read Time: 6 min

Persuasive Essay Elements: How To Use Ethos, Pathos, and Logos in Persuasive Writing

Do you know how can you make your essay more convincing? By using persuasive essay elements. You need ethos pathos logos to come up with a good and persuasive essay. These are also known as the persuasion strategies or elements of a persuasive essay. To dive into more detail keep reading this article. If you are busy with other assignments and projects you can buy persuasive essays online.

Secrets of Persuasion: Unveiling Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

Ethos, Pathos and Logos are the three persuasive writing elements which can help you in making arguments in a persuasive as well as argumentative essay. We know that you are already using them in your essays but without understanding their cause or purpose. Additionally you must be aware of the persuasive essay outline before starting writing. This will help you to apply these elements effectively.

The first persuasive essay elements is the logo. Logos is the method of persuasion that appeals to reason. For example, the facts you use to back up your case and make your idea seem more appealing to the audience. A “logical appeal” is what logos is generally called, and it comes in the form of numbers, facts, charts, graphs, and so on. Using things that are sure to be true and can be checked and measured makes your claim more credible and real. You can think logically in a number of different ways. Here are some examples:

Deductive thinking is when you start with a broad claim and work your way down to a specific point.
Using specific examples to back up a broad generalization is called inductive logic.
Comparison: showing how strong your claim is by contrasting your case with a similar one where your point of view is more clearly seen as fair.
Cause-and-effect thinking means basing your point of view on guesses about what will happen in the future and making predictions that show you’re right.
Exemplification means giving a lot of examples to back up your point of view.
Coherent thought means organizing your ideas in a way that makes them easy to understand.

Examples of Logos

Let’s say you have to write a persuasive essay about climate change. Here are some logos examples that will help you make your case better.

Since the late 1800s, the Earth’s surface temperature has gone up by about 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment at NASA have found that between 1993 and 2019, every year, Greenland lost about 279 billion tons of ice. The acidity of the upper oceans has increased by over 30% since the beginning of the industrial era.

The idea of ethos is another important persuasive elements in writing. It looks at your character and decides how authentic your view is. It depends on how trustworthy you are as a speaker. Depending on how credible you are as a source, the audience will either believe you less or more. Ethos isn’t just about your own credibility and accomplishments; it’s also about the values or beliefs that the person who might read or listen to you shares.

People will trust you more if you do a few of these things:

You can show that you’re informed and open to other points of view by describing more than one opinion and giving counterarguments.
Speaking about the audience’s views in a direct or indirect way; this could also mean using specific words, phrases, images, or writing styles to connect with them.
Showing off your reputation, skills, experience, or academic understanding in a certain area.

Examples of Ethos

Proceed with your discussion paper regarding climate change. You can use these cases of ethos to back up your case.

As someone with a degree in biology, I can say for sure that the way this company gets rid of its trash is bad for the earth. I work for a fishing business with my family, and I can say that the water quality has been getting much worse over the last 15 years. Since I volunteered for an environmental group over the summer, I know that the effects of global warming are even worse than the media shows it.

Through pathos, you can get your readers to think about how your writing makes them feel. It plays on things like imagination, emotion, fears, feelings, and so on. This emotional form, when combined with the other two, can help you develop a compelling argument that will win over any audience. Here are a few things that can help you.

Using creative language to talk about people, places, events, things, and ideas.
Additionally, making clear pictures that help people not only understand but also feel what you’re saying.
Telling personal stories will help you connect with your readers more deeply.
Emotionally heated words are used to show a certain attitude and set a certain mood.
Referring to facts that can connect to your audience and their lives will help them understand what you’re saying.

Pathos Examples

Let’s look at some pathos examples that can help you with your essay about global warming.

Hurricanes will get bigger and more intense because of global warming, which is a change that could kill people. High temperatures have negative effects on the economy, the agricultural sector, and energy consumption in addition to people’s health. Obviously, as the temperature rises, water sources decrease. This means that the price of a simple water bottle will quickly rise by a huge amount.

Reading Suggestion: Persuasive essay examples

Tips for Persuasive Essay Writing

Once you understand the persuasive essay elements you must also know how to refine your arguments and keep your reader engaged.

Pick Your Words Carefully.

To get people to agree with you, don’t write in a way that makes it impossible for them to say anything. Do not use words that are rude or hurtful. Instead, use a tone that is calm and fair. Additionally, use values that people already agree on and let facts and argument do the hard work of persuading them. You can use AI to select words. AI can help you turn your main point into a case that people can read. Then, you can rewrite each sentence and pick from different arguments made by the AI until your case is clear and to the point.

Put Accuracy First (and stay away from fallacies).

Make sure that the facts you use are authentic. You shouldn’t base your case on information that isn’t true or has been shown to be false. Use the most current research that you can trust. Be sure not to misinterpret the results of a study. And when you’re making your case, stay away from logical errors that hurt your point. Here are some common tricks you should avoid:

Strawman: Misrepresenting or oversimplifying the other side’s case to make it easy to disprove.
Arguing that a claim should be true because it hasn’t been proven incorrect is known as an appeal to ignorance.
The idea that if a lot of people, like experts, agrees with a claim, then it must be true.
A hasty generalization is when you make a broad claim based on a few examples instead of strong proof.
Appeal to authority means putting too much stock in the opinions of people who have some authority.

Persuasive Essay Outline/Structure

The foundation is the first thing you build when you’re making a house. It’s the same with an argument. You want to start from the very beginning: give the background information that is needed, then your point. Then, begin with the easiest part of your argument and work your way up in terms of how hard it is and what part of your thesis it is arguing against. A clear, internal logic will help the reader understand your point of view. You won’t be confusing your reader, and you won’t be repeating yourself. The following parts generally make up the structure of an essay:

Start with a hook, some background knowledge, and a thesis statement.
Topic sentence #1 , with facts or stats to back it up
Concluding lines
Topic sentence #2 , with facts or stats to support it
Topic sentence #3 , with facts or stats to back it up
Concluding sentences
Conclusion: Restatement of the thesis and key points, call to action, and an ending that makes you think.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: which three strategies are elements of a persuasive essay.

Ans. Three strategies which are also called persuasive essay elements are:

Q2: How to remember ethos, pathos, and logos?

Ans. If you want to remember these, try this: Ethos is related to “ethics”; the person is being asked to act in an ethical and responsible way. Being close to “logic” means appealing to reason and logic. In English, “pathetic” is a word that sounds a lot like “pathos.”

Q3: What are the themes of ethos pathos and logos?

Ans. Each category makes the speaker and the listener feel a different way. When someone talks, their ethics, or beliefs, come up. Through pathos, you can make people feel things. One last thing is that a logo uses reasoning by using proof and facts.

Q4: What is an example of ethos?

Ans. Examples of ethos include advertisements in which doctors promote a product. There are murder mysteries where the lead character is a police detective. In political statements, candidates talk about the experience that makes them qualified for the job.

Q5: What is an example of a logo?

Ans. To give an example, someone uses logos when they use scientific evidence, carefully explain their argument, or carefully recount past events that are important to their argument.

Q6: What is an example of pathos?

Ans. A young boy tries to convince his parents to upgrade him to a new car by saying that they would do so if they were concerned about their child’s safety. A man at the car showroom requests the seller to offer him the best deal on a new car so he can provide support to his family.

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How to Write a Persuasive Essay (This Convinced My Professor!)

Meredith Sell

You can make your essay more persuasive by getting straight to the point.

In fact, that's exactly what we did here, and that's just the first tip of this guide. Throughout this guide, we share the steps needed to prove an argument and create a persuasive essay.

This AI tool helps you improve your essay > This AI tool helps you improve your essay >

Key takeaways: - Proven process to make any argument persuasive - 5-step process to structure arguments - How to use AI to formulate and optimize your essay

Why is being persuasive so difficult?

"Write an essay that persuades the reader of your opinion on a topic of your choice."

You might be staring at an assignment description just like this 👆from your professor. Your computer is open to a blank document, the cursor blinking impatiently. Do I even have opinions?

The persuasive essay can be one of the most intimidating academic papers to write: not only do you need to identify a narrow topic and research it, but you also have to come up with a position on that topic that you can back up with research while simultaneously addressing different viewpoints.

That’s a big ask. And let’s be real: most opinion pieces in major news publications don’t fulfill these requirements.

The upside? By researching and writing your own opinion, you can learn how to better formulate not only an argument but the actual positions you decide to hold.

Here, we break down exactly how to write a persuasive essay. We’ll start by taking a step that’s key for every piece of writing—defining the terms.

What Is a Persuasive Essay?

A persuasive essay is exactly what it sounds like: an essay that persuades . Over the course of several paragraphs or pages, you’ll use researched facts and logic to convince the reader of your opinion on a particular topic and discredit opposing opinions.

While you’ll spend some time explaining the topic or issue in question, most of your essay will flesh out your viewpoint and the evidence that supports it.

The 5 Must-Have Steps of a Persuasive Essay

If you’re intimidated by the idea of writing an argument, use this list to break your process into manageable chunks. Tackle researching and writing one element at a time, and then revise your essay so that it flows smoothly and coherently with every component in the optimal place.

1. A topic or issue to argue

This is probably the hardest step. You need to identify a topic or issue that is narrow enough to cover in the length of your piece—and is also arguable from more than one position. Your topic must call for an opinion , and not be a simple fact .

It might be helpful to walk through this process:

Identify a random topic
Ask a question about the topic that involves a value claim or analysis to answer
Answer the question

That answer is your opinion.

Let’s consider some examples, from silly to serious:

Topic: Dolphins and mermaids

Question: In a mythical match, who would win: a dolphin or a mermaid?

Answer/Opinion: The mermaid would win in a match against a dolphin.

Topic: Autumn

Question: Which has a better fall: New England or Colorado?

Answer/Opinion: Fall is better in New England than Colorado.

Topic: Electric transportation options

Question: Would it be better for an urban dweller to buy an electric bike or an electric car?

Answer/Opinion: An electric bike is a better investment than an electric car.

Your turn: Walk through the three-step process described above to identify your topic and your tentative opinion. You may want to start by brainstorming a list of topics you find interesting and then going use the three-step process to find the opinion that would make the best essay topic.

2. An unequivocal thesis statement

If you walked through our three-step process above, you already have some semblance of a thesis—but don’t get attached too soon!

A solid essay thesis is best developed through the research process. You shouldn’t land on an opinion before you know the facts. So press pause. Take a step back. And dive into your research.

You’ll want to learn:

The basic facts of your topic. How long does fall last in New England vs. Colorado? What trees do they have? What colors do those trees turn?
The facts specifically relevant to your question. Is there any science on how the varying colors of fall influence human brains and moods?
What experts or other noteworthy and valid sources say about the question you’re considering. Has a well-known arborist waxed eloquent on the beauty of New England falls?

As you learn the different viewpoints people have on your topic, pay attention to the strengths and weaknesses of existing arguments. Is anyone arguing the perspective you’re leaning toward? Do you find their arguments convincing? What do you find unsatisfying about the various arguments?

Allow the research process to change your mind and/or refine your thinking on the topic. Your opinion may change entirely or become more specific based on what you learn.

Once you’ve done enough research to feel confident in your understanding of the topic and your opinion on it, craft your thesis.

Your thesis statement should be clear and concise. It should directly state your viewpoint on the topic, as well as the basic case for your thesis.

Thesis 1: In a mythical match, the mermaid would overcome the dolphin due to one distinct advantage: her ability to breathe underwater.

Thesis 2: The full spectrum of color displayed on New England hillsides is just one reason why fall in the northeast is better than in Colorado.

Thesis 3: In addition to not adding to vehicle traffic, electric bikes are a better investment than electric cars because they’re cheaper and require less energy to accomplish the same function of getting the rider from point A to point B.

Your turn: Dive into the research process with a radar up for the arguments your sources are making about your topic. What are the most convincing cases? Should you stick with your initial opinion or change it up? Write your fleshed-out thesis statement.

3. Evidence to back up your thesis

This is a typical place for everyone from undergrads to politicians to get stuck, but the good news is, if you developed your thesis from research, you already have a good bit of evidence to make your case.

Go back through your research notes and compile a list of every …

… or other piece of information that supports your thesis.

This info can come from research studies you found in scholarly journals, government publications, news sources, encyclopedias, or other credible sources (as long as they fit your professor’s standards).

As you put this list together, watch for any gaps or weak points. Are you missing information on how electric cars versus electric bicycles charge or how long their batteries last? Did you verify that dolphins are, in fact, mammals and can’t breathe underwater like totally-real-and-not-at-all-fake 😉mermaids can? Track down that information.

Next, organize your list. Group the entries so that similar or closely related information is together, and as you do that, start thinking through how to articulate the individual arguments to support your case.

Depending on the length of your essay, each argument may get only a paragraph or two of space. As you think through those specific arguments, consider what order to put them in. You’ll probably want to start with the simplest argument and work up to more complicated ones so that the arguments can build on each other.

Your turn: Organize your evidence and write a rough draft of your arguments. Play around with the order to find the most compelling way to argue your case.

4. Rebuttals to disprove opposing theses

You can’t just present the evidence to support your case and totally ignore other viewpoints. To persuade your readers, you’ll need to address any opposing ideas they may hold about your topic.

You probably found some holes in the opposing views during your research process. Now’s your chance to expose those holes.

Take some time (and space) to: describe the opposing views and show why those views don’t hold up. You can accomplish this using both logic and facts.

Is a perspective based on a faulty assumption or misconception of the truth? Shoot it down by providing the facts that disprove the opinion.

Is another opinion drawn from bad or unsound reasoning? Show how that argument falls apart.

Some cases may truly be only a matter of opinion, but you still need to articulate why you don’t find the opposing perspective convincing.

Yes, a dolphin might be stronger than a mermaid, but as a mammal, the dolphin must continually return to the surface for air. A mermaid can breathe both underwater and above water, which gives her a distinct advantage in this mythical battle.

While the Rocky Mountain views are stunning, their limited colors—yellow from aspen trees and green from various evergreens—leaves the autumn-lover less than thrilled. The rich reds and oranges and yellows of the New England fall are more satisfying and awe-inspiring.

But what about longer trips that go beyond the city center into the suburbs and beyond? An electric bike wouldn’t be great for those excursions. Wouldn’t an electric car be the better choice then?

Certainly, an electric car would be better in these cases than a gas-powered car, but if most of a person’s trips are in their hyper-local area, the electric bicycle is a more environmentally friendly option for those day-to-day outings. That person could then participate in a carshare or use public transit, a ride-sharing app, or even a gas-powered car for longer trips—and still use less energy overall than if they drove an electric car for hyper-local and longer area trips.

Your turn: Organize your rebuttal research and write a draft of each one.

5. A convincing conclusion

You have your arguments and rebuttals. You’ve proven your thesis is rock-solid. Now all you have to do is sum up your overall case and give your final word on the subject.

Don’t repeat everything you’ve already said. Instead, your conclusion should logically draw from the arguments you’ve made to show how they coherently prove your thesis. You’re pulling everything together and zooming back out with a better understanding of the what and why of your thesis.

A dolphin may never encounter a mermaid in the wild, but if it were to happen, we know how we’d place our bets. Long hair and fish tail, for the win.

For those of us who relish 50-degree days, sharp air, and the vibrant colors of fall, New England offers a season that’s cozier, longer-lasting, and more aesthetically pleasing than “colorful” Colorado. A leaf-peeper’s paradise.

When most of your trips from day to day are within five miles, the more energy-efficient—and yes, cost-efficient—choice is undoubtedly the electric bike. So strap on your helmet, fire up your pedals, and two-wheel away to your next destination with full confidence that you made the right decision for your wallet and the environment.

3 Quick Tips for Writing a Strong Argument

Once you have a draft to work with, use these tips to refine your argument and make sure you’re not losing readers for avoidable reasons.

1. Choose your words thoughtfully.

If you want to win people over to your side, don’t write in a way that shuts your opponents down. Avoid making abrasive or offensive statements. Instead, use a measured, reasonable tone. Appeal to shared values, and let your facts and logic do the hard work of changing people’s minds.

Choose words with AI

what are three strategies are elements of a persuasive essay

You can use AI to turn your general point into a readable argument. Then, you can paraphrase each sentence and choose between competing arguments generated by the AI, until your argument is well-articulated and concise.

2. Prioritize accuracy (and avoid fallacies).

Make sure the facts you use are actually factual. You don’t want to build your argument on false or disproven information. Use the most recent, respected research. Make sure you don’t misconstrue study findings. And when you’re building your case, avoid logical fallacies that undercut your argument.

A few common fallacies to watch out for:

Strawman: Misrepresenting or oversimplifying an opposing argument to make it easier to refute.
Appeal to ignorance: Arguing that a certain claim must be true because it hasn’t been proven false.
Bandwagon: Assumes that if a group of people, experts, etc., agree with a claim, it must be true.
Hasty generalization: Using a few examples, rather than substantial evidence, to make a sweeping claim.
Appeal to authority: Overly relying on opinions of people who have authority of some kind.

The strongest arguments rely on trustworthy information and sound logic.

Research and add citations with AI

We recently wrote a three part piece on researching using AI, so be sure to check it out . Going through an organized process of researching and noting your sources correctly will make sure your written text is more accurate.

3. Persuasive essay structure

If you’re building a house, you start with the foundation and go from there. It’s the same with an argument. You want to build from the ground up: provide necessary background information, then your thesis. Then, start with the simplest part of your argument and build up in terms of complexity and the aspect of your thesis that the argument is tackling.

A consistent, internal logic will make it easier for the reader to follow your argument. Plus, you’ll avoid confusing your reader and you won’t be unnecessarily redundant.

The essay structure usually includes the following parts:

Intro - Hook, Background information, Thesis statement
Topic sentence #1 , with supporting facts or stats
Concluding sentence
Topic sentence #2 , with supporting facts or stats
Concluding sentence Topic sentence #3 , with supporting facts or stats
Conclusion - Thesis and main points restated, call to action, thought provoking ending

Are You Ready to Write?

Persuasive essays are a great way to hone your research, writing, and critical thinking skills. Approach this assignment well, and you’ll learn how to form opinions based on information (not just ideas) and make arguments that—if they don’t change minds—at least win readers’ respect. ‍