Fallacies

Question 1

Pathos/ Emotional Appeals

Answer 1

use emotion to distract the audience from the facts and manipulate the audience into drawing unjustified conclusions

Question 2

Oversimplification

Answer 2

provides easy answers to complicated questions, often by appealing to emotions rather than logic

Question 3

Red Herrings

Answer 3

use misleading or unrelated evidence to support a conclusion

Question 4

Scare Tactics

Answer 4

try to frighten people into agreeing with the arguer by threatening them or predicting unrealistically dire consequences

Question 5

Ad Populum or Bandwagon Appeals

Answer 5

encourage an audience to agree with the writer because everyone else is doing so. “to the crowd”

Question 6

False Authority

Answer 6

asks audience to agree with the assertion of a writer based simply on his or her character or the authority of another person or institution who may not be fully qualified to offer that assertion

Question 7

Using Authority Instead of Evidence (or over reliance on authority)

Answer 7

occurs when someone offers personal authority as proof

Question 8

Failing to Accept the Burden of Proof

Answer 8

is the assertion of a claim without presenting a reasoned argument to support it

Question 9

Guilt by Association

Answer 9

calls someone’s character into question by examining the character of that person’s associates

Question 10

Ad Hominem/ Name Calling

Answer 10

arguments attack a person’s character rather than that person’s reasoning

Question 11

Hasty Generalization

Answer 11

draws general and premature conclusions from scanty evidence

Question 12

Faulty Causality

Answer 12

arguments confuse chronology with caution: one event can occur after another without being caused by it

Question 13

Stacked Evidence/ Slanting/ Card Stacking

Answer 13

represents only one side of the issue, thus distorting the issue

Question 14

Begging the Question

Answer 14

occurs when a writer simply restates the claim in a different way; such an argument is circular; trying to prove one idea with another idea that is too similar to the first idea

Question 15

Repetition

Answer 15

a technique that is used to drum the message into the target audience’s subconscious by repeating key words or phrases over and over until resistance to the message weakens, and the target audience eventually accepts it. This is propaganda technique that is used in the media and by advertisers who want to convince audience members to accept an idea, watch or play something, or buy a product