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Ethos, Logos And Pathos In The Achievement Habit By Bernard Roth

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In the book, The Achievement Habit, by Bernard Roth, chapter two reasons are bullshit, he gives multiple examples on ethos, logos, and pathos. Logos which is the logical appeal, ethos are the ethical appeal, and pathos which is the emotional appeal to the reader. In chapter two, reasons are bullshit the author talks about the reasons people give are pointless. He also states that people should stop giving excuses. That any kind of excuse, besides being sick or a death in the family, should not be accepted. This book by Bernard Roth is intended for the audience of college students. I believe that chapter two is a very important chapter for college students. Most college students use excuses for a lot of things, even things that they don’t need …show more content…

In chapter two, reasons are bullshit., of the book The Achievement Habit, Roth states, " Sometimes people hide behind heart-wrenching reasons. It is important to understand that this doesn’t make them any more useful." In some ways that statement is true but in others it is very false. If someone has just lost a family member or friend, they might not want to go to school or work. They should not have to go to work or school if something major in their life just happened. But sometimes people can over-due an excuse. I understand some people take a longer time to recover from a death in the family or losing a friend. But if it's been years and they still are not going to school or work, they need to find a way to cope with what happened and get back to their life before everything happened. If someone is sick or just had a recent surgery, they might also miss school as well as work. But is someone had recovered and they were not going back to their normal life, then they would be over-using their …show more content…

Invariably, after a frantic hour of aggressive and dangerous driving, I would arrive with an apology, explaining that the highway was unusually congested. The board chairman always graciously assured me that the main thing was that I arrived safely. Still, I had held things up, and the other board members, who had arrived on time, were clearly not thrilled. Deep down I knew that the highway traffic was not the real issue."
The story that Roth told of his own experience is a good example of ethos. Roth had given an excuse to his colleagues that wasn’t true. If Roth would have left on time he would have made it to his meeting on time. Roth said excuses are bullshit., yet he used an excuse. Roth was not being fair to his colleagues when he showed up late and said the traffic was bad, even though the traffic was perfectly fine. He just didn’t leave at the time that he needed to leave to get to the meeting on time.
The definition of logos is an appeal to logic and is a way of persuading an audience by reason. Roth gives a good example on if there is something you really want to do but you keep giving excuses on why to put it

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