Use of Appeals in Everyday Life

Whether emotional, ethical, or rational, everyone comes into contact with many appeals each day.  Commercials, junk mail, billboards, tv and radio shows, and many other types of media use a combination of appeals in order to make more people agree with the opinions of those who pay for them.

When reading significant historical writings from colonial times, the frequent use of appeals to persuade readers is evident.  For example, "The Crisis" by Thomas Paine was written to boost the morale of the soldiers and inspire them to keep fighting against the British.  In it, Paine incorporated such ethical appeals as, "...our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for whose fathers we shall doubt of," in order to remind the soldiers about how terrible it is that the soldiers and British in general are taking over every aspect of their lives.

The most common use of these different appeals currently is related to the upcoming presidential elections. By using these persuasive strategies, both the candidates and their political parties desperately try to gain more voters.  For example, in one of his speeches, Mitt Romney said, "Three years later, unemployment is still above 8%, a figure he said his stimulus would keep from happening,".  Using this statistic as a rational appeal, he hoped to gain support for him in the election.

While these appeals certainly do help change the minds of some indecisive voters, they do not necessarily affect those who already have their mind made up.  Appeals can only influence people to a certain extent; once that is reached, people have to make their own minds up.