"Pathos, Ethos, and Logos"

4V) Do you know what delayed gratification means? Neither did I, until I began to read about Mischell’s experiment. According to the internet, delayed gratification is defined as the ability to wait to in order to obtain something that one wants. To make my own sense of what delayed gratification meant, I broke down the two words. Delayed, meaning to “wait for” and gratification meaning to be “rewarded and pleased.” Delayed gratification is being able to resist temptation in order to receive an award later down the road. An example of this would be that right when you get your paycheck, you immediately save some of your money instead of even giving yourself the possibility to spend it all now.

One new word that I have come across this week is pathos. This word appeared in my English 110 class, along with ethos and logos. All three of these words are titles for argumentative strategies.

By definition, pathos means a quality that that evokes pity or sadness. In English it is used to describe a character and how he or she connects to his or hers audience. In my own words, pathos means the appeal to emotions. They persuade there audience by using emotional arguments or something that hits the nerves of its audience.

According to the internet, ethos is defined as a Greek word meaning “character”. It is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. From class discussions and so forth, meaning of ethos in my own words is the appeal to the character of a person.

Lastly, we learned about logos. Logos is defined as persuading your reader by the use of reasoning. In other words, it is using logic to persuade the reader with reasoning as to why something is being done or why a certain event happened. Logos is reflected with logic.