The Art of Persuasion

This week in MCOM, we learned about three principles taught by Aristotle to help a writer appeal to their audience. The first area is ethos. This is basically where you let the audience know that you are a credible source for information. You must tell them why they should listen to you. You want the audience to think you are an expert in the area you are writing about. The second area is  logos. This is the appeal to reason. The audience needs to know the reasoning behind your argument and why your argument makes sense. Your argument must makes sense to their heads and their hearts. Speaking of hearts, that is the third area. This area is called pathos. By using pathos, you can emotionally touch your audience and have them feel happy, sad, or excited. If you use these three principles in your writing, you are sure to win the audience over to your point of view!

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I AM PLEASED TO PRESENT....

This week in MCOM we talked about presentation skills. One of the main points we focused on was not using "filler" words and phrases. Since our class, I have noticed so many of my filler phrases and now I am trying to rid my vocabulary of them. I always say "at this juncture," "I don't know why," and "you know what I mean." I also use the word "like" way to much! It is like the most annoying thing ever. It makes me like sound like so like ditsy.

If you notice filler words in your vocabulary, do not get discouraged because EVERYONE has filler words. And sometimes your filler words change over time, or sometimes they change day to day. The best thing you can do is to be aware of your filler words and to do your best to fix them. Try adding new words into your vocabulary to help you be more aware of what you are saying. Over time, you should be able to get rid of some of those annoying filler words!




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