If your knees go weak and palms sweaty when you hear the news that you have to present some information to an audience, you are not alone. Most people dread the thought of having the onus on them for an engaging conversation. When it comes to getting your point across to the audience, maybe in writing or speech, you get one shot. If you cannot engage and make your audience participate, you are not going to get them back. There are a lot of people who struggle to deliver the message effectively. It is a skill that requires a lot of practice and patience.
To have your audience stick to you, there are some things you will need to keep in mind. You must choose your words wisely and carefully. Be able to present the information in just the right style, keeping in mind the message’s tone. The Rhetorical Triangle is a tool that fits right for your need to develop communication skills. It helps you clear your head and flush it with the right thoughts to process and deliver things clearly.
Rhetorical Triangle
In this article, we will learn and explore how we can improve written and verbal communication, using the rhetorical triangle.
What is Rhetoric?
Rhetoric is the way used for persuasion in any communication. It is about how you present and makes things attractive for your audience. Centuries ago, in Europe, it was considered to be an important skill and used to be a part of the school curriculum. No individual was raised without undergoing extensive training in rhetoric.
Today people use the word rhetoric in a negative light. Like you must have heard people talk about politicians like, “all rhetoric, no substance.” It means it may sound all good in the speech, but the politician did not introduce any new idea. Although we hear people talk about rhetoric in speeches, it applies just the same way to writing.
Importance of Rhetoric
Surprisingly, you will hardly find people working on their rhetoric skills in today’s time and age. If you really want people to listen to you and agree with what you are saying, rhetoric is the key. It can help you grow immensely in almost all the spheres. Look at it like this, when you are applying for a job, you need to make sure you can convey to your employer either in the interview or in the cover letter that you are the best person for that job. So, your success in the interview will largely be contingent on how you use rhetoric.
Understanding Rhetorical Triangle
The rhetorical Triangle has three things for you to remember while you communicate. It will help you make people understand what you are saying and influence others more effectively. The three things to remember are:
- Ethos: It is about establishing trust by being credible and setting an authority.
- Pathos: It is about looking from the second person’s perspective, appealing via emotions, and connect with the audience with shared values and interests.
- Logos: Going for the audience’s intelligence with well thought and structured arguments.
The above-mentioned elements make your communication persuasive and arguments credible. When you are trying to communicate, in writing or any other form, keep these three in your mind. In the next part of the article, we will look at each of these elements in greater detail.
Ethos (Writer)
How the Writer (or the speaker) influences, the argument is called Ethos. Right from the very beginning, you need to establish the following things:
- Who are you?
- Why should the audience hear or read you?
- Are you competent enough to speak or write on the said issue?
- Where does your authority actually come from?
It is really important to answer the above-mentioned questions if you want to gain trust and establish the right kind of rapport. When you introduce something new or refute something apocryphal, your audience is wary of being open to new or unpopular opinion. The last thing you want your audience to think is that you are trying to hide facts from them. Therefore, you must let your audience know why you are addressing them. At the same time, your audience should feel that you are a competent individual to bring new ideas to the table. If they do not think of you to be a qualified person, they will barely listen to what you have to say on the subject.
Regardless of what you are presenting, it could be a solution to some problem, data, analysis, or something to do with entertainment. The audience will always try and figure out your motives, values, and intentions. This will help them know your credibility and if you are being sincere or not.
Pathos (Audience)
While you communicate, you need to keep your audience right in the center of everything. You need to understand what they want and their emotions; based on all of this, appeal to your audience’s emotions. This is precisely known as Pathos.
Know your audience
Consider what your audience expects from you, why they are going to hear from you, and what exclusive you have to add to their knowledge? Be extremely clear with what you are communicating to the audience, and plan out your communication style and everything well in advance. Make sure while you are planning, you keep the audience in your mind throughout.
No negative surprises
Note the statement, the more uncertainties you leave, the more nervous you will be. For starters, know who your audience is. If you know what they already know and what is it that they are expecting. By doing just this, you save yourself and, more importantly, a great deal of trouble. If you know what you are presenting to your audience is useful, you automatically get confidence.
You can do the following things:
- Define your target audience for yourself.
- Explicitly ask your audience what they expect from you. If you do not want to do it on stage, you can pick a few members of your audience and ask them about it.
- Run your topic by at least a couple of people to know if you cover all the areas or if you’re overkilling it.
We often attempt to take the communication a notch up by adding unnecessary abbreviations and jargon. A lot of the time audience is not well versed with things you think they know. So, most of the abbreviation that you think they’d know goes right above their head. It is safe to elaborate on the abbreviation and give their full form at least once, even when it’s elementary.
Logos (Context)
Here, your audience will look for the logic and reasoning you give in the message you are trying to communicate. The audience will try and analyze the message by looking at the context. Your audience will look at the message holistically, along with the context. They look at the background to your communication, the circumstances, and the events preceding the same. Your audience will analyze extensively the kind of argument you used, if it is relevant and if it was conveyed in a clear, coherent, and appropriate manner.
Always know what you are talking about
One thing that can potentially throw you off a presentation is something that you wouldn’t expect. It is … not having an in-depth understanding of the subject that you are talking about. Imagine a situation where you are asked to deliver a presentation, and you have no option but to make it work. You go through the basics around the topic that you need to present and come up with a deck of slides. How do you think your presentation would go?
Trust me, and you will need a miracle to save yourself from being on the stage. This is an important fact, and the sooner you realize it, the better it is for you. If you do not have an in-depth knowledge of what you are presenting, your audience will most certainly know.
Preempt the counter-arguments
There is another thing that you should totally keep in your mind while communicating. The audience actively tries and look for loopholes or flaws in what you are saying. They constantly think of all the possible counterarguments and questions that can potentially throw you off. So, you can think of as many questions that you can and try to answer those.
Always make sure your audience can easily follow through. To make your message more credible, you should ideally provide evidence with every claim you make.
How to use the Rhetorical Triangle?
Next time when you sit to prepare a speech or a written document, make sure you consider the three elements of the rhetoric triangle. Adding the three elements of the triangle increase the impact of your message enormously.
1. Establish Credibility with ETHOS
Let’s say you have got an assignment and you need to seek help from the internet for the same. When you browse or do your research online, you always make sure that the place you gather information from is reliable and trustworthy. The same is the audience’s question, but it barely comes from them, “Is the source credible?”
It is important you establish who you are as a person
- Put forth your values, believes, and other biases as you see appropriate
- Explain what your expertise comes from
- If you have testimonies from thought leader and experts, make sure you are getting that through as well
- Show why you are competent and be considered as an authority
Once you are done communicating the necessary things about yourself. Then, consider the purpose of your communication. It could be
- A call to action
- Presenting facts or some piece of information
- Storytelling session/ Anecdotal communication
- To educate
- Presentation of novel ideas
- For entertainment
- To change a notion or to persuade someone.
2. Appealing to the Audience’s Emotion using PATHOS
Understanding your audience will help you make your content more relevant and helpful for your audience. It automatically adds much more impact to the message and makes it look or come across as well crafted. Appeal to the emotions (where there is the need) by asking the question, “Is this person trying to manipulate me?”
Ask yourself the following questions to know who the members of the audience are:
- Are there any set expectations?
- If yes, what are the expectations?
- Why are they reading or listening to you?
- How are they going to actually use the information that is coming their way in the session?
- As an author or speaker, what do you want your audience to take away from the session?
3. Look at the Broader Context (Logos)
This part of the article is all about the context you add to your presentation or the message. It includes many things, from choosing the best channel of communication to how you can deliver the message in the best way possible and get the message across as clearly as possible. For this, you may want to answer the question, “Is the presentation making sensing for the audience, and do they get to take something valuable from it?”
- Think about how are you going to present the information:
- What sort of reasoning will you use?
- The evidence that you will use to support all of your claims
- The tone you will keep during the delivery.
- Is there any background information that is imperative for getting information across?
- Are there any counter-arguments that may come up
With that being said, after you are done gaining an in-depth understanding of the topic. There are chances that you are still muddled up with your thoughts. It will help if you give your understanding of the right skeleton. It is suggested not to add a structure where you jot everything down like a script or memorize it.
Last Words
When you take into account all the three elements of the rhetoric triangle, you can present the message with more credibility and impact. This way, even the audience does not lose interest and can trust you with the message you have for them.