ethical responsibilities && expectations

When an author is using 'ethos' they have to be sure to create credibility. "Aristotle called the impact of the speaker's credibility the appeal from ethos" (Ramage, 140). There are three ways to create credibility. The first is to be knowledgeable about the issue, meaning to be able to argue from a strong point. The point which you are arguing from is usually personal experiences, statistics/ facts, and a strong base of knowledge. This would command your audience because you have your own stories of your argument to tell. Second is to be fair. Being fair consists of making sure you are looking at things from different views. The ethos is stronger when you can take the argument from opposing views. The last way to create credibility is to build a bridge to your audience. To do this you must have to share your values and assumptions with your audience. You also need to enhance your image so your side of the argument is comfortable with you if you were to be the audience.

The ethical responsibilities for an author to have 'pathos' is to use concrete language or use specific examples and illustrations and narratives. When using concrete language you want to have a high interest level and personality from the writer. The writer should give details by creating positive images. Specific examples and illustrations provide evidence for your argument and allow for the audience to know your emotional side your view and how valuable the argument is to you. Using narratives is when you are telling a story that supports your claim. The audience wouldn't really understand where you are coming from until you have examples and backup of your argument.

I believe that our media and our government lives up to the 'pathos' responsibilty, however, not the 'ethos' responsibility. My example for using 'pathos' is when we are told stories from the war on Iraq. When we are told the stories, we are usually shown the negative stuff such as how many have died or how we are going to take more over to replace the others that have died. The thing about this argument is that they don't use 'ethos'. They are not looking at the argument from the different side of view, meaning the media and government aren't thinking about any positive things that are going on and how us people looking at the news feel about the information. Another example is when people are taken to jail for something they have did that has cut into the law. Of course, who ever disobeys the law should be punished, however, we aren't given information about why the person decided they had to do what they did. The media usually gives off the negative energy other than the positive. With the media giving us the bad side of the situation, they are just influncing us to just believe that this person should go to the "bad" part of the book and that we should all think this person is "bad". We all would like to know the other side of things.