Arguments Based on Emotion

 Emotional appeals influence what people think and believe  Everyone makes decisions based on feelings  Words, images, and sounds can arouse emotions Think about the “chill down the spine” or “pit of the stomach”

 Create sympathy from the audience  Make people aware of how much they owe others  Persuade people to hate an enemy, and rally against that enemy  Help people imagine suffering, so they will strive to relieve it

 Makes logical claims stronger Must be careful not to lay on too much, it makes audiences uncomfortable  Consider the Duke case:

 Using humor can put audience at ease, making them more open  Can be easier to make a point with humor EXAMPLE— “The third reason consumers don’t read manuals is that many consumers are men. We men would rather hook up our new DVD player in such a way that it ignites the DVDs and shoots them across the room-like flaming UFOs-than admit that the manual writer possesses a more manly technological manhood than we do.” Dave Berry

 “To be sure, it was natural to assume at first that Nifong had a case. Why else would be confidently declare the players guilty? But many academics and journalists continued to presume guilt months after massive evidence of innocence poured into the public record. Indeed, some professors persisted in attacks even after the three defendants were declared innocent by the N.C. Attorney General-an almost unthinkable event.

 Brushing aside concerns with the ‘truth’…about the incident as one put it, these faculty ideologues just changed their indictments from rape to drunkenness (hardly a rarity in college); exploiting poor black women (the players had expected white and Hispanic strippers); and being born white, male and prosperous.

 This shameful conduct was rooted in a broader trend toward subordinating facts and evidence to faith based ideological posturing. Worse, the ascendant ideology, especially in academia, is an obsession with the fantasy that oppression of minorities and women by privileged white men remains rampant in America. Its crude stereotyping of white men, especially athletes, resembles old-fashioned racism and sexism.” from “Guilty in the Duke Case”

 Humor allows people to admit mistakes  Example: George Bush “Those stories about my intellectual capacity do get under my skin. You know, for a while I even thought my staff believed it. There on my schedule first thing every morning it said, ‘Intelligence briefing.’”

 Ridicule is aimed at a particular target  Ridicule is a two- edged sword and can discredit writer’s completely

 Don’t play with your readers’ emotions  Think about how you want readers to feel  Consider this: Will readers be more inclined to agree with you if you make them feel envy or would it be better to arouse their sense of fairness?