Most successful arguments appeal to our hearts as well as to our minds; in fact, current research suggests that people make decisions based on emotion rather than logic alone. Thus, good writers supplement appeals to logic and reason with emotional appeals to their readers. This principle is vividly demonstrated by the campaign to curb the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Facts and figures—logical appeals—convince us that the problem is serious. What elicits an outpouring of support, however, is the arresting emotional power of stories and images of a people living with the disease. An effective emotional appeal (pathos, to the ancient Greeks) can be made with description and concrete language, with figurative language, and with visuals—as well as by shaping an appeal to a particular audience.

Using description and concrete language

Like photographs, vivid, detailed description can bring a moving immediacy to any argument. A student may amass facts and figures, including diagrams and maps, to illustrate the problem of wheelchair access to the library. But only when the student asks a friend who uses a wheelchair to accompany her to the library does the student writer discover the concrete details necessary to move readers (30c). The student can then write, “Marie inched her wheelchair up the steep entrance ramp, her face pinched with the sheer effort.”

Using figurative language

Figurative language, or figures of speech (30d), paints detailed pictures that build understanding. It does so by relating something new or unfamiliar to something the audience knows well and by making striking comparisons between something you are writing about and something else that helps a reader visualize, identify with, or understand it.

Figures of speech include metaphors, similes, and analogies. Metaphors compare two things directly: Richard the Lion-Hearted; old age is the evening of life; the defensive players are pit bulls on pork chops. Similes make comparisons using like or as: Richard was as brave as a lion; old age is like the evening of life; the defensive players are like pit bulls on pork chops. Analogies are extended metaphors or similes that compare an unfamiliar concept or process to a more familiar one to help the reader understand the unfamiliar concept.

A student arguing for a more streamlined course-registration process may find good use for an analogy, saying that the current process makes students feel like laboratory rats in a maze. This analogy, which suggests manipulation, frustration, and a clinical coldness, creates a vivid description and adds emotional appeal to the argument. For the analogy to work effectively, however, the student would have to show that the current registration process has a number of similarities to a laboratory maze, such as confused students wandering through complex bureaucratic channels and into dead ends.

As you use analogies or other figurative language to bring emotion into an argument, be careful not to overdo it. Emotional appeals that are unfair or overly dramatic—known as fallacies (8f)—may serve only to cloud your readers’ judgment and ultimately diminish your argument.

Shaping your appeal to your audience

As with appeals to credibility and logic, appealing to emotions is effective only insofar as it moves your particular audience. A student arguing for increased lighting in campus parking garages, for instance, might consider the emotions such a discussion might raise (fear of attack, for example, or anger at being subjected to danger), decide which emotions the intended audience would be most responsive to, and then look for descriptive and figurative language or appropriate visuals to carry out such an appeal.

In a leaflet to be distributed on campus or in an online notice to a student list, for example, the writer might describe the scene in a dimly lit garage as a student parks her car and then has to walk to an exit alone down shadowy corridors. Or she might make a short video in the garage and post it with accompanying music from a horror film.

In a proposal to the university administration, on the other hand, the writer might describe past attacks on students in campus garages and the negative publicity and criticism these provoked. For the administration, the writer might compare the lighting in the garages to high-risk gambling, arguing that increased lighting would lower the odds of future attacks.

Notice that shaping your appeal to a specific audience calls on you to consider very carefully the genre, media, and language you use. The student arguing for better lighting in campus parking garages would probably stick to standard academic English in a print letter or formal email message to the university administration but might well want to use informal language and media content when writing for students.

Remember, however, that you can’t always know which audiences will see your work—especially if it is posted online where anyone can read it. While there is no foolproof way to shape an appeal that will be effective for every audience everywhere, bear in mind that a variety of people may read your writing, including people from cultures very different from yours and people whose ideas or actions you are criticizing. Before making your argument public, take the time to imagine the response from such audiences. Are your appeals fair and civil? In addition, if you are writing on social media networks like Facebook, ask how you might limit or shape your audience so that you reach those you most want to talk with.

Making emotional appeals with visuals

Visuals that make emotional appeals can add substance to an argument. To make sure that visual appeals will serve the purpose you intend, test them with some potential readers to see how they interpret the appeal. Consider, for example, the following photograph, which shows a funeral arranged by an American Legion post in Florida to honor U.S. military veterans who died homeless. Some readers might see this image as an indictment of the government, which allowed soldiers who had fought for their country to end up without a place to live—but others might view it instead (or also) as confirmation that patriots come from every walk of life or that veterans honor their own even when others fail to do so.

Considering Disabilities: Description