Mastering Ethos: The Art of Credibility in English | Complete English Course

Welcome back to another lesson. Today we're going to talk about ethos. The lessons before we have talked about the other two elements of persuasion. Rhetorical devices, really. So those are pathos, logos, and ethos. Now these came from Aristotle, in case it's been a while since your last lesson. And yeah, these are persuasive appeals. And to appeal is really to to speak to, to try to draw out. And so with pathos, you're trying to draw out their emotion. With logos, you're trying to draw out their thoughts and you're appealing to their mind. With ethos though, this is more about the speaker. Let me tell you what I mean. Ethos is a speaker's perceived credibility. Are they able to accurately teach us what they are talking about? And appeal to a listener's sense of trust. So not just that, you've got to be able to trust them. Can you trust that the information that the speaker is giving is accurate? And by the way, this is not just for speaking, this is also for writing. It's an appeal to a listener's desire to hear from a credible source. Now we don't just want to hear somebody speak about anything. We want to hear from somebody who is an expert in their field, right? That makes sense. We want to hear from an expert. When it comes time to file our taxes, we want information from somebody who actually knows how to file taxes, right? Ideally, somebody who's an expert in filing taxes and does so for a living. Because those people are well-practiced, well-experienced, they likely have an education in doing so, and a certification for doing so. If they have all of that, then what reason do we have to not trust what they say? This is the idea of ethos. A speaker using ethos is inspiring an audience to trust and believe in him or her, and therefore their message. A message isn't good if it comes from someone who has no idea what they're talking about. Not really. That can happen every now and then. Sometimes a kid might say something that is just really profound, but you know as the parent that they don't know what they're talking about. They don't really understand. Maybe they're quoting somebody else, or they heard that somewhere else. However, when they say that, and it just happens to be at the right time, you're kind of dumbfounded in the moment because such wisdom should not come from such a young person with so few years on this earth. It's the same idea with ethos. We expect wise counsel from those who are wise, and we expect foolish counsel from those who are foolish. Ethos, by the way, does not just mean ethics or honesty. This means character. Someone's character. Who they are. And I'm not just talking about their abilities, and their certification, their education, the background, and experience. I'm referring to who they are as a person. Because if they are innately rude, yet they're talking about these good, loving things toward humanity, you might not believe them. Right? Because they don't walk the walk. It's very important that you do what you say you do. So how to use ethos. I'm going to quote James McCroskey. He broke down ethos into three things. The first one is competence. Is the speaker knowledgeable? Do they really know what they're talking about? Does he or she have the degree and experience or the certification required to speak on the subject? Basically, are they an expert? Why should I listen to someone if they are not an expert? If I am seeking counsel, advice, it should come from someone who knows what they're talking about. Because if they don't know what they're talking about, I'm not going to get good advice. And if I don't get good advice, I'm going to mess up. A good example is, can someone without kids give you realistic, proven advice about how to discipline your child lovingly? Now, some of you who are parents already know what I'm talking about. If you don't have kids, kids mess up. Kids get angry. Kids hit you. Kids throw up on you. They pee on you. Whatever. But when they intentionally do something to hurt you because they're angry, you've got to do something. You've got to show them that's wrong. Surprisingly, you do not have to show a child what is wrong. You have to teach them what is right. And we do so by discipline. So no, if somebody doesn't have a kid, I'm not going to listen to them lecture me or advise me on how to discipline my children. Because if they have not had children, then they don't know the pressures that comes with being a parent. They don't know what it's like to not sleep all night because one kid was sick and have to deal with a complete meltdown of another kid. And having to discipline them in that moment. Yes, intellectually, they might be able to use logos to explain, hey, I read this from a professor on child discipline, child psychology. This is a way that he suggested that you do this. And it's like, that's great, except you don't know what it's like to be sleep deprived and have to deal with this. So there's a lot of things. There's a lot of theories out there that work until you get to the actual grind of it. This is a great example of how competence is super important. This is when you start to question the ethos of a speaker or a writer. They have to have kids in order to be held credible enough to speak. Even a teacher or even a psychologist, a child psychologist, who does not have kids themselves, that actually hurts their credibility. It really does because honestly, a parent with young kids is not going to look at somebody who doesn't have kids, no matter what their degree is, no matter how many years they've spent studying it. If they have not practically applied the principles they study and they teach, then it doesn't count for much. This is extremely important for ethos. This is what we're talking about. How to show competence. So let's say you do have the education, you do have the experience and the background. How do you show it? Well, one way you do that is mention it. Mention the education, experience, background, certifications that give you the right to speak on the topic. In a way, when you turn in a resume or a CV to a potential job for an interview, you're doing the same thing. You're showing that you are competent to do the particular job. Think about ethos in this way. You have to use the appropriate language. If you walk into an official business meeting and you're going to be a chief marketing strategist, but you cannot use the right language. Maybe you curse a lot, or maybe you use lots of street slang, or maybe you talk to them like you're talking to your kids. That's not okay, right? You've got to talk the way they talk. You've got to basically contextualize. You have to speak to them in their culture, in their context, in their way. If you cannot do that, then you probably don't have the competence. It shows that you don't have competence to know who you're talking to. You've got to use the appropriate body language as well. This goes along with wearing the right clothes to having your hands in the right position. If you are supposed to be a leader and you just can't look people in the eye, it's not a great leadership body language persona to give, right? You've got to be able to show. You've got to stand up straight. You've got to put your chest out a little bit. You've got to walk straight. You've got to use appropriate hand motion. It's not too many, not too crazy, but decent. You've got to use some illustrative body language. You've got to use facial expressions. You've got to make eye contact. You've got to do all the things. So, very, very important to show competence by your body language and the way you dress. How to use ethos. You've got to have good character or trustworthiness, and you've got to demonstrate this. The audience wants to know, are you honest? Are you trustworthy? Do you really care about what you are saying? Do you really care about the topic you are delivering a speech on? This is important because if you don't care about the topic, then why are we listening to you? If you don't care, then why would you do a good job of putting together the right evidence to make the right claim? That wouldn't make sense. So, you've got to be honest. You've got to share well-supported and true information, and you've got to put the work in. If it took you 10 minutes to do research for a 10-page paper, that's probably not okay, right? That shows either you only cited yourself and your own ideas, or you just really didn't care. You just found some websites that kind of sort of say what you want to say. That's not okay. That's not good ethos. So, draw proper conclusions from proper evidence. Do not exaggerate the truth. So, an example of this is if a marketer goes in and says, we made millions of dollars last year, when they only made two million dollars. You could say, I made a couple of million dollars, or I made two million dollars. Those would be accurate statements. However, if they exaggerate and say millions because technically it's more than one, that's not okay. You've lost all truth and competence and trustworthiness with your audience at that point. They won't trust you because they'll know that you exaggerate. Exaggeration, I know it's not wrong in most cultures, but in terms of America, in terms of doing speeches and presenting evidence, you cannot exaggerate the truth. You cannot exaggerate the facts. You cannot exaggerate the evidence. You've got to be genuine and sincere. So, if you're not comfortable, show it. If you are a person who is a little crazy, but you have good qualities, you've got to show that. Because if you pretend to be someone that you think they want you to be, you're not going to be very genuine, are you? You're going to be true to a character that you decided that they want. But what happens is you start to mess up a little bit. When you're on stage and you're nervous, you might use the wrong body language or facial expression for what you think they should want. And what happens is the inconsistencies, they stack up. If you are not you when you are presenting something, it shows. No audience is a fool. You've got to be very, very, very careful. So, be personal, share your own story, cite your sources, be transparent. This is imperative to ethos. Another way to use ethos is that you have to care about the people. Show that you care about them. Be friendly and respectful. Demonstrate a desire to teach for the audience, not at the audience. The difference here, I know those are prepositions, so it makes it hard. If you're teaching for the audience, then you are trying to instruct them. You're trying to inform them. You want them to understand. You are doing this as a teacher, doing the research, doing a good job as a speaker because you want to help your audience understand. But, if you speak at the audience, then it means that you are doing this for yourself. You're being selfish. You're doing this so that you can say, I have spoken in front of a crowd of 5,000 people because I am awesome. That's not good. That means you're doing it because you don't care about them. You care about you. The audience will notice and that will cost you your ethos. It will cost you your credibility and your trustworthiness because the assumption is, if you are teaching or speaking or writing to an audience for yourself, then whenever it best suits you to change the facts in order to support your own idea, then the assumption is you will because you're not trying to do it for others. You're not trying to be accountable to them. You're trying to do it for you and that's not okay. So, consider the audience's questions and concerns. Be friendly and respectful. Take those questions and I know that's hard because if they raise their hand and give you a question you just don't know, be honest and say, you know, I don't know but I can say that I will do the research and I will find out. That is much more commendable to say than to make up an answer or to not take questions at all. Another thing is that you want people to see your ethos and your character and one of the biggest ways that we communicate as human beings is by body language, by what we do. So, if you say that you love people and you take care of them and you want to serve them and you want to help them but you are rude to people around you, people are going to notice that. When you're walking on stage, how you look at the servant, how you help people around, whether you are helpful in picking up the trash or cleaning up or whatever, people notice those things. Who you are shows through your actions more so than your words. People can lie. It is much more difficult to lie with your actions. Not impossible but difficult. So, your character is shown through actions and that's where we get a lot of ethos. I want you to go ahead and watch Living By An Ethos. I want you to pay attention to this guy's body language. I want you to pay attention to his hand motions. Pay attention to the words he speaks. Yes. The tone of voice he speaks. Yes. But pay attention to that body language. How's everybody doing? Good? All right. I'm doing fantastic. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. So, I'm a huge fan of the TED platform. I watch them regularly and what I'm drawn to is how short, concise, succinct and to the point they are. They deliver a single message. It's in your face. Bam. It's quick. I love that. So, keeping with that history, I'm going to be brief. So, try to keep up. So, again, my name is Nick Lavery. From the personal perspective, I am a husband. I'm a father. I'm from Boston, in case you haven't figured that out yet. I pride myself on being a family man. That is the single greatest aspect of my life. On the professional side of things, I am a special forces warrant officer, more commonly referred to as a Green Beret. And I have the privilege to serve as the assistant detachment commander of a special forces detachment, most commonly referred to as an ODA or an A-team. Beyond that, I'm a warrior. So, today what I'm going to focus on is the warrior mindset. As many previous warriors before me and as many after me. In 2013, I had a rough day at the office. I found myself on the business end of a truck-mounted PKM machine gun, which ripped apart both my legs, most damage being to my right, which obviously resulted in its amputation. I would spend a year at Walter Reed Medical Center going through countless surgeries and the early phases of my recovery. I then returned to Fort Bragg, where I took a job teaching tactical close quarters combat and hand-to-hand combat, while progressing my recovery and my rehabilitation. At that point, I embarked on a grueling process of assessments to return back to operational status, which I was successful at doing. So, from the moment I was wounded, approximately two years from that point, I found myself back in Afghanistan conducting combat operations with the same team I was on when I was injured. I have since deployed three times to combat and I have one actually coming up here pretty soon. And the questions I am most often asked are different variations of the same two. How and why? How do you continue to do what you do and why do you continue doing what you do, given what you've already sacrificed at this point? And the answers to those questions can go long and deep, but at its foundation, it is because I live by a series of ethos. So what is that? Ethos is the characteristic spirit of a culture, community, or ideology as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations. In the military, we have a set of warrior ethos. I'm going to touch on three of them here today. One, I will always place the mission first. Two, I will never accept defeat. And three, I will never quit. Okay, very powerful beginning to a great speech, honestly, right? How does the speaker establish his credibility? One thing he does, he doesn't say a word. Before he even says a word, what gives him an ethos, a credibility? The fact that he lost his leg and he has a prosthetic. You can tell just by that that he has been through some kind of trauma and that he has recovered from that trauma, which means he has learned some things that we should listen to. That is ethos. He already has ethos because of who he is and what has happened to him already that we can so easily see. I think that is why he does not cover up his prosthetic. Instead, he lets it show because it adds ethos or credibility to what he's saying. Let's come over to the answers. Before he even speaks, you can see that he's lost his leg. As he shares the story, as he begins to speak, you can tell that he was in the military. He lost his leg to gunfire. He served despite losing his leg. He has served multiple deployments and he's been through the recovery process. He's about to go again. This is amazing. This is his credibility right here. This is why we can understand him because of his ethos, his background, his experience. That's what we're looking at right now. He is credible to talk about ethos because of his ethos. Very, very cool testimony right there from a man who's been through so, so much and continues to serve despite losing so much. How does the speaker display his competence? Notice his body language. Not only has he dressed the part, but he's standing tall. His hand motions. He put his hands together sometimes, but he's not crossing his arms. He's not slouching. He's looking at people in the eye rather than looking at the back wall or up at the ceiling. He is engaging his audience by what he does with his body. This is competence. How does the speaker reflect that he cares for the audience? He shares an appreciation for the TEDx talks. He shares how you can live by the same ethos that has carried him into such service despite losing his leg, right? He cares to show you how you can do what he has done. Sharing the brotherhood of soldiers, sharing the camaraderie that brings him together and keeps him going back for more. Multiple deployments to serve those listening. So implicitly, we can understand that by his continued military service to the American, to America, we understand that he cares. He cares for his country. He cares for his people. So that is something that is implied by the frequency by which he has gone. The number of deployments he has had despite losing a leg. He keeps going back because he loves his country. That's something that he does not explicitly say, but that we implicitly understand. So very cool way to see an ethos. Now, here's another example. And this is an example of ethos in writing. I want you to pay attention. This is Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 19... I guess the 1930s when he started doing the first fireside chat. Now, contextually, in American history, this is during the Great Depression. Okay, the stock market crashes really bad in 1939 and people lose everything. People lose all of their life savings, banks close, all kinds of things happen. It's a really, really bad depression in the economy. So some people are going hungry. People don't have jobs. People are considering selling their children in order to have enough to feed the other children. I mean, this is a big deal. So President Delano Roosevelt actually takes advantage of radio. He's the first president to do so in American history, to use radio to talk directly to the American people about difficult things that are going on in Washington. Very cool and very smart idea. Now we do, of course, by TV and we're so used to it that we don't always watch them, to be honest. But at the time, this was novel. This was amazing because now you can hear directly from the president. So obviously, his ethos is that he is the president of the United States and we have a right to speak to him. But pay attention to the other aspects of ethos we get in this speech. I would suggest that you pause and read this and then come back. I will read it aloud. Go ahead and pause. Okay, so I'm going to read it aloud right now so you can kind of hear. And if you practice imitation, this is a good time to read aloud with me. Notice where there are differences in your pronunciation. This is a great way to practice pronunciation while hearing a native English speaker speak. Copy me as I speak. Speak with me. And there you go. That's some great practice right there. Okay, here we go. My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking. To talk with the comparatively few who understand the mechanics of banking, but more particularly with the overwhelming majority of you who use banks for making deposits and the drawing of checks. I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days and why it was done and what the next steps are going to be. I recognize that the many proclamations from the state capitals and from Washington, the legislation, treasury regulations, and so forth, couched for the most part in banking and legal terms, ought to be explained for the benefit of the average citizen. I owe this in particular because of the fortitude and the good temper with which everybody has accepted the inconvenience and hardships of the banking holiday. And I know that when you understand what we in Washington have been about, I shall continue to have your cooperation as fully as I have had your sympathy and your help during the past week. Whoa, okay. No, there's a lot of difficult vocabulary in there, but I don't want you to pay attention so much to the vocabulary. I want you to pay attention to the tone of this whole thing. This is the president of the United States addressing a hurting and scared people in terms of the economy. And he says, my friends, he's identifying himself with the American people and he assures them over and over again, that he is desiring to share with them important things in order to benefit them. So let's take a look. How does the president address his concern for the people? He says, my friends, those who don't understand banks or the overwhelming majority of you who use banks, share what has happened lately. I want to tell you what has been done the last few days and why it was done and what the next steps are going to be. He wants to prepare them to explain and to prepare them. What credibility is already given to the speaker? Well, he's the president of the United States. So you're going to listen to him anyway, right? That's how the American people are thinking. The ones who originally heard this first fireside chat. Why is the president sharing this speech? He's trying to inform them of important information dealing with their money, which has vanished, and inspiring trust in the government and banking system. He wants to assure them that the government is trying to serve the people, is trying to control the situation, is trying to help them and intends to protect the people. He's trying to convince them of that and show them that. And in so doing, instead of keeping all of this secret, he explains it for the benefit of the average citizen to us lay people who are not specialists, but he wishes to explain so that we actually know what's going on. I know that when you understand this is his intent, okay, this is his intent and his purpose. We don't have to figure this out implicitly this time. He explicitly tells us, when I have told you what we are doing here, the government, we in Washington are doing, I shall continue to have your cooperation. You will obey, basically, you will obey and not panic if you understand what we are doing. Once you know and trust that we are taking care of you, the people, you, the people will trust us, the government. Very powerful speech, actually, and one of the ones that we remember and we look to in our schools today. So how to comprehend ethos. Identify the speaker's background on the topic he or she is speaking about. So I've told you how to display ethos and by learning how to do it, you can also learn how to comprehend it when you are the listener, when you are the audience. So identify their background. Are they credible? Are they competent? Do they have education? Do they have the experience? Do other credible people acknowledge this person as an expert? Do they? Because if no one else who is known to be an expert thinks that they are an expert, that's probably a little bit of a problem. Identify the speaker's body language and word choices. Are they prepared? Are they comfortable with the responsibility of sharing this information? I'm sure some of you have heard somebody teach who is not a teacher. They are not good at teaching. They don't use proper facts or they're very sloppy or they don't make much sense or they themselves are confused and are trying to teach something that they don't understand. You already know. And when you see that, you know not to really listen to what they say necessarily. Not to ignore them, but you know that you shouldn't accept what they say as a teacher. You should just accept it as an opinion, right? But if they act the part, if they are dressed appropriately, have the right language, they have the right background, and they have good solid evidence and a great argument, then you understand you are likely to listen to them. You are likely to be like, you know what? This person is worth listening to. They are an expert in their field. Very, very important. Identify the speaker's intentions. Are they sharing this information for the audience or for themselves? Because if somebody is teaching something for themselves, then it's not for your benefit. It's not for you that they speak. And that shouldn't give you pause. That should make you stop and think for a second. Should I listen to this person because they are just being selfish? Because if they're teaching for themselves, then it often means that they will change the facts or they will not tell you certain facts in order to serve their own purposes. A selfish person cannot trust. Do they truly want you to understand or are they showing off? Are they up there because, I can give a speech. I was paid to do this. I'm an awesome person. Or are they up there because they want to teach you, because they are humble, because they are dedicated to service. That is so important. Those leaders who are dedicated to service, our servant leaders are the ones worth listening to. Because they will tell you what you need to know to grow. Not for themselves to grow, but for you to grow. And their goal is to make you better than they are. Those are the type of people you want to listen to. But how do you identify those intentions? Pay attention to how they treat the people around them. Do they choose to just not listen to someone because they look dirty? Do they choose to not help somebody or hold a door open for somebody or to help somebody pick up something they just dropped? Are they selfish? Look at what they do. Look at their body language. Are they respectful or condescending? These are important things to understand. So what are the differences between all three? Pathos, Logos, and Ethos? Pathos is about the heart, not the head. It is an emotional appeal. It draws your feelings out. It wants to make you feel inspired or make you feel happy or angry or sad or whatever it is. They want you to feel something because when you feel something, you'll do something. Logos is an intellectual appeal. It's about the head, not the heart. And Ethos is an appeal to the speaker's credibility. This is when we look at the person speaking. Who is the speaker? What do they believe? Why are they qualified to talk about this? Because if they're trustworthy, then maybe what they say is also trustworthy. All right, remember, Ethos is all about the speaker's credibility to speak on the subject. Demonstrating Ethos has to do with multiple forms. Body language, language, respect, concern, background, experience, education. All of those things are ways to demonstrate Ethos. Practicing Ethos is practicing honesty. High concern for accurate facts. High concern for the audience's understanding and benefit. And being transparent and sincere. If you do not know, say, I do not know. That kind of transparency and sincereness. Next, we're going to talk about the elements of persuasion, identification practice. We're going to do lots of practice, okay? I've got a story for you. I've got lots of videos. Come back for a lot of practice.