The Rhetoric of Scamming:
Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in my Inbox-
Teaching the art of
selling snake oil
A work in progress by RalphWahlstrom
an absurd but relevant anecdote
“What did you do
in school today?”
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To: CEO/Owner
“With regards to your trustworthiness and reliability,
I decided to seek your assistance in transferring
some money out of South Africa into your country
for onward dispatch and investment.”
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John Worley, Ph.D. was
“a man of integrity and honesty,
dedicated to helping others.”
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By the end of 2003
John Worley, the “man of integrity and
honesty,” had lied to his wife, borrowed
thousands from a patient, cashed bad
checks, plotted to avoid taxes, lied about
having terminal cancer, posed as an
aviation contractor, and agreed to bribe
bank officials.
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“There is only one story
here, and that’s the story of
John Worley’s greed”
(Zuckoff, 8).
-Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case-
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Fee Transfer Fraud
or
the Nigerian 419 scam
Named after the anti-fraud section of the Nigerian criminal code
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What does this
have to do with us?
We and our students can learn
much about persuasion from
studying this phenomenon.
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Studying 419 scams helps us
 demonstrate basic principles of persuasion
 demonstrate the principles of effective
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



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advertising/propaganda
understand classical rhetorical appeals
encourage the development of critical thinking
skills
capture students’ imaginations and interest
arm students against such threats
provide writing topics
improve student writing
How gullible can people be?
 Foolish
 gullible
 Greedy
and
 perhaps even a little stupid
Right?
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What about this message
is persuasive?
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God bless you
My name is Marinette Caberas, i have decided to donate what i have to
the charitable organization through you, which is the sum of ($16,870)
sixteen million eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars. You may be
wondering why i chosen you. But someone has to be chosen. I was
diagnosed of cancer since 2 years ago, immediately after the death of my
husband, let me know urgently your acceptance to this fund into a good
investment for the benefit of street children, open orphanage homes,
schools, hospitals and helping widows contact me for more details to
claim this money and provide those below information to me when
replying.
1 your full name ……………………….
2 your nationality ………………………
3 your age ………………………………
4 your telephone number ………………
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Faithfully sister in Christ,
Mrs.Marinette Caberas
As a rule, a persuasive argument
has these characteristics:
 It must demonstrate an
understanding of its audience
 It must have an appearance of
credibility
 It must be timed appropriately
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Aristotle’s Appeals
Ethos
Pathos
logos
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ethos
From: Capt.Jeffery Simpsons [usmc@irg.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 7:55 PM
Subject: My Dear Friend (Treat As Urgent) Dear
Friend, Greetings.Jeffery Simpson is my name,an
American Soldier in the US Military serving in the
3rd Infantry Division,Patrols Tal Afar, in Iraq.
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pathos
“I am Lady Morrison, i was diagnosed for cancer about
4 years ago perhaps. I am willing the sum of 20 million
Great British Pounds to you for the good works of the
lord and to help the less privileged through You,”
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logos
When on Special Patrol duties on the 24Th of
April earlier this year we found $100m and 90m
euros in 31 containers and this money had been
hidden behind the false wall of a house
searched by my unit based on prior
information. You can go to this web link to read
about events that took place here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988
455.stm
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Let’s take another look at Mrs. Caberas’ missive through Master Aristotle’s eyes:
God bless you
My name is Marinette Caberas, i have decided to donate what i have to
the charitable organization through you, which is the sum of ($16,870)
sixteen million eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars. You may be
wondering why i chosen you. But someone has to be chosen. I was
diagnosed of cancer since 2 years ago, immediately after the death of my
husband, let me know urgently your acceptance to this fund into a good
investment for the benefit of street children, open orphanage homes,
schools, hospitals and helping widows contact me for more details to
claim this money and provide those below information to me when
replying.
1 your full name ……………………….
2 your nationality ………………………
3 your age ………………………………
4 your telephone number ………………
Faithfully sister in Christ,
Mrs.Marinette Caberas
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Now let’s look at the message from my
three characteristics:
1. It must demonstrate an understanding
of its audience
2. It must have an appearance of
credibility
3. It must be timed appropriately
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Not Enough
I felt there had to be more convincing reasons
for the apparent gullibility of normally
intelligent, relatively cautious people.
I discovered Robert Cialdini’s
6 Weapons of Influence.
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The Buttons
1) reciprocation
2) commitment and consistency
3) social proof
4) liking
5) authority
6) scarcity
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Notice how we can link Aristotle’s
rhetorical appeals to Cialdini’s
“weapons”.
1) Reciprocation (ethos & logos)
2) commitment and consistency (ethos)
3) social proof (ethos, logos)
4) liking (ethos, pathos)
5) Authority (ethos, logos)
6) Scarcity (pathos)
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Here are a couple
assignments I created for a
class of freshman in
BSC101. The focus of the
class was “Greed”
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Activity One:
Describe three examples showing how each of
these elements (logos, ethos, pathos) is used to
appeal to an audience. They could be
advertisements, television shows, political
speeches, photographs, etc. Be specific. Cite the
example and describe how one of the three
appeals is used. Then cite the next example, and
describe how it demonstrates a second appeal.
Then do the third.
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Activity Two
Read the following 419 email messages
and analyze them briefly in writing. How
do the writers use logos, ethos and pathos
to attempt to persuade a reader? How
effective would it be?
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The Rhetoric of Scamming:
Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in my Inbox-
Teaching the art of selling snake oil
And
The End