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What would it take to get in good with an audience full of cops and one dude in a donkey costume? Seriously. We need to know. (Source)
In this lesson, we'll delve deeper into ethos, which is also referred to as:
Argument by character.
A focus on the author of the argument.
There's a lot of talk about audience in the two chapters you'll read in this lesson. That might be a little confusing since, in the last lesson, you learned that audience is most closely tied to pathos while the author is most closely tied to ethos.
But this is easily cleared up when you remember that it's the audience that decides who the author (a.k.a. the speaker) actually is…and what kind of character they have.
Basically, Heinrichs is going to share some ways you can get in good with your audience by heightening their opinion of you.
THE EPITOME OF US
When most people think of the word decorum, they think of it as meaning essentially the same thing as "discipline." That's because the only people who ever use the word decorum in real life are teachers.
So you might have heard a teacher or two in your time demanding decorum from a room full of students who were talking amongst themselves, shouting out weird and unrelated words or phrases out of turn, and generally causing a ruckus.
That's not good decorum for a classroom. The thing is, it's absolutely good decorum for, say, a kid's birthday party. Or being in the crowd at a football game. Or watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year's Eve.
Learn more about this distinction between "discipline" and "decorum" by reading the next couple chapters from Thank You For Arguing:
Chapter 5: Get Them To Like You (pages 47-56)
Chapter 6: Make Them Listen (pages 57-67)
Ch 5.pdfCh 6.pdfLet's Have Some Decorum in Here, Please
Chapter 5 focused on the concept of rhetorical decorum, which Heinrichs describes as "the art of fitting in" first, and then as "the art of the appropriate" later. So which one is it?
It's both, of course.
We'll go ahead and combine those two concepts and define decorum as the art of fitting in by being appropriate based on what your specific audience expects.
This means you have to know your audience, because that's who you're attempting to fit in with. This means going beyond the things that are pretty much universally appropriate (or not) in any situation. For example, punching a person in the nose for no reason whatsoever is going to be considered inappropriate in nearly all social situations. (Fight clubs being the exception that proves the rule, of course…but we know enough not to talk about fight clubs.)
The Three Cs
The Three Cs
In Chapter 6, Heinrichs set out the three traits of a persuasive ethos. We like the little boxed-in hint he shares on page 58 that suggests thinking of the three traits as the Three Cs, which stand for:
Cause
Craft
Caring
(Makes it so much easier to remember a list of stuff when all the stuff starts with the same letter, doesn't it? Yep, we're simple that way.)
We're hoping you took note, as you were reading, of the phrase on page 62 that we'll paraphrase here:
You want your audience to think of you as "the epitome of us."
If you're taking us up on the idea of writing a sitcom based on Jay Heinrichs and his weird family, may we suggested calling it "The Epitome of Us"? Thanks. We'll be expecting a producer credit.
Speaking of Public Speaking
Speaking of Public Speaking
Let's explore how these ideas inform the way a speaker delivers a speech.
Think back to the beginning of the first unit, when we used the different examples of a stand-up comedian doing a gig and the President of the United States delivering the State of the Union Address.
Let's take a look at how both of these speakers presented themselves.
President
Wore a dark suit and tie.
Stood in front of a lectern with the American flag hanging behind him.
Adopted a formal, polished attitude.
Kept his voice authoritative, firm, and professional throughout.
Sounded pretty convincing and authoritative on the subjects he was talking about.
Comedian
Wore jeans and a faded Batman t-shirt.
Adopted a causal, not-super-polished attitude (fidgeted with his mike and used lots of "umms" and "uhhh") but was clearly still in control.
Used lots of silly voices, exaggerated gestures, and sound effects.
Still managed to sound pretty convincing and authoritative about the subject he was talking about.
Let's think about the sartorial choices each speaker made. It's probably obvious that Obama's choice of clothing was appropriate. His sharp, dark suit is exactly what his audience would expect to see.
It's the same with Jim Breuer, the comedian. Sure, some comedians get dressed up for gigs, but usually they're the ones doing gigs in huge, sold-out arenas or they've developed a personal shtick that involves dressing up even for casual gigs. Jim Breuer isn't that kind of comedian, and if he were to even have worn a pair of khakis instead of jeans, his audience would have thought, "What's that all about?" So his faded jeans and Batman shirt were also entirely appropriate, because they were also exactly what his audience expected to see.
There's a big issue that we haven't acknowledged yet: to be able to meet your audience's specific expectations of what's appropriate, you have to know your audience—and you have to know it well before you stand up to give the speech.
So how do you that?
A little later in the course, we'll look at ways to analyze an audience, which is an effective way of figuring out what your audience considers appropriate and can help you meet their expectations like a pro. For now, let's keep chugging along with this unit.
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