Ethos

Ethos can be defined as the character or disposition of a community, group, or person. Throughout my education, I have really only discussed ethos on a literary level, so it's interesting to look at it as a professional writer. After checking out a couple articles it seems that authors, just as anyone else, establishes their credibility by using examples, statistics, graphs, other outside sources, ect. However, I think a main way that many poeple have established their credibility and are able to use ethos comes in a way that they sometimes may not even recognize. I think that titles, jobs, or experiences that one has had in their past can boast what others think about someone's intelligence. For instance, you would probably take someone's word on a subject automatically if you came to find out that they had a degree in that field from Harvard, rather then someone who may have graduated from a smaller, less known college. Also, if you were looking to have a bridge built in your area and you begin asking different engineers how to go about it, you will probably take the word of the engineer who has built 10 bridges rather than the engineer who has built 1. Basically, as much as examples and statistics can help, I also think that alot of established ethos comes quietly through a person's previous (work)experience and education.