Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It has a role to play in every major, every paper, every conversation. Whether we want our story to be entertaining, our scientific study to be respectable, or our résumé to be eye-catching, we are always trying to persuade someone.

While rhetoric is very complex and can be broken up into many disciplines (rhetoric of medicine, rhetoric of nature, rhetoric of fiction, etc.), rhetoric is built on four foundational building blocks: logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos.

Greek for "word; discourse; reason," it refers to appeals to logic.

Greek for “character,” it refers to appeals to credibility.

Greek for “suffering; strong emotion,” it refers to appeals to emotion.

Greek for “right/critical moment,” it refers to appeals to exigency (contextual urgency).