Forms of appeal

In order to make her arguments and ideas more convincing, Rachel Cusk frequently evokes authority and emotional language, or ethos and pathos, in her article "Mothers and teenagers: a modern tragedy".

Ethos

Ethos is constructed through the writer’s authority (legitimacy) generated by the fact that she is a respected writer and a parent of teenage girls. Being a parent of teenage girls makes her suitable for discussing the topic of mother-daughter relationships. Furthermore, she appeals to ideas of common shared values by presenting the perspective of the two categories being discussed—parents and teenagers: “Because they’re told by my daughters, these stories have the teenagers as their protagonists. The stories told by my peers work the othe...