Before you start working on the pathos material, it is important to realize the whole concept of this notion. Emotional appeal is an art which arouses feelings of different nature, such as sympathy, sorrow, pity or tenderness.
Very often when you are trying to stimulate or convince your audience, you need to take into consideration emotional reaction from the audience. Remember, using pathos can be of great importance while you create your own piece of work. It can help you control the emotional reaction from your audience more effectively.
Emotional appeal is an extremely powerful instrument which can help you cause different emotions among the people. If you use pathos tool effectively, you have an opportunity to urge your audience to action. Take into consideration the passion of the message you express because it is directly proportional to the audience response. Do not use the pathos as the basis for your essay, as it should be some kind of support of your message. We provide you with a number of tips you can apply to the majority of writing areas that include pathos.
- 1. To understand pathos can be a general subject. Thus, the variety of steps can differ according to the audience, context, etc.
- 2. Think about your audience and a great number of people it consists of. You will have to create your message so that it could be applied for as many people as possible.
- 3. Focus on the emotions you will be able to relate to. Never share the emotions you, personally, do not have with the audience. Otherwise, in such case pathos will be of a manipulative nature.
- 4. Do your best in order to take into consideration the values, needs and wants which are shared by many (personal liberty, safety, etc.)
- 5. Share your own experience if it’s an appropriate case.
- 6. Take into consideration not only your listeners, but also the expression medium, for example, communication one (use speaking, web design, images, etc.)
- 7. Decide on your message context, whether it will be of a political or social or some other nature. Thus, you will be able to better understand the needs your audience has.