Communications Question

Writing persuasively includes an effective working understanding of how to use appeal to ethics, appeal to emotion, and appeal to reason.

For example, if a doctor was to seek funding for the development of a new technique she’s created to treat an illness, she may begin by outlining her academic qualifications and years of success as a medical practitioner (ethos).  This might be followed by explaining how her new procedure isn’t as traumatic for the patient as previous forms of treatment and how it take into account emotional as well as physical wellbeing (pathos).  Finally, the doctor may point to the impressive success rate of her new method and explain how, with adequate support, she will be able to increase their successful treatment rate which will also result in more profit for the hospital (logos).

Your task is to make an argument for a social, political, or ethical message you feel is of importance and demonstrate how it can be supported with each of the three rhetorical strategies.

Structure your assignment as follows:

1. Your main point.  (one or two sentences)

2. Your supporting points for this argument in the following order.  (three to four sentences each)

a) Ethos

b) Pathos

c) Logos

3. Include an image that helps to convey the overall feeling of your message. (this should be on a separate page to your main point and supporting arguments)

Combine the image with a limited amount of text.  This persuasive and focused document should be one page only – see a format example in ‘Course Content’.

Include a short heading/title (in upper case 36 pt font) at the top of the page along with a limited amount of text (one to three short sentences in 14 pt font) below your image in order to anchor the message.  At the bottom of the page, include contact information (phone number, email address, and web site) to encourage the reader to seek further information and take action.  The contact information does not have to be real.

Consider that this image/text could posted on a website, a bulletin board, or even enlarged to become a poster.  Do not select an image that has already been used for the same purpose as your message, i.e. be original in your message construction.  On a separate page, include a link to the source of the image you select.

Submit your assignment as a PDF document.