Forms of appeal

The authors Andrés Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck rely on all three forms of appeal in the excerpt of the chapter “The Victims of Sprawl”. Logos mainly helps the authors provide data and statistical evidence to support their ideas. They also borrow ethos from specialists and rely on pathos when they want to insert an emotional element in their text. 

Logos

The authors appeal to logos when they use data and statistical evidence. For example, they appeal to logos when they talk about the way sprawl affects teenagers, who are forced to rely on driving to gain independence:

Automobile accidents kill over 45,000 people annually in this country, almost a Vietnam War of casualties every year. A child is twenty times more likely to die from an automobile mishap than from gang activity, as most young drivers are involved in at least one serious auto accident between ages sixteen and twenty. (p. 89, ll. 6-11)

In this example, logos helps the authors prove their point that “it is more dangerous, statistically, to grow up in the suburbs of Seattle than in th...