Forms of appeal

George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address is mainly built on ethos, but there are also various instances of logos and pathos that you can identify in the speech.

Forms of appeal are a speaker’s appeal to emotions (pathos), trust and authority (ethos), and reason (logos), to get their audience to agree with their perspective on certain top…

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Logos

The speaker appeals to the audience’s reason by using logical arguments, facts, or statistical evidence, to support an idea or a course of action.

For example, the speaker uses facts and evidence to support the idea that the war in Afghanistan was necessary and justified: “We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, surveillance maps of Ameri…

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Pathos

The speaker appeals to the audience’s emotions when he brings into discussion the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: “For many Americans, these four months have brought sorrow, and pain that will never completely go away.” (ll. 34-35); “At a memorial in New York, a little boy left his football with a note for his lost father: Dear Daddy, please take this to heaven.” (ll. 36-38)

In this way, the speaker reminds the audience why the fight against terrorism is necessary by a…