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We speak student! Aristotle was quite a guy you might know him as the famous Greek [Aristotle pointing to something in the room]

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philosopher who tutored Alexander the Great or maybe as the guy who wrote

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about every subject under the sun or perhaps is the dude who came up with the

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first comprehensive system of Western philosophy yeah pretty impressive but [Aristotle speaking to Plato]

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most importantly well at least for this lesson were Aristotle's views on rhetoric what's

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rhetoric in fact Aristotle had so much to say about the

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art of speaking and writing effectively that's rhetoric that he put together a whole [olden greek man holding a long piece of paper]

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book on the subject it's aptly titled on rhetoric best seller in 100's BC in the

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text Aristotle tells us how to persuade the people who are listening to us talk [man dressed in a suit talking on a cellphone]

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or reading what we've written to come around to our way of thinking we would

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have thought step one would be picking a catchy title but then what do we know

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anyway before we go any further we'd like you to meet some lovely people who [a man and woman in suits stood outside the White House]

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are running for the presidency of the United States over here we have clueless

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candidate a and over there is brain-dead candidate B well candidates A and B

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have volunteered to stand on a stage and let us use them as examples while we're [two presidential candidates on stage]

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talking about rhetoric well let's get started according to Aristotle any

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presentation has to have three persuasive appeals in order for an

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audience to accept the message contained in the speech first there's the ethos

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which has to do with the credibility of the speaker basically if the speaker is [boy with folded arms stood beside a burnt out car]

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trustworthy respected by the audience and knows what they're talking about

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then the audience is more likely to buy what they're selling clearly our shell

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here doesn't make the grade let's say candidate A is a smart and experienced

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career politician who has never been caught in a lie and let's say candidate [candidate A stood on stage with angel's wings]

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B is a smart and experienced career politician who has been involved in more

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scandals than you can shake a stick at which candidate will have the most

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[arrow pointing to candidate A on stage] credibility with the audience Aristotle's second persuasive appeal is pathos which

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pertains to the speaker's emotional connection with the audience let's say

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candidate A comes across as an emotionless robot when speaking [Candidate A on stage dressed as a robot]

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candidate B on the other hand knows how to tell a good story a yarn which

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candidate makes the audience feel all the feeling you know there you go the

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third persuasive appeal is logos or the speaker's logical argument well here [men at a NASA press conference]

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the audience has to determine if a speaker's message makes sense is backed

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up with all the necessary evidence and possesses a call to action they'll

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deliver the promised result if we return to our candidates we see that while [Candidate A giving a presentation on a 5 part plan]

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candidate A's policy prescriptions are airtight candidate B's policy

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prescriptions are like a leaky submarine in other words if we listen to candidate B

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everybody dies whoa this just got dark okay according to Aristotle the [an open desert]

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persuasive the field of logos is the most important part of any oral or

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written argument but logos can't carry all the weight on its own it needs ethos

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and pathos to support it and share the load but when the second tuesday in [ethos and pathos words either side of logos holding dumb-bells]

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november rolls around and voters go to the polls they'll find himself thinking

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about the ethos the pathos and the logos of candidate a and b and hopefully

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they'll vote for person who is best able to combine aristotle free persuasive [people walking in to vote for candidates A or B]

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appeal this is America though before I'm to buy some scuba gear

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