Before you click on and move on to another page or site, listen to what I have to say: When you are done writing this you have to copy/paste this page into an email and send it to ten of your friends within thirteen hours. If you do not I will find you (because I have spyware on this sight) and when I find you I will bludgeon you to death and bury you deep in the heart of the nearest forest to your home.
Do you see what I did just there right now? I scared you. Big time. I made you quiver in your boots or in your shoes. You are more likely to do what I want you to do because you are now afraid and your emotions are all riled up and what not. That is, in a bucket, PATHOS.
Pathos literally means, and I quote, "to appeal to your audience's fear" or "to appeal to your audience's happyness." In reality and truth, however ergo, any time you are using emotion to override your audience's otherwise rational minds, you are using pathos. And that is good.
Pathos can be the best way to persuade an audience to give you what you want because emotion is the most important way of getting rid of rationality and the high-up brain functions. LIke, think about if a mugger in an alleyway didn't use a knife or a gun or a bat or some other ominous thing, but instead gave a powerpoint presentation with lots of statistics and numbers on why he or she has been unfairly burdoned by hard-hitting economic times and thus ergo must resort to crime not of his or her own freewill, but because of the way things are. That ain't going to work. The audience would be all like, "Hey, that's a shame." and then they would move on. But if you scare the audience? Then the money is yours. CHICKCHING!