Establishing Ethos/Credibility

Strategies for Building Ethos

• If you have specific experience or education related to your issues, mention it in some way.
• If you don’t have specific experience or education related to your issue, make sure you find sources from authors who do. When you integrate that source information, it’s best if you can address the credibility of your sources. When you have credible sources, you want to let your audience know about them. Introduce your sources with signal phrases that highlight their authority, such as, “Harvard Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Joseph Menson notes” or “According to a study by the University of Berkeley’s School of Economics.” Highlight any other factors about the source that might accentuate credibility, such as the nature, length, or size of research studies.
• Use a reasoned tone that is appropriate to your writing situation and will make you sound credible as a writer. Controversial issues can often bring out some extreme emotions in us when we write, but we have to avoid sounding extreme, especially in academic arguments. You may not convince everyone to agree with you, but you at least need your audience to listen to what you have to say.
• Avoid logical fallacies that misuse ethos appeals, such as ad hominem, false authority, guilt by association, poisoning the well, transfer fallacy, name-calling, plain folk, and testimonial.

The following video explores ethos and credibility:

“Rhetoric – Ethos Only.” By LifeSillsSE. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T55tTGn5su0 Licensed under: CC-BY