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Jose Torres

Judith R. McCann

English 1301

9 November 2022

Pathos, Ethos, and Logos

There is a common trait among many rhetorical pieces. From the days of Aristotle,

authors have been using different types of methods to persuade others. These methods can be put

together into three forms of persuasion. Pathos ethos and logos are three forms of persuasion

that can scene through all forms of persuasive writing. These forms of persuasion can be seen in

my aspects of the media and by using an article on the post-release monitoring of recently

rehabilitated seals as an example, one will be able to point out all the forms of persuasion.

Through analysis of the article, “Post Release Monitoring of Rehabilitated Gray Seal Pups Over

Large Temporal and Spatial Scales” by Sue Sayer et al. one can point out how the author uses

ethos, logos, and pathos to emphasize the need for more research on post-release monitoring of

gray seals.

Ethos plays a vital part in Sayer’s article. Since it is a research paper, there is an

abundance of credible sources. Therefore, the author provides the reader with ample scientific

information which is accessible to readers and can be located near the end of the paper. These

secondary research papers establish the credibility of the article’s argument. Furthermore,

Sayer’s article contains in-text citations from the beginning to the end of the research study. This

is effective because it shows how credible the sources are regarding monitoring seals. It shows

the exact statistics of how many seals are being tracked and its credibility. As the author states

there are roughly 1,094 seals that have been examined over 19 years. [Sayer et al. 1] The author
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states that only 80 percent of those seals were monitored for only 5 years. This important piece

of information reveals a lack of monitoring for all the seals that had been examined. This number

seems almost minuscule compared to the vast amounts of seals out in the wild. In the

introduction, the writer uses ethos to back up certain facts that are being introduced. An example

of this is the thousands of animals that are rehabilitated and released by 650 rehabilitation centers

according to Sayer. The researchers cite this from the article called “Post-release survival of

orphaned wild-born polecats” (Kelly et al., 2010). While it does provide evidence of there being

650 rehabilitation centers, the data itself seems to be irrelevant to the topic at hand. Instead of

talking about seals, it talks about the rehabilitation of polecats a species of mustelids. This isn’t

an article about seals or about marine life. This affects the ethos of the article by straying away

from the topic at hand and referencing irrelevant information. While the author does mention an

irrelevant source, they still remain honest when it comes to the flaws of the research. In section

1.3 the author mentions that researchers want to release rehabilitated pups into the wild but due

to atmospheric conditions and financial costs, the rehabilitation of the seal could be almost

impossible to do in close proximities. This presents an issue for marine biologists which the

author stresses throughout the article. They do this to convince the reader to support more

research in this field. This setback plays a major role in making the author look credible and

honest. Credibility is not the only factor that makes this article effective. The author uses logic

and reasoning to effectively convince the reader.

Logos are used throughout the article consistently. This article states many facts and

statistics so that the reader can make up their own opinion on the matter. For example, in the

methods section, Sayer provides an overall summary of the procedures they do to rehabilitate

and release the seals. This gives the reader an insight into the whole experiment and leaves them
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with enough information to open up a discussion. Furthermore, on the next page, the author

shows visual evidence of the tags and photo identifications that researchers use to track seals.

The next section then shows the effectiveness of these methods during the data analysis. In the

data analysis, the author describes the organizations that rehabilitated the seals, the time frame in

which these seals were sighted, and how they used Spearman's rank correlation to analyze the

relationship between rehabilitation and sightings to see if the data was nonparametric [Sayer et

al. 5]. This shows the readers the reliability of the research being conducted. Therefore, it gives

the reader the opportunity to conduct their own research when it comes to the data. Once that is

addressed the article then goes on to the results. There it goes on to talk about the number of

seals released between 2000 and 2018. Around 1,094 seals were rehabilitated during this time

period all from different locations. The authors also show the many organizations that

contributed to this number with percentages. In section 3.2 the authors talk about the data

regarding the location of the release. There it shows the percentage of releases at each location.

This accompanied by the map gives the reader a better perspective of how vast this project was.

Furthermore, it goes into detail about how long the seals survived. Using a rough estimate the

authors concluded that a total of 20% of the seals lived for 5 years or more. Not only that but

they estimate that roughly twelve seals had reproduced after their release. This shows that the

operation was successful in repopulating and rehabilitating the seal population. Regarding the

paper's logic, this article did an excellent job presenting data so that the audience could deduce

their opinion on the matter. While logos did play a major role in this article there is still an

important form of rhetoric that helped seal the deal with this article. By using the audience's

emotions the author has been slowly but surely convincing the reader.
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While one might not notice it, on further analysis of the article, Pathos still plays a role in

convincing the audience. While the whole article tries to remain informative, the whole article

itself is about sympathy. If we did not sympathize with animals and only saw them as statistics

we would simply not care for the article. Fortunately, humans love their animals and work to

protect them. This is why the author describes the hardships that they face during the discussion.

There Sayer talks* about how the seal might lose its tracking tag from wear and tear. They also

mention how the seal might lose the tag due to older age. This effectively caters to the audience's

feelings when it comes to animals. In section 4.5 of the article, they stress the importance of

future researchers to improve the evidence base to inform good practice guidelines when it

comes to animals [Sayer et al. 13]. They then end this section by stating “Wild animal

rehabilitation is key to supporting conservation efforts…”(Sayer et al. 13), referencing a much

bigger picture of the efforts done by wildlife rehabilitators. While the pathos in this article is

lackluster, it still contributes greatly when it is put together with ethos and logos.

When all these factors are rhetoric are put together they effectively convince the reader

that their cause is significant. The researchers that wrote this article successfully made this

happen without hurting their message within the process. Although they did have some faults

when it came to information, they still properly used pathos, ethos, and logos to convince their

audience of the importance of post-release monitoring of seals after rehabilitation. They were

able to stress the importance of the need for research in this field and did so sufficiently.
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Work Cited

Sayer, Sue, et al. “Post Release Monitoring of Rehabilitated Gray Seal Pups over Large
Temporal and Spatial Scales.” Marine Mammal Science, vol. 38, no. 2, 2022, pp. 539–56,
https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.12885.