Ethos, Pathos, Logos, and the Ntsb

The NTSB’s use of rhetoric can provide us as rhetoricians, professional writers, and others with new insights into rhetoric as a persuasive tool. The NTSB relies wholly on its rhetoric to persuade those who have decision-making authority to follow its recommendations. In this paper, I will discuss how the NTSB provides new insights into the persuasiveness of documents from a bureaucratic organization. To provide a theoretical base for this argument, I will examine the NTSB’s rhetoric through the lens of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos. I will also show why the NTSB does not use one appeal exclusively to persuade its audience by comparing it with similar organizations. Organizations, including the NTSB in its early years fail to persuade their audiences because they either attempt to use one appeal exclusively, or ignore an appeal. The NTSB’s success in persuading its audience shows the importance of finding a balance between the three appeals.