Forms of appeal

To make their arguments sound more convincing, writers use rhetorical strategies known as forms of appeal, by appealing to people’s emotions (pathos), reason (logos), or to trust and credibility (ethos).

Jeremy Clarkson mainly builds his argumentation by appealing to logic. Pathos and ethos are also used but only very lit…

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Logos

Most of the article is an appeal to people’s reason, trying to persuade them through logical arguments and facts that authorities and influencers are exaggerating their campaigns against alcohol consumption.

For example, the writer includes exact statistic about how much he drank on holiday to show that occasional large quantities of alcohol are not harmful: “I've just done a calculation and on holiday this year I drank 55 units of alcohol a day. I would start at 11 o'clock…” (p. 106, ll. 40-41). However, due to Clarkson’s tongue-in-cheek tone, it is unlikely that readers will believe this is an exact number, and it is probably exaggerated.

At the same time, many of his mockeries targeting campaigns against drinking are meant to suggest that any reasonable person can see they are exaggerated: 

…drinks more than two small glasses of white wine a day he will catch chlamydia from the barmaid i…

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Ethos

Ethos refers to the writer’s attempts to make himself and the people he alludes to in the text appear credible, trustworthy, or knowledgeable.

Clarkson builds his credibility by sharing his personal experience with binge drinking which he argues proves that drinking is not as bad as authorities make it be: “Me? Well, what I love most of all is binge drinking.” (l. 22); “I've just done a calculation and on holiday this year I drank 55 units of alcohol a day. I would start at 11 o'clock…” (p. 106, ll. 40-41)

This blunt honesty is also likely to make the writer more likeable to the audience by appealing to their feeling of empathy, and thus is a mix of ethos and pathos.

The writer also draws et…