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Does Civility Pay?

Often, one doesn’t realize how crucial civility is to the success in life and particularly to the success of his or her career. Christine Porath and Alexandra Gerbasi, the authors of the article “Does Civility Pay?” provide results of their extensive studies that demonstrate the benefits of civility. The authors are Business School professors who have devoted more than two decades researching the effects of civility on one’s career. They have conducted an in-depth research to identify the benefits of civility and whether it is worth to be civil. The results of their extended studies show that those people who chose to be civil prove to be more prosperous. Porath and Gerbasi claim that civility empowers people, opens doors and opportunities for advancement and therefore brings success in their many areas of their life and their career. Authors’ goal in this article is to persuade those who strive to be successful that civility is the key ingredient. Moreover, they make recommendations on how people can improve and develop civility in order to reap its benefits. In this paper I will analyze how the two authors persuade their readers by skillfully using appeal to ethos, appeal to logos and appeal to pathos.

I would like to start by examining the strongest of the three forms of persuasion used in this article, the ethos. Ethos is the ability of a speaker or a writer to build trust and credibility in the eyes of the audience. Porath and Gerbasi were able to achieve it by making their readers aware of their expertise. They say that “over the last two decades we have studied the cost of incivility – and benefits of civility” (281). Thus, by indicating the amount of time they have dedicated to researching this area of interest they were able to demonstrate their commitment to making an in-depth research. This gives their audience the sense of genuine interest the authors have in the subject of their research. Furthermore, they say that “we polled tens of thousands of workers across industries around the world about how they’re treated on the job and the effects” (281). This information builds credibility and conveys to the readers that Porath and Gerbasi know the topic well. Therefore, based on those evidence the readers can trust the authors and their expertise. The authors, in turn, gain the ability to persuade their readers. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, thought that ethos is the most powerful of the three forms of persuasion and the authors of this article were able to clearly demonstrate the power of ethos.

Another form of persuasion used by authors of this article is logos or appeal to logic. Appeal to logos is a way to persuade the audience by supporting claims with factual data, statistics, and examples just to name a few of the ways. Porath and Gerbasi provide results of their own experiments and researches along with some real life examples in order to logically persuade their audience. For example, they say “in an experiment, we found that people were 59 percent more willing to share information, 72 percent more likely to seek advice and 57 percent more likely to seek information from civil person as compared to the uncivil behaving person” (282). This type of quantitative information allows the audience to understand the impact of civility and allows them to see the possibilities it brings to one’s life. Furthermore, the authors share more results of their experiment where the “Participants were 73 percent more likely to want to do well for this (civil) person and 1.22 times more likely to recommend him (for a job) compared with the uncivil person” (282). This experiment that Porath and Gerbasi performed, allows readers to make some logical conclusions that if they choose to be civil they gain the mentioned above benefits such respect and job opportunities.

And lastly, the authors have also used the pathos or appeal to emotions to persuade their readers. Throughout the article, they use vivid descriptions such as “incivility repels people” (282) which evoke negative emotions in readers and therefore allows them to get a sense of what incivility brings into their lives. On the other hand, when they describe civility they say “civility is unique” (281) and “civility draws people” (282) which gives readers a positive feeling. By allowing readers to emotionally experience the difference between civility and incivility authors persuade them to choose the first one. In addition, authors use real life examples that allow readers once again to understanding the difference between the two qualities. The first example describes Steve and exposes the hidden consequences of incivility. His story evokes fear of failure at work and therefore encourages readers to avoid it. The second example talks about Carrie and demonstrates how her actions and civility lead her to success. By including these examples, authors once again let readers to feel the difference between civility and incivility and to convince readers of the benefits of the first one.

In conclusion, the knowledge of how to use the persuasive appeals helped authors of this article to create a powerful and persuasive argument in how civility pays off. The first and most powerful appeal they used was ethos, based on their background, the researches and the studies they have personally conducted to earn credibility and trust of their audience. The second and also a strong one they used is logos. To appeal to the readers logic authors included the results of their experiments and researches. And finally, Porath and Gerbasi also used pathos to appeal to their readers’ emotions by vividly describing hidden qualities behind uncivility in contrast to the positive one that comes along with civility. The three appeals used by authors helped them to create a convincing article that persuades their readers to choose to be civil in order to be more successful.

Work Cited

Alexandra, Gerbsi. Christine, Porath “Does Civility Pay?” Science Direct. Elsevier Inc, 2015. 281-6. Print