Ethos 2

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Ethos
When constructing any genre of writing, the character, or ethos, displayed is very important. There should always be a direct ethos defined in your writing. It should provide ethical appeal to the reader and intended audience. Therefore, credibility and authenticity needs to be depicted throughout the work of writing. Credibility can be defined as accurate and reliable. It is important to have credible facts and information to properly inform the audience. There should be evidence and reason behind the facts stated. Ethos is very important in order to establish credibility and authority to persuade an audience to trust one’s writing.

Ethos is literally Greek for “character”. The information you provide for an audience reflects your own thoughts and ideas. If you want to be a respected writer, you need to establish a trustworthy ethos. In order to achieve this, you should give credit to writers from whom you have gotten information from. This can be in the form of citations or in a works cited page.

A common way to establish credibility as a writer is to build common ground. This is done by using simple, everyday language to help compare to the audience. It shows that you respect your audience and their views. This ethos technique shows the audience that you are interested in the same topic as them and share that quality. People will more likely to be intrigued to read your paper when they feel that you are speaking to them directly instead of seeming to talk down on them. This is also a helpful hint when writing an argumentative paper. Establishing common ground will make the audience more willing to read the paper. You should find an area of agreement instead of shocking them with a strong argument.

Another important usage of ethos is in persuasive arguments. You need to properly analyze all of the information, including the opposing side of the argument. This helps display a fair and equal ethos. This requires a confident and consistent tone as well. If you display a well-developed thesis and argument, your ethos will be strong in return. This is critical when designing and planning an argumentative paper. The reader needs to agree with your points in order to agree with your stance.

Ethos is an especially important tool in rhetorical thinking (see Rhetorical Thinking wiki). Ethos is displayed through genre, tone, how you approach your audience, the strength of your stance, the context with which you display your character, and medium you use as a system of communication. Ethos falls dependent on all of these characteristics. Your ethos has to be strong in all of these subgroups in order to create a successful paper. Communication is vital in writing a paper. You need to make sure to come across confident and strong to your audience. If you do not sound knowledgeable, fair, and well informed, your ethos is questionable. You should always strive to represent yourself in a positive way as well. You need to show respect for the audience and compare to their ideas in order to establish a strong ethos.