Jay,  In very basic terms, ethos is the audience’s perception of your character. Logos is creating a strong argument and pathos is appealing to the emotion of the audience. (O’Quinn 2009). Each of the speakers we viewed this week modeled these three elements in speaking to their respective audiences.  President John F. Kennedy I noticed how President Kennedy used the words “we” and “us” and “our” when addressing the nation. This draws the audience in and allows them to see him on their level and that he is going to be right alongside the people fighting for their rights. Many politicians today say things like “I will go to congress and fight for you”. This separates the speaker from the audience in many cases.  General McArthur Gen. McArthur was well respected and known as a man of great character for having served 52 years in the Army and rising to the rank of a 5 Star General.  However, at the time he was having problems with President Truman who has just relieved him of command in Korea (pbs.org). He started his speech with a history lesson and breakdown of the world’s problems that are and would affect America.  This set the stage for him to be able to state his part of the story and concerns for the future of not only Communism, but America.  His speech lasted 37 minutes and the last 3-5 minutes were dedicated to him stating his retirement and desire to just “fade away”. By setting the stage with recent problems he had incurred, he was appealing to their sense of sympathy so they would understand his decision to retire. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was so influential in his speech for many reasons beyond ethos, pathos and logos. His message alone was powerful and came at a time when the nation was divided. He was able to appeal not only to the black population with talk of being free from discrimination, but was able to appeal to whites by bringing them back to what our nation was founded on... Freedom.  Also, he began his speech with a low, slow, and monotone talk and as he went on, he elevated his voice and sped up his speech to show his emotion and passion for his beliefs and in doing so controlled the audience’s emotions and responses. Jeff,  GEN MacArthur’s speech was influential on a few different points.  He was said to be a warmonger but he did not let that get to him.  He stayed calm and focused on his point, which was that swift victory is necessary during times of war.  His call was for reinforcements in order to win the war, and that it was prolonged indecision by the government that caused the war to continue.  My take on his speech was that he chose to step down and call an end to his military career for the betterment of his country, in an effort to restore confidence in the ability of the US Military to accomplish the mission.   In Dr. King’s speech, he talked about how it has taken over one hundred years to get over discrimination against blacks in the US.  President Lincoln set out to do this in 1863 with a Presi.

1. Jay,
In very basic terms, ethos is the audience’s perception of your
character. Logos is creating a strong argument and pathos is
appealing to the emotion of the audience. (O’Quinn 2009). Each
of the speakers we viewed this week modeled these three
elements in speaking to their respective audiences.
President John F. Kennedy
I noticed how President Kennedy used the words “we” and “us”
and “our” when addressing the nation. This draws the audience
in and allows them to see him on their level and that he is going
to be right alongside the people fighting for their rights. Many
politicians today say things like “I will go to congress and fight
for you”. This separates the speaker from the audience in many
cases.
General McArthur
Gen. McArthur was well respected and known as a man of great
character for having served 52 years in the Army and rising to
the rank of a 5 Star General. However, at the time he was
having problems with President Truman who has just relieved
him of command in Korea (pbs.org). He started his speech with
a history lesson and breakdown of the world’s problems that are
and would affect America. This set the stage for him to be able
to state his part of the story and concerns for the future of not
only Communism, but America. His speech lasted 37 minutes
and the last 3-5 minutes were dedicated to him stating his
retirement and desire to just “fade away”. By setting the stage
with recent problems he had incurred, he was appealing to their
sense of sympathy so they would understand his decision to
retire.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. King was so influential in his speech for many reasons
beyond ethos, pathos and logos. His message alone was
powerful and came at a time when the nation was divided. He
was able to appeal not only to the black population with talk of

2. being free from discrimination, but was able to appeal to whites
by bringing them back to what our nation was founded on...
Freedom. Also, he began his speech with a low, slow, and
monotone talk and as he went on, he elevated his voice and sped
up his speech to show his emotion and passion for his beliefs
and in doing so controlled the audience’s emotions and
responses.
Jeff,
GEN MacArthur’s speech was influential on a few different
points. He was said to be a warmonger but he did not let that
get to him. He stayed calm and focused on his point, which was
that swift victory is necessary during times of war. His call was
for reinforcements in order to win the war, and that it was
prolonged indecision by the government that caused the war to
continue. My take on his speech was that he chose to step down
and call an end to his military career for the betterment of his
country, in an effort to restore confidence in the ability of the
US Military to accomplish the mission.
In Dr. King’s speech, he talked about how it has taken over one
hundred years to get over discrimination against blacks in the
US. President Lincoln set out to do this in 1863 with a
Presidential executive order to free the slaves but blacks are
still being discriminated against, in this era. Dr. King used the
Lincoln memorial as his venue, to reinforce the fact that a US
President passed a law that freed the slaves, and all men should
be treated equally. Dr. King’s words were spoken with true
passion and belief that we would all be brought together to live
in harmony as one. He was such a powerful speaker because
people could tell that he was speaking with the passion of true
belief in his goal to bring us all together.
President Kennedy was an inspirational change to our Nation, in
that he was trying to bring the country together as one unified
Nation. He instilled that change was not immediate; it would

3. take time, and that all citizens of the US must come together to
keep our Nation great. The government by itself cannot make
successful change happen. The people and government have to
come together as one group in order to make that happen. He
was well received by multiple groups of people, which led
people to believe in his word, and know that they needed to be
unified to make this happen. He did not make his speech about
what he was going to do to make things great, but what we as a
country was going to do to accomplish that goal.
These speeches were so powerful because all of the speakers
had three major things going for them; they were well
respected, very educated, and extremely passionate about the
message they were trying to get across and the topics on which
they were speaking about. These three things are important
when you are trying to get buy-in from the people, especially
when you are focusing on areas of this magnitude. These
individuals were trying to change nation. Getting people to
change their way of thinking is a daunting task that takes
powerful speakers to create this influence. These three things
alone will not always get people to follow you and your
message. You must have credibility and legitimacy, as a
baseline. Being able to motivate and lead these folks to the
objective is crucial in maintaining that good reputation, also to
get the same people to join in to follow you in future
endeavors.