Appeal to emotion

What does appealing to emotion means?

Appealing to emotion is essentially eliciting an emotional response in your

audience to what you have written. “Appeal to the Emotion’ is a good strategy
that good writers use.
Appealing to emotions versus being emotional

Emotional response is deliberate in

good writing.

When writers don’t pay close

attention to their language and
purpose, they elicit an unintentional
emotional response.
avoiding unintentional Consequences?

 Identify the emotion you want your listener or

reader to experience as they respond. E.g. fear,
admiration, guilt, relief, remorse etc.
 Identify how you will elicit this response. E.g.
through testimonials, research evidence, or
statistics; or using a scenario or illustration.
 Consider where in the body of the essay you
will make the emotional appeal. E.g. as an
attention grabber at the beginning, in the
middle to sustain interest, at the end to leave
an audience reflecting
Appeals to emotion and
use of language

While the argument is

supported by facts and
evidence involving the use of
figures, making appeals to
emotion opens the door for the
use of figurative language and
sensory details.
 Emotive words & Language Examples
Some words evoke a strong
emotional reaction in the
majority of readers or
listeners.
Adjectives – appalling,
wonderful, heavenly,
magical, tragic
Abstract Nouns – freedom,
pride, justice, love, terror
Verbs – destroyed,
vindicated, saved, betrayed,
adored
“I have a dream that one day on
the red hills of Georgia, sons of
former slaves and sons of former
slave-owners will be able to sit
down together at the table
of brotherhood. I have a dream
that one day even the state of
Mississippi, a state sweltering
with the heat of injustice, with
the heat of oppression, will be
trans­formed into an oasis of
freedom and justice.”
 Emotive words & Language Examples
• The phrase “I have a Dream” uses personal pronouns, inviting those listening to share in King’s
vision of a better world. This phrase is repeated emphatically throughout the speech.

• “Brotherhood” is an abstract noun - a word describing an idea or concept. King uses this emotive
phrase to appeal to the audience’s desire for the things that “brotherhood” denotes - acceptance,
equality and community.

• King also uses metaphorical language, describing the state of Mississippi as ‘sweltering’ with
injustice and describing the cool ‘oasis’ of freedom that it could be. Using sensory descriptions of
heat helps to illustrate the difficulty of the struggle for civil rights, as well as reminding his
audience what they are striving for. This section of the speech is intended to motivate civil rights
activists to keep protesting for their rights.
 Class activity
Sensory details
(touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight)
Use the picture stimulus representing the
five senses to create examples of emotive
language that appeals to those senses.

Writing Prompt
Imagine that you are designing a flyer
advertising ‘The Restaurant at the Waterfall.
Write five sentences and/or phrases
appealing to all senses. Remember to
identify the response you wish to elicit
before writing.