RUNNING HEAD: THE TRINITY IN A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos:

The Trinity in a Rhetorical Analysis
Zenait Lopez
University of Texas at El Paso

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The Trinity in a Rhetorical Analysis
They say that a photograph is worth a thousand words, but what
if instead of a photograph is an article? It has a thousand words, but do
they can communicate and create an image that appeal to the senses
like an image by itself? Sometimes it does not. Not because of the
reader but the writer. What happened is that the writer in order to be
able to persuade people to take a particular point of view, he/she need
to use the trinity: ethos, pathos, and logos just like Matt O'Brien does
in his article Economists have discovered how bad the economy really
is, to make a point and make the audience think about it, so the
reader can gain a different point of view that he/she can find credible,
have a feeling of it and find logic in it.
Ethos is one of the most important things in an article, because it appeals to the
trustworthiness that the article provides. The reader can find credibility by the date of
publication, reputation of the author of the article, and the place, in this case a webpage,
where the article came from. Such as in the article Economists have discovered how bad
the economy really is, includes when this article does was published, which was on
April 21, 2015. This means that it was published in this year, which makes it more
credible due to the fact that the information that is written can be more accurate and is
related to what is happening nowadays. Also, it provides the name of the author, which is
Matt OBrien, as well as it adds who he is: Matt O'Brien is a reporter for Wonkblog
covering economic affairs. He was previously a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.
Hence, the webpage also provides more information of Matt OBrien to make the reader
be able to communicate with him if they want to Twitter: ObsoleteDogma. This
information helps the reader feel comfortable to believe in this source. In addition,
provides additional information of the webpage where this article came from. For
example, it provides another articles written by other authors that are capable to perform
this job of journalist such as Christopher Ingraham: Christopher Ingraham writes about
politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings

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Institution and the Pew Research Center. Thus, the web page also share information
through links about the webpage itself so the reader can be sure of who they are and the
privacy it provides, and if they have comments and question are more than welcome to
contact them.

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It is known that people believe in those whom they respect, therefore, if the reader
find all this information such as the date of publication, name of the author, and what
does the webpage contains, they will feel more confident and will find credibility, and
respect about the author and the information he/she shares.
The second component of the trinity is pathos. The role of pathos is like being a
girl, because it appeals to the sentimental part. In other words, pathos deals with
emotions. Those emotions are the ones that the author produced to the reader while
he/she is reading and makes an impact on them. It can be surprise, anger, sadness, and
happiness. But, it is an element that is not necessary to always be part of an article.

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Sometimes the author goes straight forward on what he/she wants to express and no
emotion is needed. Sometimes it does involve emotions and can be find them by looking
at the way he express the details and word choice. In pathos there is a connection
between the feelings of the author and the reader. In this article written by Matt OBrien,
at the beginning starts with curiosity of what information he wants to transmit using this
sentence: Unemployment is almost back to normal, but the economy isn't. This make
curiosity of what he try to mean by the unemployment is getting better while economy is
not. This does not sound logic to the reader, but at the same time, it does not make the
reader to ignore it either. Furthermore, it also makes the reader to be surprise about how
is that the economy does not change even though people find jobs. Despite the fact that
people have no full time jobs, but they have part time jobs, and have the possibilities to
contribute to the economy of the workers life a little bit, it surprisingly still does not help
the economy of the country: But that leaves out the shadow unemployed who want
full-time jobs but have either given up looking for them or can only find part-time ones.
That usually doesn't make that big a difference, but it does now, because, even six years
after the crisis has ended, there still isn't much that's usual about this economy. On the
other hand, the facts that this article add, helps the reader to feel knowledgeable about the
topic because it can be a topic that is unknown for the reader, but they can fully
understand it and be well-informed, how low the unemployment rate is versus how low
we think it could go, how high the participation rate is versus how high we think it could
go, and how many people can only find part-time jobs. Pathos commonly affects the
reader emotionally, and it will depend on the reader and his/her point of view, plus how
effective does the author manipulate the information and word choice to make the reader
have sympathy and experience a feeling while reading.
Last but not least there is logos. Logos appeals to the logic and keeps consistency
through the whole Matt OBriens article. Logos can be related to ethos because logos are
an essential part that supports the credibility (ETHOS) of the article. Matt uses facts that
support the idea of how the economy is seen by using another sources. Those sources are
included in the same article by putting them as a link. This means that if you want to
know where the information does came from or if the reader want to know more in depth,

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they just click the blue link that he provides: That isn't because the unemployment rate is
a conspiracy to make things and data have already forced them to backtrack a little.
Hence, the author cites the places where the information came from. In that way the
reader can see and make sure that the source is a credible source. In this article, the
author also provides a graph that shows how much unemployment, participation, under
re-employment, and total employment gaps differ one from another, Source:
Blanchflower and Levin. Lastly, the author use logos by using credible and outstanding
facts about people who is knowledgeable about the topic: That, at least, is what
economists Danny Blanchflower and Andrew Levin found when they looked and
That's partly, as Greg Ip points out, Also, as well as the resources, he shares a blue link
to other authors for the readers. Logos goes hand by hand with ethos and one cannot
live without the other, because an argument can be reliable if only if is supported with
strong evidence which is the role of logos, it supports an idea to make clear and credible
and argument of a writer.
On the other hand, some other things that should be considered is the audience.
The audience are the readers. The purpose of a writer is to make a reader to understand
and be well-informed about a topic. In this case is about economy. The author make their
articles exclusives to those whom are studying business or have a class of economy.
Nevertheless, the writer can make their articles using outstanding information but simple
words to make an argument that any person can understand as well. It does not necessary
need to be exclusive just like Matt did it.
In other words, I found this article useful to my next assignments in my
Rhetorical Composition Class, because the author of this article, Matt OBrien, share
information that is relevant to my topic, which is related to the economy. In addition, it
possess the trinity that makes an article have effectiveness in communication: ethos,
pathos, and logos where I found that it has credibility, made me feel curious and surprise,
and use facts that support his ideas about how is that the economy of the country does not
increase regardless the rate of the unemployment.

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REFERENCES
O'Brien, M. (2015, April 21). Economists have discovered how bad the economy really
is. Retrieved from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/21/economists-havediscovered-how-bad-the-economy-really-is/