08/09 - Persuasion and Brainstorming

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Advertising 101: What are Ethos, Pathos & Logos? (2022) | Boords

Rhetoric is the art of effective and persuasive speaking. Alongside grammar and logic, it makes up the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric is important in any kind of discourse; so that is what we tackled in this week's session. 

This week's class started with the discussion of Aristotle's three modes of persuasion - ethos (credibility), pathos (emotion) and logos (logic). These three modes are paramount in speaking persuasively. With Nikhil Sir, we evaluated its applications in writing, which, in its own way, aims at persuasion. We also discussed real-world examples of these concepts and which aspect of persuasion they tend to lean on more. Emotion seemed to be a very important aspect of many famous speeches - Mark Anthony's speech after the assassination of Julius Caesar, and Martin Luther King's famous speech, 'I Have a Dream', all employ Pathos to sway people. Citing and discussing these examples was a good exercise and it allowed me to analyse what exactly these three modes are comprised of. 

We then moved on to discussing the argumentative essays that we were assigned last week. Nikhil sir explained an efficient planning strategy for writing a good academic essay. It involved brainstorming, organising ideas, free writing and then writing the actual essay. He then asked us to split into teams of four and brainstorm our essays and review each others' work. The feedback I got from this activity was invaluable in conceiving and improving my essay. 

This week's session helped me understand the importance of persuasion and rhetoric in writing. While, writing essays, especially argumentative ones, persuading the reader is of paramount importance. This session made me re-evaluate my style of writing and gave me theoretical knowledge of persuasive writing. Hopefully, this will help me improve my writing in my journey through this course. 


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