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Bernardo Carpio

Professor Beadle

English 115

18 September 2019

Rhetoric Strategies And Persuading Your Audience

Persuasion is the essence of writing; it is what gives writing its purpose in our society.

Authors always write to persuade someone regardless of his or her target audience, so when there

are so many different opinions and stances on different topics in the world, how does an author

make their opinion more persuasive than the next? Part of writing to persuade is understanding

the three rhetoric strategies ethos, logos, and pathos. All three strategies are used to persuade

someone but do so in different ways. What makes an author’s work more persuasive is how

effectively they use all three strategies in tandem to convey their message; therefore, it is

possible to compare the strength of different authors’ persuasion through their use of the three

rhetoric strategies. David Brooks’ “What Suffering Does,” Graham Hill’s “Living with Less. A

lot Less.” and Sonja Lyubomirsky’s article “How Happy Are You and Why?” are all articles that

make claims on the subject of happiness but persuade their audiences in different ways. While all

three articles deliver a strong argument, Lyubomirsky’s article presents the most effective use of

ethos, logos, and pathos to convince readers that there is a much happier and healthier way of

enjoying life. Her use of all three rhetoric strategies manifest in ways more interesting than the

other two authors’ and get the audience more involved in the topic at hand; they even intertwine
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in some cases. While this may be the case in Brook’s and Hill’s work, it is not as prevalent as it

is in Lyubomirsky’s work.

David Brooks’ article “What Suffering Does” is a strongly persuasive article in which

Brooks uses logos and ethos to push his argument that suffering is a lot more beneficial than

people think. Brooks’ Introduction as a writer and journalist in the beginning of the article

reassures readers that what they are reading is written by a credible writer; it implements the use

of ethos to help push Brooks’ argument. Brooks mentions a quote from Paul Tillich, who wrote

that “people who endure suffering are taken beneath the routines of life and find they are not

who they believed themselves to be” (Brooks 285). This is also another ethos strategy, as it

utilizes the credibility of Paul Tillich, a theologian and philosopher. Brooks also uses statistics to

prove his point, stating that more than 1,000 books were released on amazon about happiness to

prove that we live in a culture “awash in talk about happiness” (Brooks 284). This is a logos

strategy that utilizes the number of books released to show the high volume of interest in the

topic. Brooks uses the two rhetoric strategies logos and ethos to make a strong argument,

however it falls short when compared to Lyubomirsky’s article because her use of all three

rhetoric strategies is not only more apparent, but it persuades readers in a much more interesting

and involving way. Lyubomirsky has more eye-catching ways of displaying her information,

such as graphs and pie charts, which Brooks does not have.

Graham Hill also utilizes ethos and logos strategies in his article “Living with Less. A

Lot Less.” to show readers that living a materialistic lifestyle is, in his eyes, not the best lifestyle

to live. Hill continuously lists his past belongings in his past lifestyle throughout the article and

compares it to the minimalistic lifestyle he lives now. He does this to show that he himself has
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lived the lifestyle that he wants readers to be cautious of, adding credibility to his argument. Hill

mentions Foxconn and the Beijing smog scare, an incident that explains to readers that the tech

products we buy depend on “cheap, often exploitive overseas labor and lax environmental

regulations” (310). This is a logos strategy; it uses the frequency of environmentally hazardous

product-importation as a statistic that helps Hill advocate against material belongings. After

mentioning Foxconn and the Beijing smog scare, Hill explains that Foxconn is a technology

company that manufactures a lot of electronic parts for large companies like Apple and Amazon.

This adds credibility to Foxconn to further enhance Hill’s logos argument with the Beijing smog

scare. The strategies somewhat intertwine here, ultimately making a smoother and stronger

argument. Hill uses ethos and logos strategies like Brooks to make a strong argument, but also

falls short when looked at alongside Lyubomirsky’s use of all three rhetoric strategies in a more

involving way. Hill once again lacks the interesting ways of displaying information that

Lyubomirsky has, just like Brooks.

Sonja Lyubomirsky’s article “How Happy Are You and Why?” utilizes ethos, pathos, and

logos altogether most effectively to show readers that happiness is something that can be attained

within one’s self and is not entirely genetic. Lyubomirsky’s introduction as a professor of

psychology and further explanation of her background shows readers that she has been well

educated in the study of the human mind. While the other authors are introduced in a similar way

to add credibility to their stance on their topics, Lyubomirsky’s occupation is to study the human

mind; her life is dedicated to understanding the brain and all concepts pertaining to it, including

how happiness plays a role in the human brain. She is writing about a topic that she dedicates her

life to. This makes her more credible than the other two authors. This is an ethos strategy,

making Lyubomirsky not only a credible writer, but a credible source of information on the
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human mind as well. In her article, Lyubomirsky provides several accounts of people who all

come from disadvantaged circumstances and still live a happy life. This does two things at once:

it evokes an emotional response from readers who may find themselves relating to the people she

mentions, and it shows readers that they can live a happy life with those circumstances if they

don’t already do so. This is both a pathos and ethos strategy, because it evokes an emotional

response and it adds credibility to Lyubomirsky’s argument; they are true stories coming from

people experiencing their lives the way Lyubomirsky wants readers to. While Hill also provides

an account of his own life to add credibility to his argument, it is less emotionally provoking than

Lyubomirsky’s method because of Hill’s somewhat humorous and nonchalant mannerism,

resulting in a weaker argument. Lyubomirsky also presents several kinds of logos strategies

throughout the entirety of her article as well. She presents data in bar graphs, pie charts, and even

has a self-evaluation survey for readers to be honest with themselves and check where they really

stand on the topic of happiness. It gets the reader more involved in the conversation of finding

happiness than the other two articles. They are all statistically based, and therefore, are logos

strategies. The other two authors do not include any visual displays of information like

Lyubomirsky does, and as a result fail to guide their reader through their article as smoothly as

Lyubomirsky.

All 3 articles present strong and persuasive claims on the topic of happiness, however,

Lyubomirsky’s article most effectively uses all three rhetoric strategies and presents them in

more interesting and involving ways that Hill’s and Brooks’ articles do not. Lyubomirsky’s

rhetoric strategies sometimes intertwine as well; It is ultimately what brings the entire article

together to help it flow more smoothly, and in turn, guides the reader to their own conclusions

about happiness in a better manner. Looking beyond the rhetoric strength of each article, one
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might ask themselves: How effective are Lyubomirsky’s paths to happiness? How do they

compare to the other authors’? Would they all lead you to the same destination? That is an

answer we must find ourselves.

Works Cited

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 284-297

Hill, Graham. “Living with Less. A Lot Less.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt

and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 284-297

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Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are You and Why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 284-297